Mrs Gildea changed her tactics and voiced her other fear—a more insistent fear.
'Has it ever occurred to you that Lady Bridget O'Hara might fall in love with Colin McKeith?'
'Why, my dear, she's wildly in love with him already,' rejoined Lady Tallant, to Joan Gildea's surprise.
'You've seen it?'
'I'm not blind, and I know Biddy. But I've seen that she's taking this affair differently from the others, and that's what makes me think it has gone deeper. A very good thing for Biddy.'
'You can't mean that it would be a good thing for Biddy to marry Colin McKeith?'
Lady Tallant's social manner was rather full of affectations. Underneath it, however, lay commonsense and sympathy. She became suddenly simple and direct.
'Well, now, Mrs Gildea, let us look at the matter without prejudice. You are fond of Biddy and so am I, but we know her drawbacks. Naturally, it wouldn't be a good thing under ordinary conditions, but is she likely to do much better?'
'She has had plenty of chances.'
'And thrown them all away. And though she looks so young, she is close on thirty. Of course, with her looks and her fascination she ought to have married well. I'm sure her friends have tried hard enough for her. But what can you do with a girl who throws herself at the heads of ineligibles, and when one trots out an unexceptionable PARTI and does one's best to bring them together, goes off at a tangent and lets the whole thing drop through. You know how it was with....' Lady Tallant enumerted names.