Chapter III: Part 3

"You see, Sheila Pat was in the garden next door; and halfway through Aunt Kezia's lecture her head came bobbing up! That made matters hotter than before. O dear, she has got a lot of breath to waste!"

"Why," inquired Denis, judicially, "weren't you doing your lessons?"

"We were. Those were the interludes. And oh, Denis, we've been locked into separate rooms all the afternoon till a little while ago! It was because we tried tobogganing down the stairs. We took a leaf out of the dining-room table. Aunt Kezia was out, so 'twas quite safe. It's not at all bad, only the leaf had silly little ridges, one at each end, that caught on the stairs in jerks, so we had to put it shiny side down. Molly kept getting stuck--wedged in between the balusters and the wall, and of course she did it just when we heard Aunt Kezia's key in the front door. It was such hard luck, because I'd tobogganed down once straight into Herr Schmidt (we hadn't dreamt he was at home), and he didn't mind a bit--"

"He gave such a hop that all the house shook," put in Sheila Pat, with deep enjoyment.

"Well, I banged right into his poor shins," said Nell, reflectively. "I've come to the conclusion that he's a dear old man, though he _is_ the lodger! And he sat down rather suddenly on the hall chair. We had to flee and leave the leaf wedged," she added sorrowfully. "We hoped in vain that Aunt Kezia would turn into the dining room or kitchen or somewhere, but she didn't. Not she! She smelt that leaf! And she stumbled over it, which made it worse. And when she came to lecture us her bonnet was all crooked. _Oh_, she was in a temper! Here's Sarah, and tea!"

"How," she asked pathetically, later on, "can I feel good and sorry when she's scolding us with _such_ a long nose? Her upper lip comes down and it drags her nose down with it. It's like a barometer--I can always tell how her temper is by the length of her nose!"

"You've tired the Atom out, anyway," teased Denis.

Sheila Pat was on his knee: her head had lain motionless against his shoulder for the last half hour. She sat up as if worked by a wire.

"I'm not tired, Denis O'Brien! A person has things to think about sometimes!"

"Hulloa, thought you were asleep!"

The Atom struggled to get off his knee, but he held her fast.

"Please let me go, Denis!"

"You're not angry with your one and only brother, Sheila Pat?"

"You shouldn't be sayin' rude things," she wavered. She adored Denis so deeply that she could never hold out long against him.

"It was all her fault to-day, anyway," declared Molly. "She just _wouldn't_ settle down to anything!"

"Couldn't," murmured Nell, with a glance at Sheila Pat's great eyes.

Denis suddenly began to laugh.

"It was awful sport this afternoon! Lancaster came to the bank. Old Tellbridge and Jackson were out, and we got fooling around. I was standing on a chair spouting that thing I made up--you know--

"'Now Micky Magee wi' his piggy so wee
Went courtin' the fair Molly Moore--'

"Remember? Well, I put a lot of expression and action into it--chaps were roaring, and as I finished, out from the manager's room burst that little chap--Mark Yovil! Wasn't it killing? He had heard it all! Owned he'd been listening. And he's quite struck!" He gave a shout of laughter. "He is, 'pon my word! He says my voice is made for reading aloud and reciting! I feel like a little saintly chorister or something. Lancaster and I have promised to go to his place next Tuesday. They're going to start on Henry V,' and I'm to be Hal himself! _Now_ what do you think of your twin, Nell?"

"That he's getting so puffed up that soon all that remains of him will be a farewell pop--oh--"

Along the passages her fleeing voice echoed, "I haven't any run--left in me--_oh_, Denis!"

*CHAPTER VII*

It was a damp close day. Nell felt stifled and cross, and was ashamed of the feeling. The deep depression that sometimes seized upon her held her now. The longing for her home gripped her in a sudden fresh access of misery. She sat on her bed and tortured herself by imagining strangers in all the rooms--about the grounds. As she always did, in these depressions, she lost sight of the fact that her home was let and not sold. She told herself they had not a home now. She said that they were outcasts, and would never set foot in Ireland again. She wondered keenly why they did not all die. Turned out of home and country; father and mother hundreds of miles away; poor and desolate, why did they continue to live? And laugh! She was quite sure just then that she would never laugh again.

She rose to make her bed. The depth of her depression had a physical effect, making the mere folding of her nightgown an act that required a strong effort. At Kilbrannan no weather had affected her beautiful young health and strength. She did not realise that the sudden and tremendous change in her way of living was bound to tell on her, more or less, at first.

She made her bed languidly. When Molly burst into the room she actually jumped.

"I'm growing nervey in my old age! If I believed in presentiments, I should think something horrid was going to happen. I feel presentimenty." Of course she did not believe in presentiments; she reminded herself so several times that morning. Just as, of course, she wasn't the least bit superstitious. She knew a great many of her country-people were, but not she! When she found herself inadvertently walking beneath a ladder, she laughed. "If I were superstitious, I should feel horrid that I had done that!" At luncheon Denis helped her to salt, with a mischievous grin as he did it.

"I shall bring you sorrow now, old girl!" he murmured, "unless," his eyes twinkling, "you throw some over your left shoulder, you know."

"It's likely I would!" said Nell.

She fell to thinking how funny it was that all on that one day she had a presentiment, first of all, that something bad was going to happen; then she walked beneath a ladder, and then Denis helped her to salt. If she were superstitious, how uneasy she would be! But she wasn't, so it didn't matter.

Miss Kezia picked up a letter that had come just then. Molly went a fiery red, glanced at Nell, then blurted out, jumping up and knocking her chair over, "Do let me fetch your spectacles, Aunt Kezia!"

Miss Kezia turned her head slowly and looked at her, with a good deal of offence.

"I never wear spectacles, Molly; I do not require them. Pray sit down."

