Chapter III

"Will you be able to come with me to London at the end of the week?" John said at tea that evening.

"She's not near herself yet," Uncle William exclaimed.

"No, indeed she's not. You'd best leave her here another month," Mrs. MacDermott added.

"You're forgetting, aren't you that she's been here more than three months already."

"Och, what's three months when you're young," Uncle William replied.

"A great deal," said John. "Will you be ready, do you think, Eleanor?"

Eleanor hesitated. "I don't know," she said. "I don't feel very well yet. Can't you stay on a while longer, John? You know you're tired and need a rest, and it'll do you a lot of good to stay on for a week or two!"

"I must get back. I've a living to earn for three of us now!"

"I shall be sorry to leave Ballyards," Eleanor replied.

"There's no need for either of you to leave it," Mrs. MacDermott exclaimed. "Your home's here and there's no necessity for you to go tramping the world among strangers!"

"We've settled all that, ma!" John retorted.

"You don't like that life on newspapers, do you, John?" Eleanor asked.

"No, but I have to live it until I can earn enough to keep us from my books. It's no use arguing, ma. My mind's made up on that subject. It was made up long ago!" Constraint fell upon them, and John, feeling that he must make conversation again, turned to his Uncle. "How's the shop doing?" he asked.

"Middling ... middling," Uncle William replied. "We're having a wee bit of opposition to fight against. One of these big firms has just opened a branch here. Pippin's! They're causing me a bit of anxiety, the way they're cutting prices down, but I think we'll hold our own with them. We always gave good value for the money, and some of these big shops only pretends to do that. But it's anxious work!"

"A MacDermott ought to be ready to fight for the good name of his family," said Mrs. MacDermott.

"Oh, I'm willing to fight all right," Uncle William answered.

"I know you are. I wasn't doubting you," Mrs. MacDermott assured him.

Their conversation became vague and disjointed. Several times John turned to Eleanor and tried to settle a date on which she should return to town, but on each occasion something interrupted them, and Eleanor showed no inclination to be definite. "There's no hurry for a day or two, is there?" she said at last, and then, pleading fatigue, she went to bed.

"I can't see what you want to go back to London for," Mrs. MacDermott said when Eleanor had gone. "The neither of you don't look well on that life, and you could write your books here just as well as you can there. Better, mebbe! Eleanor likes Ballyards. She doesn't care much for London."

Suspicion entered John's mind. "Have you been putting notions into her head?" he demanded.

"Notions! What notions?" she answered innocently.

"You know rightly what notions. Have you been trying to persuade her to stay here?"

"It's well you know, my son, I never try to persuade no one to do anything. I just let them find things out for themselves. It's the best way in the end."

"As long as you act up to that, you can do what you like," John said. "You may as well know, though, for good and all, that we're going back to London. I've a new book coming out soon!..."

"I wonder will you make as much out of it as you made out of your other book," Mrs. MacDermott said.