“On what, indeed!” cried the vivacious Irishwoman. “Don't try to pull the wool over the eyes of an old campaigner like me.”
Beatrice looked blank.
“I can't in the least think what you mean,” she said.
“Get along with you,” cried Mrs. O'Donovan Florence; and she brandished her sunshade threateningly. “On your engagement to Mr.—what's this his name is?—to be sure.”
She glanced indicatively down the lawn, in the direction of Peter's retreating tweeds.
Beatrice had looked blank. But now she looked—first, perhaps, for a tiny fraction of a second, startled—then gently, compassionately ironical.
“My poor Kate! Are you out of your senses?” she enquired, in accents of concern, nodding her head, with a feint of pensive pity.
“Not I,” returned Mrs. O'Donovan Florence, cheerfully confident. “But I 'm thinking I could lay my finger on a long-limbed young Englishman less than a mile from here, who very nearly is. Hasn't he asked you yet?”
“Es-to bete?” Beatrice murmured, pitifully nodding again.
“Ah, well, if he has n't, it's merely a question of time when he will,” said Mrs. O'Donovan Florence. “You've only to notice the famished gaze with which he devours you, to see his condition. But don't try to hoodwink me. Don't pretend that this is news to you.”