"Oh!" gasped Molly, and sat down, covered with confusion.

"I do not know," pursued Miss Kezia, "if you intended to be impertinent. If so, it was very feeble."

The whole table except Molly and her aunt were too convulsed to offer the former any aid.

Molly sat and stared into her plate, the fiery red of face and neck refusing to die down. In books, she reflected miserably, the aunts always wore spectacles.

After luncheon, when Denis had gone back to the bank, Nell tried to go on with a painting she was doing of Mrs. Barclay's tabby cat.

"To think that I should have come to cats! To be so hard up for models that I have to seek refuge in a _cat_! Oh, what a great, stupid, moon face you've got, Tim! K.K., come here. You needn't be jealous, my dear. You're worth all the cats in the world."

Kate Kearney refused to budge. She sat in a corner, her back to the room. It was her way of showing dignified disapproval. Denis called it sulks. Poor K.K.--she had been called sternly to order when she teased the cat. No one seemed to object to the cat's swearing at her. Very well. It was an unjust world. She sat and presented the room with a beautiful black shiny back and long drooping ears.

For no obvious reason, except that it was a horrid day, somehow, and horrid things seemed to come naturally into one's mind, Nell fell to worrying over Denis and his ideas on the lottery question. He often teased her on the subject, declaring that though he had not gone in for any more just yet, he was working it all out in his mind, and would be a millionnaire some day, in spite of her.

"Oh, K.K., let's go out! Cats are too much for me! So are studies to-day."

A quiver tingled all along that sedate little black back.

Nell laughed. "Very well, we'll go without her, won't we, Sheila Pat? We'll go for a walk--a _walk_! Good-bye, Kate Kearney!"

It was too much for her dignity or her sulks. With a frenzied howl she hurled herself on them.

"Nell," Sheila Pat looked thoughtful, "don't you think it would be perlite to ask that little boy next door to come with us? But I won't walk beside him," she added hastily.

The breach had been healed between them, to a certain extent. Stewart had responded suitably to her letter that she was "sorry," but the Atom was still cautious; the Catechism and cricket question loomed always before her.

She planted herself between Nell and Molly, and walked along with a certain aloofness that kept him in his place. He laughed and talked with Nell, and the Atom listened. In her rigidly honest soul she confessed that he did not sound like a goody-goo, but there was always that question of the cricket and the Catechism.

He came in with them and had tea. Denis did not appear. Nell found herself making an effort to laugh and talk. It took her back, with a little shiver, to those bad last days at Kilbrannan. Stewart avoided the Atom's serious eyes shyly; he seemed much more at his ease with Nell and Molly.

When he was going, Sheila Pat went down with him into the hall. Nell went, too, and Molly. But Sheila Pat slipped out on to the doorstep, and accosted him in an earnest whisper. "Are you _sure_ you'd sooner learn your Catchykism than play cricket?"

"Yes," he said with an obstinate jerk to his small chin.

Sheila Pat followed the others back to the Stronghold in silence. Sarah came up presently with a slip of paper in her hand.

"For you, miss," she said to Nell. Nell opened it wonderingly.

"Don't know what time I'll be in, old girl. Haven't a moment to write. On the way to be a millionnaire. Tell you when I see you. Awful spree. Don't let on to anyone.

"Denis."

It was scrawled in pencil, evidently in a frantic hurry.

"What is it?" Molly inquired.

"Only a note from Denis--to say he'll be late." Nell spoke slowly. She twisted the paper in her hands with a feverishness, a restlessness oddly in contrast with her slow speech. She turned and went downstairs to the kitchen.

"Sarah, who brought that note just now?"

"A boy, miss."

"What sort of boy?"

"A urchin, miss, up to no good, I should say."

Nell wandered aimlessly to the dresser and played with a plate.

"Did he look disreputable, Sarah?"

"Awful, miss," delightedly revelling in her word-painting, "sort of boy the pleece 'ud be after, I should say."

"The police!" Nell gave a queer little jump. "Oh, Sarah, isn't it hot to-day?"

"You do look pale, miss; it's a nasty un'ealthy day, an unlucky day, my mother 'ud say."

"Unlucky! Oh, why, Sarah?"

"Well, you see, miss, it was on just such a warm, unseasoning (Nell supposed she meant unseasonable) day that father was run over and killed."

"Oh, don't, Sarah!" Nell hurried away into the hall. She stood a moment, hesitating. A latch-key fumbled in the lock of the door. She waited, knowing it was Herr Schmidt. Miss Kezia never fumbled. He came in with his heavy tread.

"Ach, Fraeulein, it is a bad day, eh?"

"Horrible!" she said.

He glanced at her and smiled.

"Poor Mr. Weather," he said, chuckling. "We are angry when he is colt, we are angry when he is warm."

"May I--may I come and talk to you a little, Herr Schmidt?"

"Oh, with such bleasure!" he beamed at her over his spectacles.

Nell went into his room and stood looking out into the dark street.

"I will light the lamp, Fraeulein. Zere, now you can see me. Will you blease to sit down?"

She sat down. "You--I suppose you know all about business and money, don't you, Herr Schmidt?" She had seized an ink pot that was on the table, and seemed to be clutching it meaninglessly.

He smiled widely.

"They call me a goot business head, Fraeulein."

"Do you have good weather in Germany, Herr Schmidt?"

He looked rather bewildered. The other question had seemed the opening of a conversation on business matters. He replied with conscientious length. Nell seemed to be listening absorbedly; she left hold of the ink pot. She was wondering if she had artfully put him sufficiently off the scent. Denis would never forgive her if she were to talk of his lottery to Herr Schmidt.

"I suppose," she remarked casually in a pause on his part for breath, "there are lotteries and things like that in Germany as well as here?"

