"In the stable, sorr—wid the horses. He hasn't left them a minit since Monday afternoon, and he tould me to harness the mare and stick her in the car and come to the station."
"All right," said French. "Hop up, Dashwood. Here, get the luggage on board, Buck, and I'll hold the mare."
A couple of minutes later they were on the road to Drumgool under the light of a winter moon. It was the road along which Mr. Dashwood had driven that morning with Miss Grimshaw, when, after breakfast at the Station Inn, he had accompanied her to Drumgool House. Everything on the road recalled her in that poignant language used by inanimate things when they remind us of the people we love.
He had spoken no word about her to French since that conversation in the smoking-room of the Shelbourne Hotel, and French had spoken no word to him. French, having declared his half-formed intention to "ask" her himself, had apparently dismissed her from his mind. I doubt if ever a lover found himself in a more peculiar and difficult position than that which was beginning to surround Mr. Dashwood. French brought into this affair a mixture of card-room and commercial honesty that was very embarrassing to an ordinary rival.
He had said in substance: "Here's a girl. You're in love with her. I'm not going to do a mean thing. I'm going to take you to my house and put you together, so that you may know more of each other. If she likes you better than me, you can have her. If she likes me better than you, you can't. I give you just the same chance as I have myself, and I expect you to play the game."
There was a splendid self-confidence in the proposition which made it not altogether a complimentary one, but there was also a fine open-heartedness, an absence of that essential malice of love, which made it less a proposition than a law of conduct with all sorts of clauses.
Generous in a love affair! Men may be generous in sharing money, in sharing fame, in sharing the chance of death, but in sharing the chance of love—ah! that's a very different thing. The most extreme Socialist has never dared to propound such a community of interests, and yet here was a simple Irish gentleman not propounding the idea, but putting it in practice, and as fine deeds are the fathers of fine thoughts, here was an ingenuous lover, in the form of Mr. Dashwood, determining to play the game and take no advantage of French.
To complete the matter, here was Miss Grimshaw, who had been apprised of the coming of Mr. Dashwood as a guest, by wire, completing the preparations for the reception of the two gentlemen, and with, in her heart, an equally kindly feeling for each.
Doolan had caught a large lobster the day before, "blown up on the strand," and this, coral-red and curled on a dish, flanked a round of cold spiced beef on the supper-table. A bright fire was burning in the grate; the light of the lamps shone, reflected by the ruby of port and claret in the decanters on the sideboard; the potatoes, boiled in their jackets, were being kept hot in the oven; and everything was in readiness for the expected travellers, who were late.