"Who was the surgeon?" asked Gwynne.
"Ballast."
"Ballast? Who is he? Why not one of the big men, in heaven's name?" cried Mrs. Kaye.
"Well—they were all out of town—naturally enough at this time of year. We had to take what we could get. No doubt Lester or Masten was telegraphed for later. I—all of us—left the affair in Raglin's hands."
The company broke into general comment, and under cover of the confusion Isabel distinctly heard Gwynne demand:
"What's up your sleeve, Ormond?"
And the response: "For God's sake, old chap, don't ask!"
IX
Gwynne had never recognized the contingency of a serious rival in the affections of the woman he had elected to mate, and had he heard of the late Lord Brathland's attentions it would not have occurred to him that Mrs. Kaye could weigh a prospective dukedom against the reflected glories of his own career. He intended to be prime-minister before he was forty, and older and soberer heads shared his confidence. It was true that Mrs. Kaye was an emphatic Conservative—scorning even the compromise of Liberal-Unionism—and that so far he had been unable to convert her; but he did not take any woman's political convictions very seriously, knowing that they commonly owed their inspiration to social ambition, a desire for a career, or to marital comradeship. The latter he made no doubt would operate in his own case as soon as the lady gave him the opportunity to demand it as his right; and his sharp political discussions with her were among the spiciest of his experiences. She rarely expressed herself in every-day language; and although it had crossed his mind that epigrammatic matrimony might grow oppressive, he had reminded himself that her speech was but a part of a too cultivated individuality and would be unable to endure the strain of daily intercourse. Although he had in his composition little of the femininity that gives a certain type of man a sympathetic comprehension of women, his Celtic blood imparted a subtle understanding of their foibles of which he was but half aware. More than once this subconscious penetration had induced a speedy recovery from misplaced affections; but the toils of Julia Kaye, who piqued, allured, repelled, dazzled, now and again snubbed every one else for his sake, bound him helpless. He was grateful for his mother's abetment, although it somewhat surprised him; but his mother was the woman of whom he had the least comprehension.