Herr Schmidt had not finished about his climate. He blinked his eyes several times, then turned his mind to the new question. He started to give her a good deal of information on the subject. He spoke strongly, because he felt strongly about all forms of gambling. Nell had clutched hold of the ink pot again.

"And--and are there gambling places like that in England?" in a pause on his part.

"Ach, yes, Fraeulein. In the bapers constantly one reads of the bolice appearing at the scene and taking them all to brison."

"Oh!" Nell jerked the ink pot suddenly and a few drops spattered her hand. Herr Schmidt produced blotting paper, and wiped the spots off carefully.

"Thank you very much." She rose and went to the door. "Good-bye, Herr Schmidt."

"Goot-bye. You, berhaps," with a curious, wistful glance over his spectacles that made him look like a great baby, "would not care to eat a biece of cake?"

"Not now, thank you. I--another time if I may."

The evening wore on slowly. Nell twice put her ear to the little clock on the mantel-shelf, thinking it must have stopped.

Molly, fathoms deep in "Monsieur Beaucaire," was blind and deaf to everything else, but Sheila Pat eyed Nell shrewdly.

"Can't you be sittin' still at all, Nell O'Brien?" she demanded impatiently.

Nell started and grew red.

"I like walking up and down."

"Do you like pickin' up that jogglefry book and lookin' at it every time you pass the table?" The Atom's sarcastic little tongue was sharp.

But Nell squashed her with a guiltily unkind, "What's a jogglefry book?"

The Atom grew slowly scarlet. After a little while she fetched the dictionary, and wrestled with it indefatigably till bedtime. She hunted, her mouth set firmly, her brows frowning, all through the "J's". She went to bed unsatisfied. When Molly had been in bed a few minutes a little night-gowned figure crept into the room.

"Molly!"

Molly gave a yell of terror. "Oh, Sheila Pat, you did make me jump! What do you want?"

The Atom stood shivering beside her bed. "Molly, how--how'd you be savin' Jog--you know all about pennyshulars and capes and gulfs and things?"

"Geography, do you mean?"

"Yes. Jography. Is that right?"

"Yes," sleepily. "Go back to bed."

In the Stronghold Nell waited for Denis. It was nine o'clock. She went into a front room and looked out into the street. She wondered vaguely why everything sounded so clear and loud; why the scent of a sandal-wood box was so sharp. She did not know that every nerve was on the stretch, that she was strung up till every sense was painfully acute. As she stood at the window she heard a hubbub of men's voices; the noise of many feet. They passed into the distance, across the top of Henley Road. She saw them in her mind--men being taken to the police station. She turned suddenly and ran into her bedroom. Sheila Pat was asleep. She seized a hat and coat, flung off her shoes, put on others, and crept down the stairs. Miss Kezia was not at home, but in the hall, just going out, Herr Schmidt stood drawing on his gloves.

"I haf to take a book to a friend," he said, his eyes questioning her surprisedly, as his tongue was too polite to do.

"Yes?" she said vaguely. She went to the door.

"Is your brozzer outside waiting for you, Fraeulein?"

Up went Nell's head.

"No, Herr Schmidt."

He moved a step so that he blocked her way.

"He is coming down ze stairs?"

"No. I am going out alone. Please let me pass, Herr Schmidt!"

There was a little pause. Nell pulled restlessly at the throat of her coat.

"It is nine o'clock, Fraeulein. Young laties do not go out alone at that time."

"Let me pass!" her eyes blazed; she stamped her foot. "What business is it of yours? How dare you stop me!" she said haughtily.

"I am frightened," he declared simply, "but I dare because I see you are young and a little girl who does not understand--"

"But I must go, Herr Schmidt! Please, oh, please don't stop me! It is important--"

"Poor little one, no, I will not stop you. I will kom also."

He moved aside and began to open the door.

She said coldly, "It--it is a private matter!"

"Zen take your bruzzer, Fraeulein."

"He is out."

"Zen I know. See, I will be blind, Fraeulein. I will be deaf. I see noting. I hear noting. I do but take care of you, Fraeulein, hein?"

"Very well," she said impatiently. "I want a cab."

He beamed. "Zat is right, meine liebe. All will be well now."

Nell was quivering with nervous impatience. She gave the driver Ted Lancaster's address and sprang into the cab. She was conscious of the heavy jolt as Herr Schmidt climbed in--so slowly, oh, so slowly! She had lost all sense of proportion in her mind. She was absorbed in a sort of wild terror, a foreboding, and her one idea was to get to Ted Lancaster. It was all his fault. He would know. Probably, almost certainly, it was at his house it was all going on. She did not wait to wonder what Denis would think of her appearance on the scene. She had only room for one thought--to get him away, to warn him, before the police came.

The cab stopped at last at No. 16 Gowan Square, and they got out. Herr Schmidt rang the bell, and after an interval the door was opened by a sleepy-looking maid.

"Mr. Lancaster, miss?' He isn't at home. Oh, Mr. Edward--yes, he's at home. Will you come this way?"

They entered the handsome hall; the maid opened a door and showed them into a small sort of anteroom.

"What name, please?"

But Nell was strung up to such a pitch now that she could wait no longer. She followed the maid across the hall. In answer to her knock a lazy voice responded, "Come in." Then, as she opened the door: "You don't mean to say you've come, Thompson! Why, I've only rung once!"

Over the maid's shoulder Nell saw a large, handsome room; a table still littered with the dinner things; a huge fire, and in front of it a chair, over the top of which she could see a piece of smooth, dark head. On the mantel-shelf reposed a pair of patent-leather shoes; she had a glimpse of the legs they belonged to, of a pair of black silk socks with a little green pattern on them, and a haze of blue smoke. She saw it all in a lightning flash, and Denis was not there!

The pleasant, lazily sarcastic voice had drowned the maid's words. She began again.

