BARGAINS, GREAT AND SMALL
Lord Ventnor was no fool. Whilst Iris was transforming herself from a semi-savage condition into a semblance of an ultra chic Parisienne—the Orient's dramatic costumier went in for strong stage effects in feminine attire—Sir Arthur Deane told the Earl something of the state of affairs on the island.
His lordship—a handsome, saturnine man, cool, insolently polite, and plentifully endowed with the judgmatical daring that is the necessary equipment of a society libertine—counseled patience, toleration, even silent recognition of Anstruther's undoubted claims for services rendered.
"She is an enthusiastic, high-spirited girl," he urged upon his surprised hearer, who expected a very different expression of opinion. "This fellow Anstruther is a plausible sort of rascal, a good man in a tight place too—just the sort of fire-eating blackguard who would fill the heroic bill where a fight is concerned. Damn him, he licked me twice."
Further amazement for the shipowner.
"Yes, it's quite true. I interfered with his little games, and he gave me the usual reward of the devil's apothecary. Leave Iris alone. At present she is strung up to an intense pitch of gratitude, having barely escaped a terrible fate. Let her come back to the normal. Anstruther's shady record must gradually leak out. That will disgust her. In a week she will appeal to you to buy him off. He is hard up—cut off by his people and that sort of thing. There you probably have the measure of his scheming. He knows quite well that he can never marry your daughter. It is all a matter of price."
Sir Arthur willingly allowed himself to be persuaded. At the back of his head there was an uneasy consciousness that it was not "all a matter of price." If it were he would never trust a man's face again. But Ventnor's well-balanced arguments swayed him. The course indicated was the only decent one. It was humanly impossible for a man to chide his daughter and flout her rescuer within an hour of finding them.
Lord Ventnor played his cards with a deeper design. He bowed to the inevitable. Iris said she loved his rival. Very well. To attempt to dissuade her was to throw her more closely into that rival's arms. The right course was to appear resigned, saddened, compelled against his will to reveal the distressing truth. Further, he counted on Anstruther's quick temper as an active agent. Such a man would be the first to rebel against an assumption of pitying tolerance. He would bring bitter charges of conspiracy, of unbelievable compact to secure his ruin. All this must recoil on his own head when the facts were laid bare. Not even the hero of the island could prevail against the terrible indictment of the court-martial. Finally, at Singapore, three days distant, Colonel Costobell and his wife were staying. Lord Ventnor, alone of those on board, knew this. Indeed, he accompanied Sir Arthur Deane largely in order to break off a somewhat trying entanglement. He smiled complacently as he thought of the effect on Iris of Mrs. Costobell's indignant remonstrances when the baronet asked that injured lady to tell the girl all that had happened at Hong Kong.
In a word, Lord Ventnor was most profoundly annoyed, and he cursed Anstruther from the depths of his heart. But he could see a way out. The more desperate the emergency the more need to display finesse. Above all, he must avoid an immediate rupture.
He came ashore with Iris and her father; the captain of the Orient also joined the party. The three men watched Robert and the girl walking towards them from the group of officers.