Sir John spluttered, and went out roaring for his horse.
CHAPTER X
YOUNG BLOOD
There is reason to believe that from the first Mr. Hadley suspected he was making a fool of himself. This sensation, the common accompaniment of an attempt to do your duty, was just of the right strength to ensure that all his actions should be disastrous. It was, as you see, not strong enough to restrain him from exciting the dull and choleric mind of Sir John Burford; it did not avail to direct the ensuing storm. And then, having first failed to be sufficient check, it developed into a very paralysis.
Startled by the furies he had roused in Alison, Mr. Hadley found that suspicion of his own folly develop into a gruesome conviction. It compelled him to labour with Sir John vehemently until that blundering knight consented to wait before exploding his alarms upon Lady Waverton. Even as the first blundering remonstrances had irritated Alison's wanton will into passionate resolution, so this ensuing vacillation and delay gave it opportunity.
If the tale had been told to Lady Waverton, no doubt but Harry would have been banished from Tetherdown that night. It is likely, indeed, that the ultimate fates of Alison and Harry would have been the same. But many antecedent adventures must have been different or superfluous.
Mr. Hadley was now full of common sense. Mr. Hadley sagely argued with his uncle that they would do more harm than good by carrying their tale to Lady Waverton. The woman was a fool in grain, and whatever she did would surely do it in the silliest way. Tell her a word, and she would swiftly give birth to a scandal which the world would not willingly let die, in which Mr. Harry Boyce, if he were indeed the knave of their hypothesis, might easily find a means to strengthen his grip of Alison. It was better to wait and (so Mr. Hadley with a sour smile) "see which way the cat jumped."
Perhaps Madame Alison, who was no kitten, might not be altogether infatuated. The shock of the afternoon, for all her heroics, might have waked in her some doubt of the charms of Mr. Boyce. The girl was shrewd enough. She had dealt with fortune-hunters before—remember the Scottish lord's son—and shown a humorous appreciation of the tribe. She was not a chit with the green sickness; she was neither so young nor so old that she must needs fall into the arms of any man who made eyes at her. After all, likely enough she was but amusing herself with Mr. Boyce. Not a very delicate business, but they were full-blooded folk, the Lambournes. Remember old Tom, her father: there was a jolly bluff rogue. Well, if miss was but having her fling, it would do no good to tease her.
Thus Mr. Hadley, cautiously recoiling, doubting or hoping he was making the best of things, brought Sir John, in spite of some boilings over, safe back to his home and his jovial daughter.
When Harry and his father rode away from Alison, for once in a while Harry found his father's mood in tune with his own. Colonel Boyce suddenly relapsed from hilarity into a perfect silence. He soon reined his horse to a walk, and his wonted alert, soldierly bearing suffered eclipse. He gave at the back, he was thoughtful, he was melancholy—a very comfortable companion.