“Oh, yes, I see what you mean. It was a great loss to you in one sense, but of course you couldn't have the same feeling about her as in the case of Mrs. Chance. She was, I understand, a toothless old hag, more than half-crazy—”
“Half-crazy! Toothless! Old! What do you mean, Mr. Eden? She is young and beautiful, and though I am nothing to her now I love her still with all my heart.”
He looked at her with the utmost surprise, and then burst into a laugh.
“Forgive me for laughing, Miss Affleck,” he said. “But I remember now it was Merton who described her to me as a made-up old lady who ought to be in an asylum. How stupid of me to believe anything that fellow ever says, even when he has no motive for being untruthful!”
Fan also laughed, she could not help laughing in spite of the intense indignation she felt against Mary's rejected suitor for libelling her in such an infamous manner.
“Do you know that it is beginning to rain?” he said, holding his umbrella over her head. “We must go in there and wait until it pauses.”
It was one o'clock, and the refreshment rooms had just opened. Fan was conducted into the glittering dining-saloon, and was persuaded to join her companion in a rather sumptuous luncheon, and to drink a glass of champagne.
Occasional showers prevented them leaving for some time, and it was nearly four o'clock when they finally left the Gardens, Fan again staring curiously round her.
“Mr. Eden,” she asked, pointing to a large, blue, cow-like creature, with goat's horns and a hump, “will you tell me what that animal is?”
“I am not sure quite that I can,” he replied with a slight laugh. “Its name is as outlandish as itself—gnu, or yak, or perhaps Jamrach.”