Chapter IV: Part 4

Nell went up to the Stronghold, smiling unwillingly. She felt as if she had known him for years, and she resented the feeling. She told herself that it was most annoying--his having come in just that morning when they were cleaning out the room; it was most unfortunate, for how could anyone be politely distant and dignified under such circumstances? And of course sweeping and laughing and having jokes _made_ you feel as if you had known a person for quite a long while--even an objectionable person like this Ted Lancaster, who spent his time lounging about and doing nothing except visit his tailor. She was quite sure he visited his tailor a great deal. And he preferred a motor-car to horses! By the time she reached the Stronghold she was frowning.

"Sheila Pat, come and write your dictation."

"Nell," the Atom observed as she sat her down, "I'm very sorry for that poor boy."

"Why?"

"He's _never been in Ireland_, Nell!"

"Well, so haven't lots of other people."

"I don't mind about them, but I like that boy, and all these wicked men in Parlymint have--_diseased_ his mind about Ireland! I have forgave all the nasty things he said because I'm so sorry for him, poor boy. And you see," patronisingly, "he doesn't know anythin' about it."

"He's not a bit good-looking," observed Molly irrelevantly; "he's got rather a big nose."

"Molly O'Brien, you're none so beautiful yourself that you need be rude about other persons' noses," severely. "That boy's the best I've seen in this London yet!"

"What queer taste you have, Sheila Pat!" said Nell, with a curl of her lip.

The Atom did not heed her. She was sunk deep in thought.

"I like him," she remarked after a while thoughtfully. "Sure I wouldn't mind him about--when it's mistletoe time!"

*CHAPTER X*

Miss Kezia put her latch-key into the lock in a serene frame of mind. She had spent a morning in giving advice. In any case that was a way congenial to her of spending her time. Moreover, on this occasion her advice had been taken; all the bare, unsweetened pills concocted of her wisdom had been swallowed unmurmuringly. Miss Kezia smiled decorously as she stood on her doorstep. Then she opened the door, and was greeted with an emphatic: "Git out, you old meddlar! D'you hear? Git out!"

The shock to her was considerable; it was the more considerable that it came on top of her advice-given-and-taken morning.

She paused, her hand on the latch of the door. She had a confused impression that her Irish relatives were showing her a new side of their character; the voice had come from the Stronghold. Hitherto, however noisy, however tiresome, they had not been rude. Indeed, their soft manners had oftentimes riled her, she being unable, in her rough austerity, to disconnect the softness altogether from insincerity.

She was not an imaginative woman; her mind was not formed even to comprehend, or make allowance for, the quality of imagination in another. But as her bonnet slowly rose from her head, she felt suddenly as if she had been precipitated into an evil dream. For a moment the solid aspect of everyday life, in which she moved and had her being, lost its common-sense reality. She merely stood, feeling her bonnet rise. Then, with a sudden angry gesture, she put up her hand to her head. It encountered another hand, a little, soft, cold hand; gentle little flabby fingers clung round hers, and even Miss Kezia's strong nerves received a severe jar. She had no belief in ghosts, in spirits, or any of "that sort of rubbish," under which designation she lumped many occult subjects together, but a little gentle hand in mid-air, clasping hers, was somewhat disconcerting even to her well-balanced mind. She glanced up hurriedly, feeling suddenly very hot. She saw nothing. She gazed, with a sort of angry anxiety, round the little hall. The two chairs stood there as usual; the hat-stand looked no different. Mechanically she counted, seizing unconsciously and with relief on the everyday hats and coats. There was Herr Schmidt's bowler and Denis's cap and coat. Her eye was arrested suddenly; from out the coat a little wizened face looked down at her, inimitably wise, inimitably sad. Miss Kezia took a step towards it; a long lean arm came softly out in the direction of her bonnet. She drew back and went towards the stairs.

"Hulloa!" shouted a voice. "By Jove, ain't she a disy! Oh, Lor'!" The voice broke suddenly into shrieks of laughter. It was such intensely rude laughter that Miss Kezia reddened hotly, and almost shrank, for a moment, from it. The plaintive, long-drawn miaow of a cat rose above the laughter. Howls--sudden, frenzied wails of woe rose above both. Miss Kezia went upstairs and entered the Stronghold.

