Part 20 (1/2)

”In about three weeks.”

She gulped down an exclamation.

”For long?”

”What a list of questions!” with light sarcasm; ”it feels like an examination paper.”

But Paddy would not be put off. She fidgeted restlessly with a letter weight, and then asked again:

”Are you going for long?”

”I haven't the least idea.”

”And this--er--Miss Gwendoline Grant-Carew,” with a slight curl of her lips, ”you are engaged to her, or--going to be?”

”Can't a man have a chum's photograph on his table without being engaged to her?”

”I don't know. I am not a man.”

There was a long pause, then she added: ”I don't know much about men, either, but I believe a good many of them think it very amusing and entertaining to make love to three or four girls at once, and not care a snap of their fingers for any one of them. It may be amusing, but to my thinking, it is the trick of a scoundrel. I'd hate such a man,” and she tossed her head and drew up her slight form, with a defiance that was almost a challenge.

Lawrence paled slightly, but he watched her with his keen eyes in a way that bespoke a sudden and unusual interest.

He tried, however, to counteract the sense of strain in the situation, by chaffing her.

”I believe your real name is Patricia,” he said, ”but this is the first time I have seen you look the part. I shall have to start calling you 'Patricia the Great.'”

She flashed a glance of scorn at him.

”'Patricia,' to me, means loyalty,” she said, with significance. ”You may call me what you like, but whether it is Paddy or Patricia, 'loyalty' is my watchword.”

He felt almost as if she had struck him. As if a glove, flung pa.s.sionately down, should lie on the floor between them. He got up from his chair, and half turned away, at a momentary loss for words.

”I hear the band,” she said, and moved toward the door.

And it was noticeable this time that Lawrence had not heard it, and instead of leading he followed. Moreover, there was something about Paddy's manner that forebade him offering his arm, and at the ball-room door she turned her back on him without a word, and commenced chattering to her next partner.

It would be difficult to describe the feelings of the different occupants of the omnibus which took the party from the Vicarage and the Ghan House home again that night, but undoubtedly the elder folks were now the gayest.

The General was very lively, doubtless because he had got through the evening without the dreaded mishap to his clothes, and was at the same time relieved from the weight of anxiety they occasioned.

Miss Jane had enjoyed herself immensely, and was lively also, and even little Miss Mary was aroused to an unusual gaiety for her. Mrs Adair saw the subdued light of happiness glowing in Eileen's eyes, and anxiety gave place to hopefulness.

But for Paddy and Jack, there was only increased dread, though they both strove bravely to continue to hide it beneath an a.s.sumed merriment.

Paddy saw, as her mother, the light in Eileen's eyes, and something seemed to grow cold within her, and she bit her teeth together, murmuring savagely, ”I'll kill him, if he's been trifling with her.”

Jack saw it, too, and his hopes grew weak, for he believed he was already worsted; and he saw, with an inward yearning, the vision of all the happy, careless, sunny days at Omeath pa.s.sing slowly and surely away. ”What should he do?” he asked, ”and where should he go?”

His two devoted aunts noticed there was something wrong later on, before separating for the night, and in Miss Jane's bedroom, they asked each other anxiously.