"Thompson's out, sir, and it's a lady to see you."

"A lady?" Neither the head nor the feet moved. "Oh, I say, Mary, it's the Pater she wants."

"She said you, sir."

"Don't you know her?"

"No, sir, and--and she's _here_," in a desperate voice, suddenly becoming aware of Nell's proximity.

"Here!" Down came the legs; up jumped Ted Lancaster.

"Oh, I say!" He stood facing Nell, red and uncomfortable. He gave his hair a surreptitious pat and flung his cigarette into the fire. Then he turned on Mary.

"Why did you show this lady in here? Where's Thompson?" he demanded angrily.

"He's out, sir, and--and--"

The sudden apathy of disappointment that had come over Nell broke.

"She didn't show me in here. I followed her. This room will do. I am in a hurry."

The maid disappeared.

"Where is Denis?" Nell's voice broke the little silence in measured accents.

"If you will come into another room--"

"No, thanks. This room will do."

He pushed a chair toward her and gave his tie a pull.

"Where is Denis?" she repeated, not noticing the chair. She stood facing him, her slim figure drawn to its full height, her head thrown back.

"I--I'm sure I don't know--won't you sit down?" He drew his hand nervously over his hair. "Do you mean O'Brien?"

"Whom else should I mean? Where is he?"

"'Pon my word, I don't know! I--_won't_ you sit down?"

"Hasn't he been here this evening?"

His rueful brows mounted higher and higher till his forehead was all little creases, which, oddly enough, Nell remembered afterwards.

"No--no, he hasn't-- But I saw him--about--about--"

"Oh, would you mind being quick?" she broke in irritatedly; her cheeks were a vivid pink, her eyes shone. Ted, looking at her, suddenly burst out, "I say, are you O'Brien's sister?"

"Oh, no, his aunt!"

It wasn't a dignified retort, but the extreme and very scornful exasperation in the sarcastic inflection made him redden to the roots of his hair.

"When did you see him? Oh, do tell me quickly!"

"I beg pardon. It's--er--a trifle disconcerting," a gleam of humour shot into his grey eyes, "rather unexpected, you know, and--er--all that. I saw him about three, I think."

"Oh!" gasped she. "That must have been in the bank! You _know_--you _must_ know--I don't mean that! Where is he _now_?"

"I don't know," patiently.

"Don't know! Don't you know anything, or don't you care? I must find him. He--he maybe wearing handcuffs in prison now!"

Ted Lancaster put up his hand and rubbed his nose.

For the first time she noticed his coat. It was a pretty coat--a loose, silk smoking-jacket--but in some unaccountable way it was, to her, the last stroke. All her pent-up nervousness, her quivering impatience, suddenly culminated in wild wrath against the wearer of that coat.

"Oh!" she cried, her soft voice low and passionate. "It is all your fault! You invite him here--you suggest this hateful lottery business. What do you care? You make him gamble--but it doesn't hurt you. _You_ don't need money--you aren't led on by the hope of winning a great heap of money. You only dabble in it. It doesn't matter to you whether you win or lose. And you don't care if he loses! Why should you? You don't care if he gets into trouble--if he's taken to prison! Oh, no, you're safe, so what does anything matter? And now he has gone--gone somewhere to make money, and I--I can't find him. He is so careless--he would laugh at the idea of a policeman coming after him. It's all a joke to you--I expect," her voice suddenly lost all its fire; "you are laughing at me now--"

"I'm not! I'm not a cad, whatever else I may be!"

She glanced at him, vaguely surprised. His face had lost its ruefulness, its uncomfortableness. He looked suddenly older and grimmer; his eyes stared at her angrily from beneath frowning brows.

She turned to the door.

"Where are you going?"

"I don't know--to find him."

In a few strides he was before her.

"You're not going out alone to look for him!" he observed quietly.

She drew a quick little breath.

"Now look here," he went on before she could reply at all; "I don't know where he is. I haven't an idea. But I'm a good deal more likely to find him than you are. Whether he'll be pleased to have me coming around after him as if I'm his nurse is another matter. I'll do it. He'd be angrier if you did it. Although I'm the bad character you've just drawn for my benefit, I promise I won't give information to the police you're so afraid of. I shall go first to Pennington's. Anyhow, I'll find him somehow. But you've got to promise to go straight home first."

"Allow me to pass at once!" Her face was quite white now; she spoke in a low, desperately quiet voice.

"I'm not going to. What's it matter if I'm rude to you? Isn't it only in accordance with your idea of me?"

"Quite. But it matters, because I am _determined_ to go and find him. I am not alone. I am with a gentleman," she added this unwillingly but in despair. "He will go with me."

"He'll take you home at once. You'll excuse my saying that you're acting very unwisely. You're only keeping me--and doing no good. O'Brien is probably at home now--or more probably," his mouth twisted humourously, "out hunting for you. Hadn't you better go?"

"Yes, I'll go!" her voice gave a little choke. "I'll go, but oh, how I _hate_ you! If only I could show you how I hate you!"

"If that's all, you're showing me remarkably well, Miss O'Brien."

He turned and opened the door for her. She went across the hall and rejoined Herr Schmidt. When she saw his broad, kindly face, his anxious eyes peering over his spectacles at her, she felt a sudden fondness for him, a weak inclination to cry. She ran to him and slipped her hand into his arm.

"Take me home, Herr Schmidt, please," she cried.

In the cab the reaction came. Suppose she had been making a fuss about nothing? What would Denis think of her? Two tears fell with a little splash on her ungloved hands. She turned suddenly to her big, silent companion.

"Herr Schmidt, was I horrid to you about coming with me?"

"Ach, mein Fraeulein! I intrude, I know---"

"Oh, you don't, you don't! I think you have been beautiful! I'll never forget it!"

