Mrs. Van Voorst's state of mind was, however, so dominated by her former state of mind that she could understand nothing clearly. It had been so monstrous that everything had been left to Oliver Hunter's widow, she was ready to expect more injustice even when fortune's wheel seemed to be coming in her direction. Mr. Beekman took the paper up and laid it down again. He rose and walked to the window, came back to the mantel-piece, looked at the portraits, trying to detach himself from the confusion, while Miss Sabrina and Mrs. Vanderweyer were making heroic efforts to bring the matter to their mother's comprehension. All he could clearly make out were the old lady's ejaculations,—
"Interloper!"
"Did anybody ever hear of such good fortune coming to a girl?"
"But Ollie's affections are already engaged! Ollie could never think of disappointing dear Clara!"
Unable to endure further intrusion upon the family party, and with a hasty mutter, "I will return again in half an hour, when Mrs. Van Voorst may have become more composed," Mr. Beekman beat a retreat. If it were possible to wring any concession out of them with a reference to Ethel Fairlie, he knew that he must act with great discretion. He must appeal to their sense of justice and kind feeling. This was no moment to dictate. The lawyer had listened in surprise to the suggestion of Oliver's affections being already engaged. He hoped it might open up some loophole of escape.
While Mr. Beekman descended the steps and walked up and down the terraces of the garden the four Van Voorsts were trying to grapple with this new idea. Oliver was the only one who seemed to take the situation coolly. His momentary alarm and anxiety had indeed developed into a state of smiling benignity, which gave him a little the aspect of a Buddhist deity. His two aunts had given him many an anxious glance, but found their whole attention demanded by Mrs. Van Voorst, who, as she grasped one point after another, was becoming more and more excited.
"Heaven knows I never loved the woman," she went on. "She went her way, we kept ours. She hardly knew us, and she never saw our dear Ollie. If she had seen him, she would never have thought of letting that interloper come in. All would have come to him."
"Well, thank Heaven!" said Miss Sabrina, "Oliver can afford to be disinterested."
"Disinterested?" exclaimed Mrs. Van Voorst, with another little shriek. "Disinterested! with such a property at stake! I have been in that house. It is full of pictures, silver, furniture, bric-a-brac, all beautiful and ready and waiting. Disinterested? You know nothing about it."
