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?”
My cousin made a gesture seaward. “That!” he said. “She’s a mermaid.”
“What?”
“Out there.”
“Where?”
“There!”
Lady Poynting Mallow scanned the sea as if it were some curious new object. “It’s an amphibious outlook for the family,” she said after reflection. “But even then—if she doesn’t care for society and it makes Harry happy—and perhaps after they are tired of—rusticating——”
“I don’t think you fully realise that she is a mermaid,” said Melville; “and Chatteris, you know, breathes air.”
“That is a difficulty,” admitted Lady Poynting Mallow, and studied the sunlit offing for a space.
“I don’t see why it shouldn’t be managed for all that,” she considered after a pause.
“It can’t be,” said Melville with arid emphasis.
“She cares for him?”
“She’s come to fetch him.”
“If she wants him badly he might make terms. In these affairs it’s always one or other has to do the buying. She’d have to marry—anyhow.”
My cousin regarded her impenetrably satisfied face.
“He could have a yacht and a diving bell,” she suggested; “if she wanted him to visit her people.”
“They are pagan demigods, I believe, and live in some mythological way in the Mediterranean.”
“Dear Harry’s a pagan himself—so that doesn’t matter, and as for being mythological—all good families are. He could even wear a diving dress if one could be found to suit him.”
“I don’t think that anything of the sort is possible for a moment.”
“Simply because you’ve never been a woman in love,” said Lady Poynting Mallow with an air of vast experience.
She continued the conversation. “If it’s sea water she wants it would be quite easy to fit up a tank wherever they lived, and she could easily have a bath chair like a sitz bath on wheels.… Really, Mr. Milvain——”
“Melville.”
“Mr. Melville, I don’t see where your ‘impossible’ comes in.”
“Have you seen the lady?”
“Do you think I’ve been in Folkestone two days doing nothing?”
“You don’t mean you’ve called on her?”
“Dear, no! It’s Harry’s place to settle that. But I’ve seen her in her bath chair on the Leas, and I’m certain I’ve never seen any one who looked so worthy of dear Harry. Never!”
“Well, well,” said Melville. “Apart from any other considerations, you know, there’s Miss Glendower.”
“I’ve never regarded her as a suitable wife for Harry.”
“Possibly not. Still—she exists.”
“So many people do,” said Lady Poynting Mallow.
She evidently regarded that branch of the subject as dismissed.
They pursued their way in silence.
“What I wanted to ask you, Mr. Milvain——”
“Melville.”
“Mr. Melville, is just precisely where you come into this business?”
“I’m a friend of Miss Glendower.”
“Who wants him back.”
“Frankly—yes.”
“Isn’t she devoted to him?”
“I presume as she’s engaged——”
“She ought to be devoted to him—yes. Well, why can’t she see that she ought to release him for his own good?”
“She doesn’t see it’s for his good. Nor do I.”
“Simply an old-fashioned prejudice because the woman’s got a tail. Those old frumps at Wampach’s are quite of your opinion.”
Melville shrugged his shoulders.
“And so I suppose you’re going to bully and threaten on account of Miss Glendower.… You’ll do no good.”
“May I ask what you are going to do?”
“What a good aunt always does.”
“And that?”
“Let him do what he likes.”
“Suppose he wants to drown himself?”
“My dear Mr. Milvain, Harry isn’t a fool.”
“I’ve told you she’s a mermaid.”
“Ten times.”
A constrained silence fell between them.
It became apparent they were near the Folkestone Lift.
“You’ll do no good,” said Lady Poynting Mallow.
Melville’s escort concluded at the lift station. There the lady turned upon him.
“I’m greatly obliged to you for coming, Mr. Milvain,” she said; “and very glad to hear your views of this matter. It’s a peculiar business, but I hope we’re sensible people. You think over what I have said. As a friend of Harry’s. You are a friend of Harry’s?”
“We’ve known each other some years.”
“I feel sure you will come round to my point of view sooner or later. It is so obviously the best thing for him.”
“There’s Miss Glendower.”
“If Miss Glendower is a womanly woman, she will be ready to make any sacrifice for his good.”
And with that they parted.
In the course of another minute Melville found himself on the side of the road opposite the lift station, regarding the ascending car. The boldly trimmed bonnet, vivid, erect, assertive, went gliding upward, a perfect embodiment of sound common sense. His mind was lapsing once again into disorder; he was stunned, as it were, by the vigour of her ladyship’s view. Could any one not absolutely right be quite so clear and emphatic? And if so, what became of all that oppression of foreboding, that sinister promise of an escape, that whisper of “other dreams,” that had dominated his mind only a short half-hour before?
He turned his face back to Sandgate, his mind a theatre of warring doubts. Quite vividly he could see the Sea Lady as Lady Poynting Mallow saw her, as something pink and solid and smart and wealthy, and, indeed, quite abominably vulgar, and yet quite as vividly he recalled her as she had talked to him in the garden, her face full of shadows, her eyes of deep mystery, and the whisper that made all the world about him no more than a flimsy, thin curtain before vague and wonderful, and hitherto, quite unsuspected things.
V
Chatteris was leaning against the railings. He started violently at Melville’s hand upon his shoulder. They made awkward greetings.
“The fact is,” said Melville, “I—I have been asked to talk to you.”
“Don’t apologise,” said Chatteris. “I’m glad to have it out with some one.”