"Fraeulein, you are goot to say so, but I am troubled. I haf ze unquiet conscience about you."

"You needn't have, Herr Schmidt. I--" with a sudden wild Irish change of feeling, "I believe I have just been making a fuss about nothing!" She gave a quick little laugh. "Oh, Herr Schmidt, it's nothing at all! Don't go making mountains out of it."

"Fraeulein, I will think of it as a mere young maid's episode. Hein? A mere naughty prank."

She laughed almost hysterically.

"That's it, Herr Schmidt!"

She went up to the Stronghold and sat down wearily. Only five minutes to ten now! It seemed hours since she had left that room. She sat doing nothing--just waiting. She had not long to wait. In a very little while there was a ring at the door; she sat forward, listening breathlessly, but she did not go downstairs. Then she heard him coming up. He strode into the room, laughing.

"I say, old girl, such a spree! Never enjoyed myself so much since I've been in London! Spoilt my gloves a bit! Given 'em quite the dear old look--"

"What have you been doing, Denis?"

"Driving a hansom!"

"A--is that _all_?"

"Rather! Quite enough, too, with a brute like that! What's up, Nell?"

She had risen and gone across to the window; she was looking out with great interest through one of the slats of the Venetian blind.

"Nothing. Tell me about it."

"I'm ravenous, by the way! Still, here goes. I went with Pennington about his camera--gone wrong--to the shop after I left the bank this afternoon. When I left him I came upon a hansom--empty--no driver--ugly brute of a horse, sort of pink roan. I was having a look at him when out came cabby from the public house. He had evidently 'met friends,' as they say at home, and he hailed me as a long-lost brother. Well, I wanted to drive that hansom, wanted to see what it was like. He wouldn't let me--swore he'd be taken up and so should I if we were found out. I tipped him. He hesitated. I let out a flood of native eloquence and another tip. I might drive it to the corner and up the next road and back to him. I did. Then at the corner I called back to him not to get anxious if I took a few hours getting to the end of that road. Heavens, he did swear! He started chasing me, too, but gave it up when he found a lamp-post in his way. I called out to him that all the tips over sixpence I won by my eloquence I should stick to. By Jove, it was a spree! I pulled my hat down over my eyes, turned up my collar, and trusted to the darkness to hide my aristocratic features from the bobbies. Then it struck me you'd get wondering where I was, and I pulled out a letter I'd taken down for old Pom-Pom to some man, and which I'd forgotten to send off, tore off the blank sheet, scrawled that message to you, shouted at a boy, threw it at his head, and sent him off with it. I've posted t'other half just now, by the way. Then I prepared to enjoy myself! I've taken tons of people to the theatres and restaurants. I made that brute go! But he nearly pulled my arms out of their sockets every now and then--had a mouth like my boots. Guess what I made--thirteen and six! Not bad, you know. But I needed it all to soften cabby's wrath. He'd been in a dead funk that I'd made off with horse and cab for good. Oh, I can tell you, he was pretty eloquent! But I soothed him a bit with the thirteen and six. I wish I'd met Lancaster a bit sooner," he broke off, "I'd have made him pay double fare!"

"Sooner?" Nell said.

"Yes. Met him just now. He was apparently gazing at the house. Fallen in love with Aunt Kezia, perhaps."

"Did--didn't--he say anything?"

"Not much. What d'you mean?"

"I--I want to tell you something, Denis. I--I've been--mad, I think--"

"Thought there was something up. What is it, old girl?"

Nell suddenly turned and faced him.

"You'll hate me," she said, and plunged into her story.

When she had done there was a little silence. She had averted her eyes from him in terror. She knew how a boy of his age would loathe the fuss she had made--how he would resent her going to Lancaster. She turned her eyes to him--he had buried his head in the cushion and was shaking with laughter!

"Oh, poor old Lancaster! Did you really slang him like that, Nell? I can see him."

She drew a deep breath.

He sat up, rubbing his eyes.

"Poor beggar!" he chuckled. "Oh, it's rich!"

Then he sobered.

"But--were you mad, Nell? To make up bogeys in your mind and go rushing off like that--"

"I don't know, Denis," she said humbly. "I don't know what was the matter with me to-day. I--I never was so silly at home. I felt sort of funny all day, I think."

He was frowning.

"I don't like it at all--your going off to Lancaster like that! It was jolly decent of Herr Schmidt to go with you. You ought to have known better, Nell."

"Yes."

He looked at her irritatedly.

"Don't be so beastly meek! You know you've been awfully idiotic all round. And you've made me look a most consummate fool, and"--his mouth widened again in spite of himself--"you've slanged poor Lancaster most unwarrantably. It was awfully rude, you know, and quite mad. He really hasn't been leading your little twin astray. As a matter of fact, it was he who squashed my idea of making money by going in for big lotteries. He's got a level head, and he reasoned it all out on paper and proved some way or other that I stood, ten to one, or a hundred to one, or something, to lose in the end. I've only been teasing you when I talked about going in for them. I didn't know you were bothering about it. And I never thought of the beastly things when I scrawled that note off to you. I've never been in for any sweepstake or thing of that kind except that one I told you of. I hope you think you've made enough fuss all round about nothing!"

Nell was silent. She seemed to have no spark of spirit left. She made no defence. Suddenly he rose and came to her. He caught her shoulders and shook her.

"There, never mind, you poor meek little goose! You'd better be off to bed, and sleep some sense into your soft old head."

She was struggling desperately against tears.

"I--I'm awfully sorry, Denis--and ashamed--I--I do believe I was mad--"

"Course you were," cheerfully, "temporary insanity. It's this beastly London fog got into your brain. I'll make it all right with Lancaster--tell him you're sorry and all that."

She winced.

"Yes--please," she said. "And--and you won't--feel that you--that I--"

"I've forgotten all about it already, old girl!" he declared generously.

