Part 62 (1/2)
”Why, I believe you're quite sorry about this stupid smas.h.!.+” with a little callous laugh; ”sorry in spite of yourself, eh, Paddy?” She did not answer, feeling vaguely hurt, and he ran on: ”You're allowed to pity me, then, and to come and see me out of charity as the poor invalid!
Well, I don't know that there's anything in the world I hate more than charity, but I seem to be with the beggars every time now, and called upon to be thankful for anything I can get.”
”You know it is not charity,” she blurted out. ”It is unkind of you to say so. I hate to see you lying there, looking so ill. I--I--” She stopped short suddenly--pitfalls lay ahead that might engulf her.
”Let it be charity if it brings you nearer. I can't afford pride any longer. Charity should bring you close beside my couch of suffering, laying your hand on my fevered brow, and all that stuff. You are not a very good district visitor, Paddy.” There was a taunt in his voice, and he saw that he was hurting her more and more, and because in some way it gave him pleasure, he drove the barbs in. ”Don't look so resentful. Do you feel you've been trapped here under false pretences? Did Gwen tell you I was dying or something? How wicked of her! And now you find I've only a smashed-up arm, and all that beautiful Christian spirit of pity is like to be wasted on an unworthy object. Well, the arm hurts pretty badly, if that is any help to you. They give me morphia now and then, but I wouldn't have it to-day.”
But that was a little too much, and a flash of the old Paddy came back.
”You have no right to speak to me like this,” she declared hotly; ”it is ungenerous of you. I have done nothing to deserve it. Gwen told me that you were hurt, and that you wanted me; that was all.”
”And haven't I wanted you for weeks and months!... Yet you only ran away. Paddy, why did you run away from Omeath! It wasn't quite fair.
You made me behave like a brute; and to mother. I'm expiating it in my mind every hour, but, thank heaven, a mother like mine always understands. I wrote afterward and told her how it happened. I'd have gone across if I hadn't had this smash.” His voice changed suddenly, as with a quick, keen expression he leaned toward her and asked: ”Paddy, why did you run away?... Why do you treat me like this, _when you love me_?”
Again the tell-tale colour flooded her face, and she could not meet his eyes; but pulling herself together quickly, she answered in a voice that had borrowed some of the taunt from his: ”I thought you said it was just charity.”
He smiled as if the taunt pleased him. ”It is certainly about the same temperature just now. But there, I won't tease you any more. You were a dear thing to come. I'll get you a cozy, inviting chair if I can, then perhaps you'll stay.” He attempted to rise, but the effort brought on a sharp spasm that turned him faint, and Paddy sprang forward.
”Oh, you mustn't move, you mustn't move,” she cried. ”Why did you try to?... Can I get you anything...!”
His rigid lips broke into the ghost of a smile, and a great tenderness came into his eyes. ”Sit where I can see you, mavourneen; it is all the healing I need.”
Paddy pulled up a footstool, and sat beside him, and quietly began to run her fingers with a light touch up and down his uninjured arm. She had seen his mother do it, and knew he found it soothing. Thus for some time neither spoke, and gradually the drawn, blue look left his face.
At last, from gazing into the fire, she looked up suddenly into his face, and found he was watching her intently.
”Mavourneen,” he said very quietly, ”I suspected that you were beginning to care at Christmas. I know it now. What are you going to do about it?”
She hid her face against his hand, and did not reply.
”What is your own idea, anyway?” he asked, in a winsome, humorous voice.
”Oh, if you could only run away with me by force,” she murmured intensely. ”If only I needn't decide at all. I'm just a lump of obstinacy, and I don't want to climb down and meekly give in; don't you see how I hate that part of it? You could always say 'I told you so,'”
and she smiled a little.
”Bravo, Patricia! I like that spirit in you. Curse it all, a few hundred years ago, I'd just have brought along my men-at-arms and captured you. What good old days they must have been. And here we are hemmed in all round by barriers, and I haven't even got a couple of good arms to drag you onto my horse. But anyhow, the G.o.ds are evidently relenting, so I'll take heart and think out a plan.” He saw her glance at the clock.
”Must you go now? Are the beastly medicine bottles squirming on the shelf? Well, I won't keep you. It isn't good enough with a crocked-up arm. In fact, it isn't good at all; it's merely maddening. You see, I want to kiss you, Paddy, and I dare say if I asked very appealingly and pathetically, you would lean over and give me a sort of benevolent, motherly salute.” He gave a low laugh with a note of masterfulness in it. ”But I'll have none of it. To dream as I have dreamed, and then begin with a mild caress! _Never_. I forbid you to come near me again until I'm on my feet with, at any rate, one strong arm. Then I'll show you. I had always a weakness for the best.”
She stood up, a little non-plussed and uncertain, but he only smiled into her eyes with something of the old mocking light.
”Good-by, mavourneen, I'll let you know when you must come again. I've had enough healing for a little--and I'm sure the bottles are clamouring.”
”Good-by,” she answered, and went slowly out of the room.
But as she trundled back to Shepherd's Bush on a motor 'bus, she saw no greyness and shabbiness and desolation any more--saw nothing at all-- only knew that in her heart there was a sort of shy, fierce, bewildering gladness.
CHAPTER FORTY SIX.
THE SOLUTION.
A week pa.s.sed, and no message of any sort reached Paddy, so that, finally, in desperation she rang up Gwen on the telephone to ask for news. Gwen's voice sounded a little cold and constrained, and Paddy learned nothing beyond the fact that Lawrence was progressing very well.
Gwen said that she would tell him Paddy had inquired, but he was sleeping now.
Paddy hung up the receiver, feeling as if a weight had come down upon her. What did it mean? Evidently he had no message for her, and Gwen no longer dreamt of coming to fetch her. She went out for a walk, and found herself in a 'bus going toward Gwen's home. She walked down Grosvenor Place, and saw Gwen come out, looking very gay and lovely with her giant, and the two of them sped away together in a motor. So Lawrence was alone. Yet she could not go to him. The situation seemed impossible, almost absurd. Surely he had not suddenly ceased to want her! Yet not for the world would she cross the road and present herself unasked. So there was nothing for it but to go back to the bottles and prescriptions, and to the making of that endless trousseau for Eileen.