Mrs. Linton was greatly amused--she certainly was surprised. The surprises were natural, but the amusement was not quite logical. It was, however, quite natural that her guests--two of them excepted--should be amused when they observed her surprise.
Could anything be funnier, one of these guests asked another in a whisper, than Mrs. Linton's chagrin on finding that her own particular Sir Lancelot had discovered an Elaine for himself?
Of course the guest who was so questioned agreed that nothing could possibly be funnier; and they both laughed in unison. If people cannot derive innocent fun from watching the disappointment of their hostess, in what direction may the elements of mirth be found?
It was agreed that Mrs. Linton had invited Herbert Courtland up the river for her own special entertainment--that she had expected him to punt her up the river highways and the backwater by-ways, while Phyllis Ayrton and the rest of her guests looked after themselves, or looked after Mrs. Linton's husband; but it appeared that Herbert Courtland had not been consulted on this subject, the result being that Mrs. Linton's arrangements had been thrown into confusion.
The consensus of opinion among the guests was to the effect that Mrs.
Linton's arrangements had been thrown very much awry indeed. But then the guests were amused, and as it is getting more and more difficult every year to amuse one's guests, especially those forming a house-party at a season when nothing lends itself to laughter, Mrs. Linton would have had every reason to congratulate herself upon the success of her party, had she been made aware of the innocent mirth which prevailed for some days among her guests.
She would possibly have been greatly diverted also at the overshrewdness of her guests, who were, of course, quite ignorant of the conversation regarding Phyllis Ayrton which had immediately preceded her invitation to Herbert to spend a few days on the river.
But though Ella had undoubtedly given Herbert to understand that she was anxious to have him at The Mooring while Phyllis was there, in order that he might have an opportunity of seeing more of her, and to obtain his agreement that her theory that the man who truly loves a woman should be ready to marry that woman's dearest friend, still it must be confessed that she was surprised to observe the course adopted by both Phyllis and Herbert. She had expected that all her tact and diplomacy would be required in order to bring the young people--with all the arrogance of the wife of twenty-six years of age she alluded to a girl of twenty-three and a man of thirty-two as the young people --together.
She had had visions of sitting in the stern of an out-rigger built for two, remonstrating with Herbert--he would of course be at the oars--for choosing to paddle her up the river while he allowed some of the other men to carry off Phyllis in, say, the Canadian canoe. A picture had come before her of the aggrieved expression upon the face of Herbert when she would insist on his going out by the side of Phyllis to feed the peacocks on the terraces in the twilight; and she had more than once seemed to hear his sigh of resignation as she, with a firmness which she would take pains to develop, pleaded a headache so that he and Phyllis might play a game of billiards together.
She soon found out that her imagination had not been prophetic.
Immediately after drinking tea--it was a few minutes past six--on the evening of the arrival of Herbert, she went out of doors to find him and give him a lecture on the need there was for him to refrain from waiting about the garden far from the other guests until she, Ella, could go on the river with him for a quiet drift before dinner; the other guests would certainly think him worse than rude, she was ready to explain. The explanation was not needed; she learned that Mr. Courtland had just taken Miss Ayrton out in one of the punts.
Of course she was pleased--after an hour by the side of her husband to perceive that Herbert had lost no time in making an effort to prove to her how amply he recognized her object in asking him to The Mooring.
But at the same time, if pleased, she was also surprised. At any rate, she would take good care that he did not lapse in his attentions to Phyllis; as she knew lovers are but too apt to lapse, especially when they begin well. She would, for instance, send him from her side in the garden after dinner, to walk with Phyllis up to the woods where a nightingale was said to be in the habit of singing when the lovely summer twilight had waned into the lovely summer night. With the nightingale's song in their ears, two ordinary young persons with no preconceived theories on the subject of love, have been known, she was well aware, to become lovers of the most aggressive type. Yes, she had great hopes of the nightingale.
So, apparently, had Herbert Courtland.
After dinner there was smoking in the garden, some feeding of the peacocks on the terraces, while the blackbirds uttered protests against such an absorption by foreign immigrants of the bread that was baked for native consumption. Then there was some talk of the nightingale. One man suggested that it was a nightingale attached to a music box which the enterprise of a local inn had hired for the summer months, sending a man to wind it up every night for the attraction of visitors. Then it was that Mr. Courtland said he knew a spot where a nightingale had been in the habit of singing long ago, when his explorations of the Thames River had preceded those of the Fly River.
He found three persons who expressed their willingness to accept his guidance on the spot, if it were not too far away. One of these was Phyllis, the other two were notorious lovers. Off they started without hats or caps.
This Ella heard when she returned to the garden, whence she had been called away for ten minutes to interview a man who had an electric launch for sale.