*CHAPTER VIII*

"What d'you think I'm let in for, Nell O'Brien?"

"I don't know. I haven't a guess in me. Aunt Kezia has squashed me flat. I've low instincts, Denis,--think of that! And no sense of what is befitting a young lady, and all sorts of other things. Oh, I'm a bad character entirely!"

He flung down his hat.

"Think I didn't know all that already? What made our respected aunt discover it?"

"I'm sick of having no models!" she burst out passionately. "I haven't touched a horse for weeks! I--I'm just aching for the mere feel of them! A cat! Beyond Kate Kearney I'm offered a cat! It's like offering a starving man a piece of sugar-stick! Denis, try to draw a cat! A heap of stupid, meaningless fur! No muscles--no veins--oh, a horse is so glorious to paint!" She broke off with a quick little laugh. "Twin Nell 'pletely sorry," she said, using an old baby formula. "Tell me what you're let in for?"

"Not till you tell me what you've been up to."

"Oh, it was nothing. I saw a hansom waiting outside the corner house. Ripping little chestnut, Denis," her whole-face kindled irresistibly; "the driver told me she was almost a thoroughbred. When a car passed along the top of the road, she played-up beautifully. Oh, the drawing in her! Well, I saw her from a window and seized up my sketch-book and bolted up the road. Now, is there any harm in that? I asked the driver how long he thought he'd be, and he smiled and said his fare was a solicitor who'd come to a client's house on business. 'They charge for their time, miss!' he said meaningly, so I rejoiced and started sketching her in. And he was such a nice man, too. He'd actually been to the Dublin horse show a few years ago. We had an argument about our horses. And he made her put her head as I wanted, and he told me how he'd come across her, and then--oh, I'd left the hall door open, of course, and Aunt Kezia--oh, Denis, you'd think I'd committed something much worse than a murder!"

"Show me the sketch."

"I did one of her--and then several bits--quite rough. I'm going to paint her into that picture I was doing."

"It's splendid, Nell. What a cute little beast!"

"Now tell me what you've been let in for?"

"A speech! A lecture! Old Yovil has let us all in for it. You can't say no to him somehow--he sort of works you up. Lancaster's swearing like the wind round the Craffrone tower. He says he must have been out of his mind to say he'd do it, but he can't go back now. It's to be on the third. Choose any subject you like--write it up--no notes, though--and spout forth in his drawing-room to a long-suffering audience. There're six of us going in for it, and a ripping edition of all the immortal Billy's plays for the winner."

"Which will be you," annotated Nell with conviction.

"Not it! There's one chap--Morley--poetical sort of ass, who wears his hair too long--he'll beat me in a canter, my dear, not to mention the others."

"I'll come and hear you, won't I, Denis?"

"Wish you could! But there won't be any ladies. Only us and Yovil, you know."

After luncheon a maid came to ask if the Atom might go and have tea with Stewart. Sheila Pat, her Pearl clasped beneath one arm, and a spelling-book beneath the other, interviewed her in the hall.

"I'm not comin', thank you, Mary."

The maid hesitated. "If you could, miss--"

"I have reasons of my own for not comin', Mary."

"Very well, miss, only--he's such a dear little boy, and you'd brighten him up like."

Sheila Pat looked worried.

"Does he want me to come?"

"Yes, miss."

"Then I will!" She heaved a big sigh. "Unless," brightening, "Aunt Kezia doesn't wish me to. I'll go and ask her."

She came back sadly.

"I can come," she said ungraciously.

"Sarah! Sarah!"

Down the stairs floated Miss Kezia's voice, stern anger in its tone.

"Yes, ma'am."

"Sarah, I cannot find my house-shoes! I have forbidden you to move any of my things."

"I--I haven't touched 'em, ma'am!"

"She's getting trembly--like an earthquake, poor little hap'orth," observed Nell.

"Not touched them? Then where are they? They have disappeared! Are you sure--"

"Nell--oh, _Nell_, I--I put them on the dining-room fender to warm!"

"Molly! Oh, you are too lovely for anything! Hadn't you better go and tell her?"

Molly cowered down in her chair.

"I daren't!"

"I will, then."

She turned to the door, but Molly jumped up. "No, I'll go!"

She came tearing back presently and flung herself down into a chair.

"Well?"

But Molly buried her head in the chair-back and said nothing.

"Molly," Nell grasped her shoulder, "was she awful?"

"Y-yes, she was!" sobbed Molly. "Oh, I did want to soften her--and--and--oh, Nell," her voice suddenly shook with watery laughter, "K.K. had been at her shoes and--_had eaten all the linings_!"

"Oh, how _delightful!_"

"It's awfully funny, but--oh, she's in a frightful temper! She--she says I'm an interfering--busybody! And when she wants coddling--she'll--she'll have a nurse in to do it for her--properly! She--shut K.K. in the boot closet! She made Sarah clear it out first. Can't you hear her howling? Oh, Nell, why did I go and forget all about her shoes? I meant to take them to her directly she came in--all nice and warm--"

"She might be warm, but she wouldn't be nice, Mol."

"Don't be silly! You know what I meant. Of course, it's all very funny to you--"

"My dear Molly, you must confess it is rather funny!"

Molly began to shake with laughter. "Oh, Nell, and K.K. looked so beautifully meek and innocent and the linings only little bits of leather left sticking out--and they're _such_ big, flat shoes! And K.K.'s toe-scratches all over them. Oh, and Nell--" Molly couldn't go on for a while--"while she--was talking--so awfully majestic and angry--oh, _Nell_!--K.K. seized a shoe out of her hand and fled with it, shaking it--you know how she does! Oh, I'm glad you weren't there!"

