"I should think it does seem a different place," Miss Foster remarked grimly; "that horrible harp makes my drawing-room look like the deck of a penny steamer. It can't stay here, that's certain. However, I'll have tea now--I need it. Whenever Mr. Bevan comes in, Ford, ask him to be good enough to speak to me at once."
Miss Foster sat in her accustomed chair and made tea. The tea was good and refreshing, but although she had purposely turned her back to the obnoxious musical instruments she felt uncomfortably conscious of their presence. There they were like a draught blowing down her back. A harp, too! In Miss Foster's mind harps were associated mainly with mendicity and the bars of public-houses. Not that she had the smallest personal knowledge of such objectionable places; but she was certain that the horrid people who frequented them played and listened to the harp. It was probably their favourite instrument, and it was more likely that during their disreputable orgies they even danced to its throbbing strains.
Miss Foster, who had never been out of her own country, was one of those persons who inevitably associate Scotland with plaids and porridge, and Ireland with pigs and shillelaghs.
"An unsatisfactory, ungrateful, untrustworthy race, the Irish," she reflected; "and if the sister is half as troublesome as the brother--and being a girl she is certain to be ten times more so; I detest girls--the prospect is far from pleasing. What I cannot understand is the underhand behaviour of Mr. Bevan. This girl can't have dropped from the clouds, and I consider it most ungentlemanly of him not to have given me some warning. He might at least have written to tell me of her arrival, and I would have come back yesterday. However, I don't fancy her visit will be a very long one now that I have come back."
She took a vigorous bite out of her piece of bread and butter, and stirred her tea with a determination that boded ill for the interloper. Yet, resolute woman as she was, she still smelt the violets and was aware of the grand piano in the background.
She had just finished her second cup of tea when Tony came in.
"Ah, Miss Foster, it's nice to see you back again. I hope the wedding went off well--you had a lovely day. I'm just in time to beg for a cup of tea. I suppose Ford has told you of the addition to our party; I didn't write, as you were away for such a brief holiday; it seemed too bad to bother you."
Somehow Miss Foster found it impossible to say all the bitter things to Tony that she had been preparing. He was so friendly, so kind, so interested in all her doings. Besides, he explained at once how Lallie's sudden appearance had been as great a surprise to him as to Miss Foster, and she was fain to believe him; but none the less did she determine that the said visit should be brief as unexpected.
Tony took it for granted she would do her best for the girl. So she would. It would certainly be best for the girl and for B. House that the girl's visit should not be unduly prolonged. When Tony left the drawing-room that afternoon Miss Foster was more than ever persuaded that he badly needed some one to stand between him and those who took advantage of his good nature, and she there and then valiantly resolved that, so far as in her lay, she would act as that buffer. She was still glowing at the prospect of the friction such fortitude on her part would assuredly entail when Tony came back into the room. He might almost be said to have crept back, so shamefaced was his appearance.
"I fear that I have left some of my belongings in here," he mumbled apologetically. "I must have put them down when I came in to speak to Lallie, after lunch--and forgotten them."