Of this resistless, all-conquering sway, Mr. Blount was shortly to have proof and confirmation, had such been needed. Sooth to say, he felt more than slight misgivings; indeed, something near to what is called an accusing conscience, with respect to his marked attentions to and quasi-friendship for Laura Claremont on the occasion of his last visit to Hollywood Hall. He was then (it may be stated for the defence) in the somewhat perilous position of having been warned off, as he considered it, by the family at Marondah, and was thus unprovided with an attraction of counterbalancing interest. “Full many a heart is caught on the rebound,” and doubtless the sympathetic manner and intellectual superiority of Laura Claremont, combined with her personal endowments, constituted a strong case for the unattached, unprotected stranger. When he returned to Tasmania, bringing his bride with him radiant with the overflowing happiness of the recent honeymoon, would the sympathetic “friend” in whose society he had so openly delighted look coldly upon him? Would her friends and compatriots combine to denounce him as an unworthy trifler, who, after paying compromising attentions, not only “rode away,” but married a former flame, not even permitting a decent interval to elapse between his preference for the old love and desertion of the new?
Much troubled by these considerations he had even thought over an indirect way of breaking the news, in a non-committal way, to the young lady, and her (perhaps) justly incensed family and friends.
But qui s’excuse s’accuse recurred to his mind with painful promptitude. So, fortunately (as it turned out), he decided to trust to time and chance for extrication from the dilemma. For, as he was entering the hospitable portal of the Tasmanian Club, with a view to luncheon and the later news items, he was joined by Claude Clinton, who at once questioned him as to subscriptions for the forthcoming ball, given by the members and players of the polo club. “How many tickets shall I send you? They’re a guinea for men and half as much for ladies; and have you heard the last engagement? No? It was only given out this morning. Laura Claremont has made up her mind at last; Dick Dereker is the happy man!”
“Send me a dozen tickets,” said Mr. Blount, who felt like John Bunyan after his burden of sins had been removed. “They have my heartiest congratulations.”
“All right,” said the omnipotent Secretary for Home Affairs; “by the way, wasn’t the fair Laura rather a friend of yours? The Tenby girls thought you were making strong running at the Hollywood Ball.”
“Every man of sense and taste must admire Miss Claremont,” he replied with diplomatic gravity, masking, however, emotions of such intensity that he had some difficulty in preserving calmness. “I was no exception to the rule, that was all.”
“Perhaps it helped to bring Master Dick to the scratch—the affair has been going on for years; if so, you did her a service. Dick is a splendid fellow, but when a man has a whole island to pick from he feels inclined to dally with a decision. However, they are to be married at once—before the House meets—not to let the honeymoon interfere with his legislative duties.”
“I am delighted to hear it,” Mr. Blount affirmed, with such evident sincerity that Mr. Clinton departed to overtake his multifarious duties, with the conviction that he was a fine, large-hearted, generous personage, as well in the matter of ball subscriptions as in the more romantic passages of life’s mystery. The young lady referred to had not come down to the naval ball for reasons of her own, or otherwise, the Squire’s health requiring her attendance upon him at the Hall. Such, at any rate, was the explanation given by the family friends:—“Dear Laura was so attached to her father, and so self-denying and conscientious in the discharge of her duties.”
Some of the frivolous division, perhaps a trifle impatient of perpetual proclamation of “Aristides the Just,” hinted that there is such a device known to the female heart—inscrutable as are its myriad emotions and minor tendencies—as the encouragement of a fervent admirer, up to a certain point, for the stimulation of a laggard lover, the adorer No. 2 being known in the unstudied phrase as the “runner up.” However that may have been, Mr. Blount took care to communicate the momentous intelligence to his wife and sister-in-law immediately upon his arrival at home. Mrs. Blount, with natural curiosity, expressed a wish to see this wonderful Laura Claremont—whom everybody praised and indeed referred to as one of the few girls in the island worthy of Dick Dereker. “I suspect you flirted with her on that driving tour—and at the ball too—you lost your card, I remember. Now confess!”
“She is a very fine girl—dark, and stately-looking. Every one admires her, but as for comparing her, et cetera, the idea is preposterous.”