After a while Nell went upstairs. She listened outside the boot closet; all was still. A good deal surprised, she went into her room. Sheila Pat, in her petticoat, sat huddled up on a chair, scissors in hand, bending over the frock she had just taken off.

"What are you doing, Atom?"

She lifted a worried face.

"I'm just lengthing it," she said curtly.

"Oh, Kate Kearney, how did you get out of the boot cupboard?"

"I let her out," calmly. "I tried all the keys on the doors, and," triumphantly, "Sarah's fitted it!"

"Sheila Pat, I'm ashamed of you. My dear child, you're not unpicking the stitches at all--you're merely cutting little snips in the stuff. And, anyway, you're not to do it."

"I like this dress, but it's rikkleously short. I don't think it's _perlite_ to wear them so short, Nell."

"Well, you'll have to be impolite then. Come along into the Stronghold, sweetheart. You're frozen."

"I did want to wear it to go and see that boy! Nell, wouldn't _you_ just let down the hem?"

"No, Atom, I won't. I hate long frocks for short atoms."

Presently, uneasily, "Do you hate me for being so hard, Sheila Pat?"

"The O'Briens," excessively grown-upedly, "don't hate each other so easily, Nell."

When the Atom came back after tea she was very quiet. Nell wondered if she were tired; she answered all questions as to her afternoon's enjoyment in her soft little voice that gave her curt sentences such a quaintness, but she originated no remark of her own. An hour after she had gone to bed Nell went into her room and peeped at her. She lay wide-eyed, thoughtful. A little after that she appeared suddenly in her night-gown at the door of the Stronghold.

"Hulloa, Atom!" Denis seized her and swung her up; her arms went round his neck.

"Denis," the strenuous little voice sounded as if it were near breaking, "I must go next door, please."

"Now?"

"Yes."

"But you're in your nightie, old girl! What do you want to go for?"

"It's a private reason." Her arms clung tighter; she pressed her cheek against his. Nell met the great eyes looking over his shoulder, and went up to her gently.

"Can't you wait till to-morrow, Atom?"

"Why, you'll have to," put in Molly. "If it's Stewart you want, he'll be in bed."

"I must go now, Denis; please take me now."

"We can wrap her up," said soft-hearted Denis.

The arms round his neck gave a little spasmodic squeeze.

"Thank y-you," said the Atom.

Laughing, he wrapped her in a great coat of his and a blanket, and carried her down the steps and in next door.

Mrs. Barclay was a good deal surprised to see them. Denis put the Atom down, and she stood shivering, her small white face peering with a queer intensity from out the blanket.

"Stewart, my dear? Well, I am afraid he is in bed--"

"Please may I go up to him?"

"Very well; come along."

"Please may I go by my _alone_?"

"Oh! Yes, dear, if you like."

"Thank you."

She turned and went up the stairs to the room Stewart had shown her that afternoon. She knocked politely at the door, then went in. The gas was burning dimly.

"You? Is it a fire next door?" He sat up in bed with joyful anticipation on his face.

"No. I--I want to speak to you."

"Is the Pearl ill?"

"No." She climbed on to his bed and sat silent.

"Hurry up!"

"I--you see, I think I have been very unjust. I am sorry. I--when you said you would rather learn your Catchykism than play cricket, was it because of your leg?"

"Oh, don't bother! I want to go to sleep!"

"Please tell me!" the tone was not pleading, but authoritative.

"Yes, then!"

"I--I'm very sorry," quavered Sheila Pat. "I'm not mostly so nasty," she added extenuatingly. "I didn't think of that."

Stewart was hugging his knees up under his chin.

"You see, I kept thinking you must be a goody-goo because of that."

"You see," he said haltingly, "I--can't run quickly--or field--"

"No."

There was a pause.

"Do you think," came the quavering little voice, "you will ever be able to like me?"

"Rather!"

"Do you like me now?"

"Course!"

"You may kiss me just once--round by that ear--if you like," said Sheila Pat.

"I'll kiss you twice if I like!" giving her two hearty smacks.

"Oh!" said Sheila Pat. Suddenly she perked up. "I shall call you Tommy," she said. "Stewart is like a book."

"All right."

"You see," her tone was rather uncomfortable, "I did mean--I had quite dessided--you see, I thought I had been very nasty, and I thought you would be very cross, and I did mean to give you--my Pearl--for a whole week--but I don't want to now."

"I wouldn't take her. Peter'd be awful jealous, you bet!"

"So he would," joyfully. "Oh, Tommy, do let's have a pillow fight!"

So it was that the listeners downstairs, with the memory of the small tragic figure that had left them still vividly in their minds, were startled by a sudden uproar of cries and bumps and laughter. Denis, up the stairs in a moment, and joining in the fray in another moment, found a wild Sheila Pat, shining-eyed, squealing with excitement, pelting Stewart with a pillow. He was not surprised, but Mrs. Barclay felt somewhat bewildered.

*CHAPTER IX*

Sheila Pat came thoughtfully into the room. "Nell," she observed, "we give Sarah a lot of extra work."

Nell looked up with an absent eye. She was trying to calculate how much they would be able to spend on toys for their Dublin hospital this year. They were determined not to omit their contribution to the annual Christmas tree and festivities.

"We make our own beds," said Molly, virtuously.

"But she has to clean out this room to-day; it's cleanin' day. And she's goin' home this evenin' to see her mother, and she walks all the way there and back with her young man. You see, if she didn't, she'd never be walkin' out with him at all. And she tidies up at home, because her mother's mostly ailin', and she bathes every one of her brothers and sisters. There now, Nell O'Brien!"

Nell flung aside paper and pencil.

"Come on, Atom, we'll turn this room out ourselves!"

"I'll go and tell Sarah." The Atom trotted contentedly from the room. "Aunt Kezia's out!" she called back.

"How on earth do you begin?" asked Molly, looking helplessly around.

