‘I don’t know,’ said Ralph. ‘I’m capable of strange things. Tell me a little about Mr Goodwood. What’s he like?’
‘He’s just the opposite of you. He’s at the head of a cotton-factory; a very fine one.’
‘Has he pleasant manners?’ asked Ralph.
‘Splendid manners—in the American style.’
‘Would he be an agreeable member of our little circle?’
‘I don’t think he’d care much about our little circle. He’d concentrate on Isabel.’
‘And how would my cousin like that?’
‘Very possibly not at all. But it will be good for her. It will call back her thoughts.’
‘Call them back—from where?’
‘From foreign parts and other unnatural places. Three months ago she gave Mr Goodwood every reason to suppose he was acceptable to her, and it’s not worthy of Isabel to go back on a real friend simply because she has changed the scene. I’ve changed the scene too, and the effect of it has been to make me care more for my old associations than ever. It’s my belief that the sooner Isabel changes it back again the better. I know her well enough to know that she would never be truly happy over here, and I wish her to form some strong American tie that will act as a preservative.’
‘Aren’t you perhaps a little too much in a hurry?’ Ralph enquired. ‘Don’t you think you ought to give her more of a chance in poor old England?’
‘A chance to ruin her bright young life? One’s never too much in a hurry to save a precious human creature from drowning.’
‘As I understand it then,’ said Ralph, ‘you wish me to push Mr Goodwood overboard after her. Do you know,’ he added, ‘that I’ve never heard her mention his name?’
Henrietta gave a brilliant smile. ‘I’m delighted to hear that; it proves how much she thinks of him.’
Ralph appeared to allow that there was a good deal in this, and he surrendered to thought while his companion watched him askance. ‘If I should invite Mr Goodwood,’ he finally said, ‘it would be to quarrel with him.’
‘Don’t do that; he’d prove the better man.’
‘You certainly are doing your best to make me hate him! I really don’t think I can ask him. I should be afraid of being rude to him.’
‘It’s just as you please,’ Henrietta returned. ‘I had no idea you were in love with her yourself.’
‘Do you really believe that?’ the young man asked with lifted eyebrows.
‘That’s the most natural speech I’ve ever heard you make! Of course I believe it,’ Miss Stackpole ingeniously said.
‘Well,’ Ralph concluded, ‘to prove to you that you’re wrong I’ll invite him. It must be of course as a friend of yours.’