As she opened the door something darted past her. There was a wild shouting: "Shut the door! He's gone! Look out, she'll be off, too!" Miss Kezia felt herself being pushed unceremoniously to one side; there was a bang of the door, and she found herself alone in the Stronghold. She drew her hand across her forehead.

"Oh, Lor', here's the disy!"

Miss Kezia positively jumped; she jumped quite badly. She found herself staring into a grey old face, into a pair of eyes that seemed to have looked into all the wickedness of the world. She was not alone in the Stronghold. A grey parrot sat on the back of a chair and returned her gaze with an insolent _sang froid_.

"Get out!" he adjured her. "You're a disy, you are!"

The dissipated wrinkles round his old eyes added to his _blase_ air of knowing all things.

"Old meddlar!" he screamed at her in sudden anger. "Old meddlar,--meddlar-meddlar-meddlar," and he sank into sudden heavy silence. He was a particularly ugly specimen of his kind; he was scarce of feathers, on his poll there was a nasty wound, and one leg had very obviously at some time been broken and very badly reset. His self-admiration, nevertheless, was so absurdly apparent that it raised an intense irritation in Miss Kezia's mind. His air of superiority was aggressive; his little beady eye told her she was dirt. They stared at each other. Then Miss Kezia's attention was drawn suddenly to a box on the table. Under the circumstances she was not really much surprised to observe that its lid was slowly rising. Across her mind there flitted, with a vague discomfort, the memory of Irish superstition, of the Irish belief in fairies and "such rubbish." She gave herself an angry shake and approached the box. As she did so a small brown head appeared in the aperture, a small brown body followed it, and a thin little mouse scudded across the table and disappeared. Miss Kezia waged a deadly war with mice; the faintest suggestion of a nibble anywhere in the house resulted in traps--a whole army of traps--up and down stairs. But now she stood and watched mouse after mouse push up the box lid, alight on the table with a little thud, and disappear. She counted six mechanically, and then she awoke to full realisation of the enormity of what was happening. She approached the box, and with a firm hand pushed down the lid and put a heavy book upon it. Of the fact that the box was empty she remained in ignorance. Then she opened the door and went out on to the landing. She looked down into the hall, and beheld the decorous Sarah, capless, wispy, her apron torn, standing upon one of the staid hall chairs and screaming. Perhaps that gave Miss Kezia as severe a shock as any she had yet received. But it also acted as a swift and very emphatic brain-clearer. No douche of cold water was ever more effective in its action.

"Sarah!"

Now Sarah had not been aware of the fact that her mistress was within the house. The knowledge, sudden and grim, found her quite unprepared, and coming, as it did, a climax on top of mice, monkeys, cats, dogs, parrots, tortoises, was too much for her equilibrium. Sarah fell with a clatter and a scream, and took the staid hall chair with her. She also took two umbrellas and a puppy. The puppy burst into howls and Sarah burst into tears. Each made a considerable noise, and a mouse fled appalled into Herr Schmidt's bowler. Some of the O'Briens appeared from the kitchen (Molly had apparently been embracing the coal box).

"Here's the puppy!"

The joy in Sheila Pat's shout was the finishing touch to Miss Kezia's wrath. It fairly blazed forth; she excelled herself. Her audience consisted chiefly of Sarah, still weeping; Molly, also weeping; and the wise-faced monkey, who sat in Denis's coat collar and listened with sad attention. For the rest Denis and Nell and the Atom appeared and disappeared at intervals in pursuit of the puppy, the cat, and the mice. Miss Kezia's peroration was eloquent; wrath lent it fire. But her eloquence began to fail at last, and then she demanded an explanation. Unfortunately, only Molly and Sarah were present at that point. Molly essayed an explanation, but evolved only the following:--

"We--we didn't mean--it--we didn't. They--they--oh--poor little things--all cramped up--the--the cages were smaller--than themselves--we--we--we--"

Then Miss Kezia said something that was not at all like her usual method of speech. In a voice thin and rasped with irritation and much eloquence, she observed:--

"Apparently you think you are a pig! Eileen! Eileen! I _command_ you to come here!"

