Harold glanced across the room and perceived that, while the performer was tearing notes by the handful and flinging them about the place--up in the air, against the walls--while her hands were worrying the bass notes one moment like rival terrier puppies over a bone, and at other times tickling the treble rather too roughly to be good fun--Miss Craven’s companion had not abandoned the hope of making himself audible if not intelligible. He had clearly accepted the challenge thrown down by the performer.
Harold perceived that a man behind him had furtively unlatched one of the windows leading to the terrace, and was escaping by that means, and not alone. From outside came the hearty laughter of the judge telling an open-air story to his host. People looked anxiously toward the window. Harold shook his head as though suggesting that that sort of interruption must be put a stop to at once, and that he was the man to do it.
He went resolutely out through the window.
“‘Which was immediately suppressed by the officers of the court,’” said Edmund, in the ear of Lady Innisfail.
He spoke too soon. The judge’s laugh rolled along like the breaking of a tidal wave. It was plain that Harold had not gone to remonstrate with the judge.
He had not. He had merely strolled round the terrace to the entrance hall. Here he picked up one of the many caps which were hanging there, and putting it on his head, walked idly away from the castle, hearing only the floating eulogy uttered by the judge of a certain well-known jockey who was, he said, the kindliest and most honourable soul that had ever pulled the favourite.
A longing had come to him to hurry as far as he could from the Castle and its company--they were hateful to him just at that instant. The shocking performance of the woman at the pianoforte, the chatter of his fellow-guests, the delicate way in which his friend Edmund Airey made the most indelicate allusions, the _nisi prius_ jocularity of the judge--he turned away from all with a feeling of repulsion.
And yet Lord Innisfail’s cook was beyond reproach as an artist.
Harold Wynne had accepted the invitation of Lady Innisfail in cold blood. She had asked him to go to Castle Innisfail for a few weeks in August, adding, “Helen Craven has promised to be among our party. You like her, don’t you?”