He had said in substance: "Here's a girl. You're in love with her. I'm not going to do a mean thing. I'm going to take you to my house and put you together, so that you may know more of each other. If she likes you better than me, you can have her. If she likes me better than you, you can't. I give you just the same chance as I have myself, and I expect you to play the game."
There was a splendid self-confidence in the proposition which made it not altogether a complimentary one, but there was also a fine open-heartedness, an absence of that essential malice of love, which made it less a proposition than a law of conduct with all sorts of clauses.
Generous in a love affair! Men may be generous in sharing money, in sharing fame, in sharing the chance of death, but in sharing the chance of love--ah! that's a very different thing. The most extreme Socialist has never dared to propound such a community of interests, and yet here was a simple Irish gentleman not propounding the idea, but putting it in practice, and as fine deeds are the fathers of fine thoughts, here was an ingenuous lover, in the form of Mr. Dashwood, determining to play the game and take no advantage of French.
To complete the matter, here was Miss Grimshaw, who had been apprised of the coming of Mr. Dashwood as a guest, by wire, completing the preparations for the reception of the two gentlemen, and with, in her heart, an equally kindly feeling for each.
Doolan had caught a large lobster the day before, "blown up on the strand," and this, coral-red and curled on a dish, flanked a round of cold spiced beef on the supper-table. A bright fire was burning in the grate; the light of the lamps shone, reflected by the ruby of port and claret in the decanters on the sideboard; the potatoes, boiled in their jackets, were being kept hot in the oven; and everything was in readiness for the expected travellers, who were late.
As Miss Grimshaw sat by the fire she could hear the faint boom of the sea. To know desolation and the blessing of a visit, you must live in the extreme west of Ireland, which, I take it, is the extreme outside edge of European civilisation; and after three days of rain, three days of reading the day-before-yesterday's _Freeman's Journal_, and "Mrs. Brown's 'Oliday Outings," Miss Grimshaw was in the frame of mind to receive a visitor, more especially when that visitor took the form of Bobby Dashwood.