Nell, a struggling puppy in her arms, stopped short. She was breathless, untidy, and hilarious.

"We've got them all now, except three of the mice," she added.

The jet ornament in Miss Kezia's bonnet quivered spasmodically.

"Perhaps you will condescend to explain now how it happens that you have turned my house into a menagerie," she said.

Nell sat down on the lowest stair and kissed the puppy's ugly little head.

"We are going to send them all to Kilbrannan, Aunt Kezia. Duckie, stay still then! You see--"

"You cannot send the missing mice away! They will overrun my house."

"They'll have plenty of room, anyway! If you had seen the cages, Aunt Kezia! This blessed puppy--"

"Was in a cage smaller than himself! I have heard that already." There was sarcasm in her tone that was completely lost on Nell.

"Yes! Just imagine! Oh, we just had to buy them all. And that poor parrot was eating out of an empty pan! It was cruel! We just went in and bought them all."

"Bought--them--all!" Miss Kezia echoed her words quite faintly.

"You _paid_ for these--these creatures!"

"Why, yes! It was a horrid little shop, half full of papers and magazines, half full of tobacco and pipes, and half full of these poor dears. Of course it was a good deal of money, but what were we to do? It was Jim who cost the most--oh, Denis, have you got the rest of the mice?"

"This beast of a midnight caroller has scratched a hunk of flesh out of my hand, and all because I saved a mouse from her cattish jaws!"

He was holding a thin and mangy tabby cat at arm's length.

"Why didn't you let her catch it? It is perfectly ridiculous to be so childish at your age!" Poor Miss Kezia could not find words to express her utter disapproval and want of understanding.

"Well," observed Denis, "'twould be playing it pretty low to buy half-a-dozen tame mice and give 'em to the cat. I expect, if their opinion were asked, you'd find they preferred even the old Jew's cage to the cat's interior."

Miss Kezia gave some final directions; there was a subdued fury in eye and voice due as much to her inadequacy to the occasion as to her anger at the havoc wrought in her well-ordered house. The monkey coughed softly, and Sarah, still weeping in the background, screamed. Sheila Pat appeared, climbed on to a chair, and lifted the monkey down. The monkey put a thin arm round her neck in a horribly human way. Sheila Pat kissed his face, and Miss Kezia called out in irrepressible horror.

"I love him," the Atom said calmly. "He's just 'zact like my dearrest Patsy O'Driscoll."

The monkey's bright little eyes blinked knowingly.

"I believe he's a first cousin," Denis declared. "Ever been to Kilbrannan, old man? Played hand-ball on summer evenings on Patsy's wall, eh? Driven Kate in the jaunting-car? D'you know the road up-along by Dinny O'Sullivan's? Sure ye'll be meetin' the doctor's house to the west--ah, yes, thin, ye're knowin' that all right. Look at him smiling, Nell!"

Miss Kezia turned a stiff back upon them and walked into her bedroom.

"She doesn't appreciate you, Jim."

Jim coughed delicately. It was a funny little soft deprecating cough.

"He is just like Patsy," Nell said. "If we were to dress him up and put him on the box seat of the jaunting-car, he'd be acknowledged by his own mother!"

Miss Kezia's bedroom door was opened.

"You will please to send off all those creatures to-day--and at once!"

It was several hours before her mandate was obeyed. The packing took a considerable time. During those hours the monkey crept more and more into their affections.

"I think," opined Nell, "it's positively wicked to send him on a long, cold journey with a nasty little cough like that!"

"I shall feel as if I'm murdering one of my own relations," Denis agreed.

Sheila Pat put a protecting arm round the monkey.

"Jimmy O'Driscoll," Denis said suddenly, "you have an artful countenance. Could you make yourself scarce whenever our respected aunt appeared on the scene? James, could you remember to remember that you're actually and bodily in Kilbrannan?"

"Oh, Denis!" Sheila Pat broke in ecstatically. "Oh, I do love Patsy's cousin!"

That night Miss Kezia said, "I am thankful that your _pets_ have left my house, and I beg that you will not spend your money in that ridiculous and wicked way again!" There was a sarcastic inflexion on the word "pets."

