“And so fall in love with him?” she cried, starting up from her chair at the desk. “I see now all that he meant. He meant that I should be interested in him—I was, too, greatly interested in him—and that I should be attracted to him, and away from you. But all the time he had no intention of allowing himself to be attracted by me to the point of ever asking me to marry him. In short, he was amusing himself at my expense. Oh, I see it all now. I must confess that, now and again, I wondered what Mr. Airey meant by placing himself so frequently by my side. I felt flattered—I admit that I felt flattered. Can you imagine anything so cruel as the purpose that he set himself to accomplish?”
Her face had become pale. This only gave emphasis to the flashing of her eyes. She was in a passion of indignation.
“Edmund Airey and his tricks were defeated,” said Harold in a low voice. “Yes, we have got the better of him, Beatrice, so much is certain.”
“But the cruelty of it—the cruelty—oh, what does it matter now?” she cried. Then her paleness vanished into a delicate roseate flush, as she gave a laugh, and said, “After all, I believe that my indignation is due only to my wounded vanity. Yes, all girls are alike, Harold. Our vanity is our dominant quality.”
“It is not so with you, Beatrice,” he said. “I know you truly, my dear. I know that you would be as indignant if you heard of the same trickery being carried on in respect of another girl.”
“I would—I know I would,” she cried. “But what does it matter? As you say, I—we—have defeated this Mr. Airey, so that my vanity at least can find sweet consolation in reflecting that we have been cleverer than he was. I don’t suppose that he could imagine anyone existing cleverer than himself.”
“Yes, I think that we have got the better of him,” said Harold. He was a little surprised to find that she felt so strongly on the subject of Edmund’s attitude in regard to herself. He did not think it wise to tell her that that attitude was due to the timely suggestion of Helen. He could not bring himself to do so. He felt that his doing so would be to place himself on a level with the man who gives his wife during the first year of their married life, a circumstantial account of the many wealthy and beautiful young women who were anxious—to a point of distraction—to marry him.
He felt that there was no need for him to say anything about Helen—he almost wished that he had said nothing about Edmund.
“We got the better of him,” he said a second time. “Never mind Edmund Airey. You must go to Abbeylands and amuse yourself. You will most likely meet with Archie Brown there. Archie is the plainest looking and probably the richest man of his age in England. He is to be made the subject of an experiment at Abbeylands.”
“Is he to be vivisected?” said she. She was now neither pale nor roseate. She was herself once more.