“It’s romantic, of course. Ultra-romantic for this century. But then he’s a Renaissance type. Denys l’Auxerrois—have you read Pater? And ... yes, it suits him. I believe you’re right. You have rather a wonderful instinct about matters concerning him, haven’t you? wonderfully simple and direct ... piercing through complexities to the crystalline heart. Now I, I—”
“Aure-ole! Aure-ole! the tide will be too high unless you hurry up. And there are two frozen corpses on your doorstep.” Thus Ethel Wynne, compassionating the shivering spectres of Fortescue and Mowbray.
Aureole, who just had settled into her favourite attitude for lengthy discussion of her peculiar temperament: prone on her back, hands clasped behind her head, scrambled now to her feet, rather annoyed at the interruption.
“It’s their own faults. The arrangement was for the men to bathe directly after breakfast. Come along!” she held out her hand to Letty, and they ran together down the beach.
Sir James and Lady Merridik drove up in a cab that evening, at the hour when the miscellaneous members of the household were gathered in the hall before dinner. A second cab, piled high with luggage, followed up the drive a moment later; Mr. and Mrs. Durward-Jones, their two children, dog, and governess, had weeks ago booked the very first-floor front double bedroom into which Mowbray and the cabman were now lugging Lady Merridik’s multitudinous boxes. Mrs. Durward-Jones meant to have that room; so did Lady Merridik. Lady Merridik was shrill and flippant; Mrs. Durward-Jones deep-toned and abusive. The stairway, congested by boxes, formed the main scene of battle. The clamour was deafening, aided by the performance of Fritz, the waiter, upon the gong, and the barks of the Durward-Jones dog. Finally, both ladies turned to Aureole, demanding what she intended to do in the matter. Glancing wildly about her for a means of escape, Aureole flung herself upon the chest of an apparition whose face was suddenly illumined by the lantern swinging in the porch.
—“Oh, please, please, Mr. Heron, take me away!”
Stuart took her to the theatre, immediately, and without paying the slightest heed to the raging debate. The next morning at breakfast, Lady Merridik appeared, blandly smiling. There was no sign of the Durward-Jones party.
“Always best to let these things adjust themselves by natural means,” remarked Stuart to Aureole.
“Natural means?”
“Survival of the fittest. Now look here, Mrs. Strachey, what about letting me treat the whole Menagerie in the same fashion; sling out all the harpies and adventurers, square the landlord—till how long have you rented the Farme? End of October?—and set detectives on Oliver’s track to bring him home to Chelsea to look after you.”