*CHAPTER XI*

Denis stood upon a chair and declaimed. His audience consisted of Sheila Pat and Jim O'Driscoll.

"'Literature of the Elizabethan Period.' Pause, Sheila Pat, with an inward gaze. By the way, how d'you gaze at your innards? Then you fling back your hair," he tried ridiculously to fling back his short locks. "Meant to let them grow long for the happy occasion. Then you begin: 'The Elizabethan Period was one of grand, of glorious prolificacy in the realms of literature. What names the mere mention of the period conjures up, names that still ring, and will always ring'--ha! ha! ha!"

He doubled up with sudden laughter. Jim, squatting in a chair, eyed him with the same grave attention that he had given to the opening of the speech. He was an earnest, if not a particularly appreciative, audience.

Sheila Pat demanded, "What are you laughin' at?"

"I saw old Lancaster's face suddenly. He's dangerous. His scowl's enough to turn the sunshine into a black frost. But he won't back out now. He's too jolly obstinate. You should have seen his face when Yovil told us his sister had persuaded him to make the evening a bigger affair and invite ladies too. And his 'naughty little cuss words,' Atom! What d'you think he said about your sex too? He said: 'What meddlers women are! Why must they have their fingers in everyone's pie?' Why, James there would be more gallant!"

Sheila Pat did not respond to his nonsense. She said sombrely, "I'm comin' to hear you speak, Denis O'Brien."

"Sorry, old girl, but the invitation's only for Nell, you know."

She shut her mouth obstinately.

Denis approached Jim.

"Jim, what have you got in your mouth?"

The monkey, in a flutter of fear, opened his mouth and shot out a piece of india rubber, a small tube of paint, a button off the chair, and a thimble. He had a habit of putting things in his mouth and carrying them about with him. Denis had taught him already to give them up. As the thimble rolled on to the chair, Jim sprang away, up the curtains, and sat glowering down from the curtain rod.

"He asked Aunt Kezia to come," Sheila Pat said.

"But when he heard that--ahem--unfortunately she was engaged for that evening, he said he hoped I'd bring my sister myself,--only mentioned one sister, you see. Fact is, he's full up--afraid his drawing-room won't hold them all."

The Atom stared out of the window. Jim, having, with a good deal of ingenuity, extricated a curtain hook, dropped it on her head. She shook it off impatiently. Jim watched, peering impishly over the curtain rail.

"I'm awfully sorry, asthore,"--Denis pulled her pig-tail lovingly--"shall I put you in my pocket?"

"I will hear you speak," the Atom said.

"Well, I'll recite my speech to you and Jim here. Nell was saying she wishes you'd take her place."

"Don't be silly, Denis."

A measured step approached the door.

"Aunt Kezia--and Jim not in his cage!" he ejaculated, and strode to the door.

He glanced back at Jim--a dim little outline in the curtain. "If only he stays there!"

He swung out on to the landing, nearly upsetting Miss Kezia.

"I wish to see Molly," she said.

"Molly? She's not in there, Aunt Kezia."

"One of my boots is missing. I conclude that Molly, for some purpose of her own, has taken it." She moved towards him and the door.

"Don't you trouble," he besought her; "you go and finish getting ready. I'll find Molly and ask her."

"I prefer to look for myself."

She entered the Stronghold and gazed around.

Jim peered inquisitively at her over the curtain top. Denis frowned at him and shook his head.

"There is my boot!" Miss Kezia dragged a large and solid boot from beneath a chair. "Well!" she ejaculated, and the amount of indignation she managed to compress into that one word was terrific. She held up the boot--there was not a button left on it. But on the floor, ranged in a neat little line, sat ten black buttons. The absolute regularity of the line, the precision and neatness, somehow seemed to aggravate the offence.

"I--I would like to _whip_ Molly!"

Miss Kezia's accents were not so judicial as usual; there was a hurried, almost a pathetic, note about them. She was at a loss. "I will find Molly," she said with dire meaning, and stalked towards the door.

"I'll find her for you!" Denis exclaimed, and brushed past her. When the door was shut, Sheila Pat, with a smile for what had occurred, went back to the window and her thoughts.

