De Châteaunéant, swaggering up the hall before dinner, had seen Sir Comeguys. He seemed to recognise and desire to avoid him, and had kept out of the way carefully. Miss Arabella was therefore solitary, as old Bud adhered to his wife, which, perhaps, accounted for the fact that she was not blossoming so luxuriantly as usual.
“Miss Arabella is not a bad girl,” remarked Peter Skerrett to Waddy at dinner. “The mother—such a mother!—is ruining her, as she has already spoiled poor Tim. I abhor that woman.” Peter was usually very cool and non-committal, but he grew quite excited at this moment. “Look now at her étalage,” he continued, referring to her low-neck. “What fun it is—a watering-place! I’m so romantic that I have to come here every year for a week to be taken down. I should positively be falling in love with women if I didn’t see them here occasionally.”
“Why not stay away and be romantic near cottages rose-embowered?” suggested Waddy. “The damsels who trim the roses are fresh as they are pure—what these others are doesn’t in the least matter.”
“Gammon! Pardon me,” said Peter quickly. “That observation was addressed to the waiter—ham, I meant. Can a man like myself seek his love among hollyhocks and marigolds? Really, whatever I may say, I’m not quite spoony enough for female society, except when the band is playing melting strains of passionate despair from some Italian opera, and I am far enough distant therefrom not to observe false notes and brassiness.”
“You seem to be sentimental now,” said Waddy, smiling. “Who is it? Can it be Miss Arabella? I am interested there, too, in a godfatherly way. I will help you to lynch hot nubbless, as Mr. Budlong calls him. What do you say?”
“No, thanks,” said Peter, his cheeks somewhat unnaturally bright. “He’ll take himself off when he’s won all he can from Tim and the other boys, unless he can marry some of the girls—and then, as Squire Western says, one would hate like the deuce to be hanged for such a rascal. I don’t believe Miss Arabella would allow him so much about her, if it were not for her step-mother. I think the infernal blackleg has the mother in his power and she intends to sacrifice the daughter to save herself!” and Peter took a draught of ice-water, against his better judgment, for he was growing quite unnaturally heated.
“Peter! Peter!” protested Waddy, “I’d be afraid your imagination had become perverted by dealing so much with the protective scandals—but I’d come nearly to the same conclusion myself. I saw too much on board the steamer. I said all I could to old Bud.”
It was on account of this conversation that Mr. Waddy, seeing Miss Arabella alone after dinner, joined her and chatted a while. Mr. Waddy, though he allows himself to swear in several distant languages, and is altogether perfectly independent in his conduct, will, I hope, already have shown himself a man of refinement in feeling and manner. Women have tact enough to adapt themselves to such men and often humbug them for a time. Miss De Flournoy’s altered manner, as she promenaded with Ira, was not humbug, but the unconscious effect of gentlemanly influence.
Long absence from Society, so called, had given Mr. Waddy a large appetite to taste whatever it might have to offer of nutriment or tidbit. He was not a gourmand for scandals, nor a gourmet for gossip. Food is food. Yet grub may not be ambrosia, and, certes, nectar is not swipes. On the whole, he remained a-hungered. Ecstasy he was not expecting; he had outgrown such hope by fifteen years. Amusement he found. He had banquets sometimes and sometimes feasts infestive; people dined him for various reasons; he was made rather a lion. Peter Skerrett was inexhaustibly amusing. Under his auspices, Mr. Waddy and his friends came judiciously to know all the delectable people and all the desirables not so delectable. When the autocratic gentlemen at the Nilvedere Hotel expended fifteen dollars in pink buckram for decorations and gave a ball, Ira was invited, of course. When soon after Mr. Belden’s arrival, that gentleman, after an unusually successful subscription night, persuaded Mrs. Aquiline to matronise a picnic, Mr. Waddy and his friends were of the party. Mr. Belden gave out publicly that this picnic was for Diana. To Mrs. De Flournoy Budlong he whispered that it was in honour of their acquaintance and rapid intimacy.
Mr. Belden would hardly have been willing that Diana should know how great this intimacy had become. She was not likely to hear the scandals of the Millard; and it is not to be denied that the intimacy soon became one of the most delectable of the said scandals. Julia Wilkes and Milly Center talked it over and knew quite too much about it. Mrs. Aquiline remembered that she was née Retroussée, and with a subdued delight kept the rector of St. Gingulphus fully informed. Rev. Theo. Logge, who was by this time well into the Lee Scuppernong, smacked his lips over the flirtation and hoped to Mrs. Grognon that there was nothing wrong.