"Oh, you put everything out in the passage first of all," said Nell, confidently, "then you tie your head up in a duster or something, because of the dust, you know, and then you begin to sweep and fill the room with dust. Oh, and the big things you cover over with dusting sheets. I'll get all the things we'll want from Sarah. You go and tie up your head."

"Oh, miss!" Sarah was in a state of horror bordering on lunacy. "You young ladies to do my work!"

But Nell got her way in the end.

The Atom helped in a silence that was ecstatic. She pinned up her pig-tail, and tied a clean duster round her head. Molly followed suit, and then the supply being exhausted, Nell twisted a pale blue silk scarf round hers, and they set to work. They brushed and brushed; silence reigned in the Stronghold. Sheila Pat broke it to observe in a rather breathless but deeply content voice, "We're gettin' a fine dust now!"

Denis came in with a rush. "Hulloa! I say, old man," he called over his shoulder, "rather a choking atmosphere!"

Nell's greeting froze on her lips. Her laughing glance met a pair of well-remembered grey eyes looking straight at her over Denis's shoulder. She stood quite still; the hot colour dyed her face red.

"I'll go--really, O'Brien, I'd rather--another time!"

The uncomfortable murmur reached her ear; she forgot all about her unfortunate visit--all about her sense of antagonism. She went swiftly forward, hand outstretched, smiling charmingly.

"Please don't go! Really, we've almost finished. The dust is dying down already."

"After manoeuvring the barricade outside successfully you've got to stay, old man," Denis declared. "Tell us what you're doing, anyway, Nell."

But Nell was interested to see the ruefulness in her visitor's face change suddenly to keen amusement. She followed his look to the head of Sheila Pat, which, adorned dusterwise, was crowned with her pig-tail sticking straight up on top out of the duster. She gave a little laugh, and he laughed too. She turned to Denis and explained why they were cleaning out the room. Then Ted Lancaster astonished them all.

"I say," he burst out eagerly, "I wish you'd let me stay and lend a hand!"

Sheila Pat, squatting on her heels in the middle of the floor, with a short brush, looked up at him approvingly.

"Come along in and shut the door, there's a good boy!"

The good boy's eyes twinkled as he obeyed. He removed his extremely smart coat and professed his readiness to begin.

"By the way," observed Denis, the corners of his mouth twitching humorously, "I'd better introduce him first!"

"Oh--yes," said Nell, blushing suddenly.

Ted Lancaster bowed gravely to her and with almost deeper gravity to Sheila Pat.

"That's another sister over there in the cupboard," Denis remarked. "Molly's fond of cupboards."

The two boys set to work and raised a fearful dust. Nell observed ruefully that the parts they were sweeping had been gone over once already.

Ted looked up earnestly, his brush pausing:--

"You must let us do it--O'Brien and me--every week, Miss O'Brien; our arms are stronger."

"I," said the Atom, weightily, "think you are a very nice boy."

"And I think you are a very nice lit--young lady."

"I'll show you my snowy-breasted Pearl afterwards."

"Eh? Oh, thanks."

"He's very sensertive; you mustn't mind if he bites you a little."

"Oh, I'll like it. So your white-breasted Pearl's a boy, is he?"

"I'll essplain to you about his name another time," she said with great dignity. She came closer, and whispered: "Denis calls him somethin' else. I'm 'fraid he might do it now. Promise you'll never, _never_ ask him what he calls my Pearl!"

He looked surprised into the beseeching face.

"All right," he said gently, "I'll never ask him."

"Thank you."

She dusted a table leg in silence.

"You are English, aren't you?" she said then.

He nodded.

"Perhaps you've lived years and years in Ireland?"

"No."

"Perhaps you've lived a little while there?"

He was looking amused.

"No."

"Perhaps you've stayed for _heaps_ of visits there?"

"No."

"Perhaps you've stayed for just a _few little_ visits?"

"No."

Sheila Pat stared in disappointed wonder.

"Haven't you ever been there at _all_?"

"Never set foot in it."

"Oh!"

Presently, "Well, you're not at all bad--_for England_."

"England," quoth he, gravely, "is the finest country in the world!"

The Atom's eyes and mouth opened incredulously; a swift rush of delicate pink dyed her face.

"You--you're forgettin' Ireland!" she gasped.

"Not at all. I believe Ireland's a very decent little place."

"Decent, is it?"--the Atom forgot her dusting--"I'm just s'prised a big boy like you should be such a--a _hignoramous_!"

She waited proudly, then pursued, her voice trembling with earnestness: "You're all the same--you English! You're jealous of us! You--oh, you're all stupid donkeys!"

It was a downfall from eloquence to rude vituperation. But she was, for the moment, beyond realisation of that. She stood waiting, her eyes shining. But interruption, in the form of Miss Kezia, broke in on Ted's answer, and the discussion had to be postponed for the present. Miss Kezia was somewhat amused, in a dry sort of way, at their room-cleaning. She shrugged her shoulders over it; if they liked to amuse themselves that way, it did no harm, and work never yet hurt anyone. She asked Ted to stay to luncheon, and he accepted. He seemed to enjoy the roast beef and jam roly pudding. He talked courteously to Miss Kezia, he skirmished with the Atom, but he avoided Nell's eyes.

Nell seemed absent-minded, sunk in thought. After luncheon in the hall she seized an opportunity and approached him.

"I--I want to beg your pardon," she said stiffly, "for--for that night--"

"Oh--ah--awfully good of you--_good-bye_! I say, O'Brien, you'll be late at the bank--I mean," glancing swiftly at her and away again, "not at all--of course--" He was out of the hall door, hustling in front of Denis, down the steps, and into the street.

"You're in a hurry, aren't you?" observed Denis, mildly surprised.

"Er--yes." He turned his red face away, and strode on.