“For heaven’s sake don’t let us begin a family broil under the windows of a house where we are guests,” said the son, rising quickly from the chair. “We are on the border of a genuine family bickering. For God’s sake let us stop in time.”
“I did not come here to bicker,” said the father. “Heavens above! Am I not entitled to some show of gratitude at least for having come more than a thousand miles—a hundred of them in an Irish train and ten of them on an Irish jolting car—simply to see that you are comfortably settled for life?”
“Yes,” said the son, “I suppose I should feel grateful to you for coming so far to tell me that you are ruined and that I am a partner in your ruin.” He had not seated himself, and now he turned his back upon his father and walked round to the west side of the Castle where some of the girls were strolling. They were waiting to see how the day would develop—if they should put on oilskins and sou’westers or gauzes and gossamer—the weather on the confines of the ocean knows only the extremes of winter or summer.
The furthest of the watchers were, he perceived, Edmund Airey and Miss Avon. He walked toward them, and pronounced in a somewhat irresponsible way an opinion upon the weather.
Before the topic had been adequately discussed, Mr. Durdan and another man came up to remind Mr. Airey that he had given them his word to be of their party in the fishing boat, where they were accustomed to study the Irish question for some hours daily.
Mr. Airey protested that his promise had been wholly a conditional one. It had not been made on the assumption that the lough should be moaning like a Wagnerian trombone, and it could not be denied that such notes were being produced by the great rollers beneath the influence of a westerly wind.
Harold gave a little shrug to suggest to Beatrice that the matter was not one that concerned her or himself in the least, and that it might be as well if Mr. Airey and his friends were left to discuss it by themselves.
The shrug scarcely suggested all that he meant it to suggest, but in the course of a minute he was by the side of the girl a dozen yards away from the three men.
“I wonder if you chanced to tell Mr. Airey of the queer way you and I met,” she said in a moment.
“How could I have told any human being of that incident?” he cried. “Why do you ask me such a question?”