After this interview it was right and proper that Melville should have
gone at once to Chatteris, but the course of events in the world does
occasionally display a lamentable disregard for what is right and
proper. Points of view were destined to crowd upon him that day--for the
most part entirely unsympathetic points of view. He found Mrs. Bunting
in the company of a boldly trimmed bonnet in the hall, waiting, it
became clear, to intercept him.
As he descended, in a state of extreme preoccupation, the boldly trimmed
bonnet revealed beneath it a white-faced, resolute person in a duster
and sensible boots. This stranger, Mrs. Bunting made apparent, was Lady
Poynting Mallow, one of the more representative of the Chatteris aunts.
Her ladyship made a few enquiries about Adeline with an eye that took
Melville's measure, and then, after agreeing to a number of the
suggestions Mrs. Bunting had to advance, proposed that he should escort
her back to her hotel. He was much too exercised with Adeline to discuss
the proposal. "I walk," she said. "And we go along the lower road."
He found himself walking.
She remarked, as the Bunting door closed behind them, that it was always
a comfort to have to do with a man; and there was a silence for a space.
I don't think at that time Melville completely grasped the fact that he
had a companion. But presently his meditations were disturbed by her
voice. He started.
"I beg your pardon," he said.
"That Bunting woman is a fool," repeated Lady Poynting Mallow.
There was a slight interval for consideration.
"She's an old friend of mine," said Melville.
"Quite possibly," said Lady Poynting Mallow.
The position seemed a little awkward to Melville for a moment. He
flicked a fragment of orange peel into the road. "I want to get to the
bottom of all this," said Lady Poynting Mallow. "Who _is_ this other
woman?"
"What other woman?"
"_Tertium quid_," said Lady Poynting Mallow, with a luminous
incorrectness.
"Mermaid, I gather," said Melville.
"What's the objection to her?"
"Tail."
"Fin and all?"
"Complete."
"You're sure of it?"
"Certain."
"How do you know?"
"I'm certain," repeated Melville with a quite unusual testiness.
The lady reflected.
"Well, there are worse things in the world than a fishy tail," she said
at last.
Melville saw no necessity for a reply. "H'm," said Lady Poynting Mallow,
apparently by way of comment on his silence, and for a space they went
on.
"That Glendower girl is a fool too," she added after a pause.
My cousin opened his mouth and shut it again. How can one answer when
ladies talk in this way? But if he did not answer, at any rate his
preoccupation was gone. He was now acutely aware of the determined
person at his side.
"She has means?" she asked abruptly.
"Miss Glendower?"
"No. I know all about her. The other?"
"The mermaid?"
"Yes, the mermaid. Why not?"
"Oh, _she_--Very considerable means. Galleons. Phoenician treasure
ships, wrecked frigates, submarine reefs----"
"Well, that's all right. And now will you tell me, Mr. Melville, why
shouldn't Harry have her? What if she is a mermaid? It's no worse than
an American silver mine, and not nearly so raw and ill-bred."
"In the first place there's his engagement----"
"Oh, _that_!"
"And in the next there's the Sea Lady."
"But I thought she----"
"She's a mermaid."
"It's no objection. So far as I can see, she'd make an excellent wife
for him. And, as a matter of fact, down here she'd be able to help him
in just the right way. The member here--he'll be fighting--this Sassoon
man--makes a lot of capital out of deep-sea cables. Couldn't be better.
Harry could dish him easily. That's all right. Why shouldn't he have
her?"
She stuck her hands deeply into the pockets of her dust-coat, and a
china-blue eye regarded Melville from under the brim of the boldly
trimmed bonnet.
"You understand clearly she is a properly constituted mermaid with a
real physical tail?"
"Well?" said Lady Poynting Mallow.
"Apart from any question of Miss Glendower----"
"That's understood."
"I think that such a marriage would be impossible."
"Why?"
My cousin played round the question. "She's an immortal, for example,
with a past."
"Simply makes her more interesting."
Melville tried to enter into her point of view. "You think," he said,
"she would go to London for him, and marry at St. George's, Hanover
Square, and pay for a mansion in Park Lane and visit just anywhere he
liked?"
"That's precisely what she would do. Just now, with a Court that is
waking up----"
"It's precisely what she won't do," said Melville.
"But any woman would do it who had the chance."
"She's a mermaid."
"She's a fool," said Lady Poynting Mallow.
"She doesn't even mean to marry him; it doesn't enter into her code."
"The hussy! What does she mean?"