Part 52 (2/2)

Again Lawrence laughed.

”You're a stunner at repartee, Paddy. I never knew such a fighter in my life. First it was fists, then feet, and now it's tongue.”

”I am Irish,” with naive simplicity.

”So am I, but it doesn't make me want to lay every one out in about half-an-hour.”

”Of course not,” scornfully. ”You are the sort of Irishman who goes about the world getting your countrymen a bad name. You only s.h.i.+ne when you are doing what you ought not.”

”Another injustice to Ireland,” with mock pathos--adding: ”and when you shoot barbed arrows, and fiery glances broadcast, with a reckless indifference to inflicting hurt, you are s.h.i.+ning at doing what you ought--is that it?”

”Oh, don't be an idiot!” with impatience. ”You make an effort at being polite now, and talk sense.”

”But if being polite rests in suiting one's conversation to one's companion?” significantly.

”Then we won't be polite,” laughing in spite of herself. ”You can be natural and talk drivel, and I'll be warlike.” She glanced round the park with a sudden expression, half-longing, and half-humorous--”Heaven!

how I wish we could go ratting!” she said.

But before they parted they had one of their old tussles. Lawrence suddenly taxed her with looking pale and tired: ”Are you ill?” he asked.

”Is it that beastly dispensary?”

”I was never so well in my life before,” obstinately.

”I know better. You see, I've known you every single bit of your life, so I'm in a position to judge.”

”You have not,” with flat contradiction. She felt instinctively he was getting lover-like, and felt she must repress him at any cost.

”How have I not? I certainly knew you when you were a month old. I was offered the supreme privilege of carrying you round the garden, but you were so like a black-beetle I funked it.”

”There were the three years when you were abroad,” with a show of indifference.

”Ah, to be sure, I didn't know you then.” He smiled a little--that old whimsical smile. ”Had I done so there would probably have been no second trip abroad, and no deadly feud, and Mourne Lodge might have had a second Boadicea rampaging through its stately rooms as mistress.”

She quickened her steps. ”I must get my 'bus now, or I shall be late.

It is no use attempting to attract the attention of Gwen and her giant.”

”You bring me down to earth with such thuds,” with a plaintive air. ”I dream of stately halls, and modern heroines gracing ancient shrines, and you annihilate both the vision and the poetry in one merciless blow, metaphorically flinging a Shepherd's Bush 'bus at my head. As it is quite out of the question for me to inflict myself upon the lovers, I must take you home in a taxi.”

”I am going in a 'bus,” willfully. ”If you want a cab drive, go to your club,” and she turned her steps resolutely toward the road.

”I see you mean to be unmanageable--but I can wait--my time will come.

If I see you getting pale and ill-looking, it will come sooner than you think.”

”I don't think at all. I haven't time--at least not to think of you.

My bottles and prescriptions interest me far more.”

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