Jim crept stealthily down the curtain and across to the boot buttons, which had been scattered by Miss Kezia's angry toe. He picked them up, one by one, and laid them in a neat little row again. Then he sat and regarded them with his head on one side.

Sheila Pat's solitude was invaded presently by a very injured and tearful Molly.

"She thinks I'm mad! And he isn't worth it! I'm to--to sew them all on myself! I can't!"

Sheila Pat rose suddenly and left the room. She went into her bedroom.. It was a bright, cold day with a brilliant sun sparkling on a fast-disappearing frost. But Sheila Pat donned a dark blue raincoat. She looked down with satisfaction on the neat little ankles and feet that were all that emerged from that end. From the other end, above an intensely sporting turned-up collar, her small face looked out with a weighty seriousness. She put on a dark blue peaked sort of cap, also rain proof, slipped downstairs, and left the house. With her hands in big pockets, she walked staidly down the road, a quaint little exceedingly tailorish figure. She stopped to accost a grey cob in a milkman's cart, and on the milkman's appearing from a house fell into conversation with him. Suddenly she broke out, appealingly young and eager in spite of her coat:--

"Might I--oh, _please_ might I get in and hold the reins while you're in the houses?"

He appeared to hesitate.

"It--" a little choke jostled the words--"it's weeks and weeks since I've held the reins!"

The milkman glanced dubiously down at the very small Atom, then at his quiet old cob, and assented. As he politely helped her in he felt the little tremor that shook her, but he did not understand it. He smiled surprisedly at the workmanlike way in which she gathered up the reins. He nodded kindly into the suddenly joyous face uplifted to his. Sheila Pat let out a great big breath and clucked softly to the cob.

"Plenty of work in him yet," she observed conversationally. "Pretty shrewd, too," with a proud little laugh as the cob stopped outside a house.

"He knows the houses I supply as well as I do, miss."

On his rejoining her, "Any special fad?" she asked.

"Well, he's steady-going as a rule, miss,--don't mind motors, or trains, or stone-crushers a bit,--but it's a funny thing he can't stand wheelbarrers! Shies at 'em quite skittish."

Sheila Pat listened with absorbed interest. The milkman came to the last house on his list, and she drove him in style to the dairy. The conversation on the way was strictly horsey. As they drew up she mentioned where she was going.

"Mr. Yovil? Oh, we supply him. I'll take you there, miss; it's close by."

So it came about that Mr. Mark Yovil, looking forth from his study window, beheld his milkman driven to his gate by a very small and very dignified driver, who, after bidding the cob a lingering and loving farewell, shook hands with the milkman, and entered Mr. Yovil's gate.

A few minutes later a rigidly grave maid announced: "Miss Sheila Patricia Kathleen O'Brien," and the Atom walked in.

"How-do-you-do? I am the sister of Denis O'Brien."

Mr. Yovil took off his glasses and polished them with his handkerchief, then he fixed them on the brown and bumpy bridge of his nose, and regarded her through them.

"I'm sure I'm very pleased to see you," he said in a particularly charming voice. Sheila Pat would never have dreamt how exceedingly curt and cutting that voice could be. "Pray sit down."

"Thank you."

There was a pause, while he watched her pulling down her long coat over her ankles.

"You see, I've come on business," she said presently, looking up straight into his face.

"Oh, indeed. I'm afraid," with a comical shake of his bristly head, "I'm not much good on business matters."

"It's not about money at all. I--" there was just a tiny pause--"I want to know if you--if you would engage me as an extra hand on next Wednesday."

"An--extra--hand?"

A little pink signal of distress lest he laugh at her flamed in her cheek.

"You see," the staid voice grew hurried, "I'm rather small for my age. I'm not really very young. I'm quite six and fourteen weeks, and I--I'm 'ceptionally strong. I could wash the plates and knives and forks, and--and run errings--and fill the water jugs. I'd do anythin', and I wouldn't want any wages. The only stippleation I'd make is that I might listen in a corner to Denis's speech."

"It's very kind of you," the dark eyes behind the glasses were twinkling a good deal, "but I really do not need an--er--extra hand."

