“John,” said Lady Blount, “has heard all this a thousand times,”--as indeed he had,--“and must be sick to death of it. He is not going out to Australia as governor-general.”
“Who said he was, my dear?” said Sir Oliver.
“If you did n't imply it, you were talking nonsense, Oliver,” Lady Blount retorted.
“Anyhow, Oliver, do you think John is taking a wise step?” Herold hastily interposed.
“I don't agree with you at all,” said Lady Blount, with a snap of finality.
“Your remark, my dear,” replied Sir Oliver, “does not impress me in the least. When did you ever agree with me?”
“Never, my dear Oliver,” said Lady Blount, with the facial smile of the secretly hostile fencer. “And I thank Heaven for it. I may not be a brilliant woman, but I am endowed with common sense.”
Sir Oliver looked at her for a moment, with lips parted, as if to speak; but finding nothing epigrammatic enough to say--and an epigram alone would have saved the situation--he planted a carefully cut cigar between the parted lips aforesaid, and deliberately struck a match.
“Your idea, John,” said Lady Blount, aware of victory, “is preposterous. What would Stella do without you?”
“Yes,” said Sir Oliver, after lighting his cigar; “Stella has to be considered before everything.”
Risca frowned on the unblushing turncoat. Stella! Stella! Everything was Stella. Here were three ordinary, sane, grown-up people seriously putting forward the proposition that he had no right to go and mend his own broken life in his own fashion because he happened to be the favored playmate of a little invalid girl!
On the one side was the driving force of Furies of a myriad hell-power, and on the other the disappointment of Stella Blount. It was ludicrous. Even Walter Herold, who had a sense of humour, did not see the grotesque incongruity. Risca frowned upon each in turn--upon three serene faces smilingly aware of the absurd. Was it worth while trying to convince them?
“Our dear friends are quite right, John,” said Herold. “What would become of Stella if you went away?”
“None of you seems to consider what would happen to me if I stayed,” said John, in the quiet tone of a man who is talking to charming but unreasonable children. “It will go to my heart to leave Stella, more than any of you can realize; but to Australia I go, and there's an end of it.”