There was a pause. Sheila Pat swallowed twice, quite loudly.

"P'raps," tremulous hope sounded in her voice, "p'raps you'd like me to show people to their seats?"

"N-no," he said slowly, "I really don't think there's any office I need filling."

He stared distressed at the woeful face of Sheila Pat. He polished his glasses with a queer nervousness, this quick-tempered little man before whom so many grown-ups had trembled.

"I--" with a trembling burst of desperation, "I could fill the coal skuttles!"

He came over and, drawing up a chair, sat down beside her.

"Will you tell me why you want to--er--fulfil all these menial offices?" he asked gently.

She slid off her chair.

"It was to hear Denis, you see. Good-bye, Mr. Yovil."

"But--why not come with your brother?"

"Nell's comin', and you're full up. Molly doesn't want to, anyway, because there'd be so many boys starin'."

"I shall be very much hurt if you don't come, too."

A little flush rose to her cheeks.

"I'm not wishin' to intrude, thank you; I wasn't askin' for _that_! Only, you see, I thought if I could be an extra hand, that would do."

He took the hand extended to him, and with his other rubbed his brow wildly. He realised that nothing would induce his small companion to come on the Wednesday merely as a visitor. He stared at her in comical distress.

"Good-bye," he said absently.

As she reached the door he gave a jubilant shout.

"Could you be my Social Prompter, do you think?"

She turned back.

"Yes," she said. "What is it?"

He smiled.

"Come and sit down again. There, that's right. Oh, I shall want a Social Prompter that evening!" he gave a quizzical little chuckle. "Now listen, my dear. I'm a rude man. Oh, yes, I am," as she politely refuted his statement. "A good many ladies have told me so. I never speak to the people I should speak to, and I speak to those I shouldn't. Well, there will be a good many ladies present on Wednesday, and I must speak to them all and I must say just about as many words to one as the other. Now, my sister was to have been hostess, and she gives me a sign whom I'm to accost next, and so on. But her little boy has the measles, and she won't come up to town. Do you see?"

"Oh, yes!" Sheila Pat's face was intent. "I'll turn up my nose at the ladies you've spoken to, and smile at the ones you haven't."

"Well--hardly that. The ladies whom you turned your nose up at might be hurt, you know. Let me see, now. I think if you come quietly up to me every now and then, and suggest what group I shall join-- How will that do?"

"Yes," said Sheila Pat. She put out her hand and gave his arm an ecstatic little squeeze.

"I did want to see Denis get the prize."

"But perhaps he won't."

"Oh, yes, he will. He's Irish, you see. Good-bye. I'm very much 'bliged."

"Not at all. It's I who should say that. I'm coming out. We'll start together."

With infinite tact he invented the need of tobacco, because he knew there was a tobacconist's near the top of Henley Road. He never smoked any but a particular brand that he procured at a particular shop, and that evening his man was gratified by the present of a tin of tobacco.

He bade the Atom good-bye at the top of her road, and looking after the sedate little back, he smiled. Such an immense dignity was there in that small back view of Sheila Pat that it was difficult to associate her with the severe scolding to which she knew she was walking.

*CHAPTER XII*

"Four half crowns is ten bob. Sarah, if ever I catch you carrying that heavy coal-box up to our room again, I'll give you a month's warning and pack you off without a day's notice!

"Nell," entering the Stronghold, "to-day is Saturday. Old Tellbridge, gazing at my interesting countenance, pale from overwork and perhaps tired of my unfortunate method of making two and two tot up to five or three, let me off early. The pit of a theatre is peopled nowadays by a most respectable and worthy--"

"A theatre? Oh, Denis! Which? What?"

"My dears, do not shout. 'Tis vulgar. You've heard of a play called 'Monsieur Beaucaire.' Softly--softly. And James, there are no--er--butterflies in K.K.'s coat, I assure you. Yes, Atom, we _are_ going! Yes, we must start _at once_! Lancaster says it's going very strong. We'll have to wait outside ages. As our aunt is not at home, I would suggest a raid on the kitchen, and then flight."

Nell said demurely:--

"Yesterday Aunt Kezia was holding forth on the vulgarity of any but grocers' assistants and 'sich-like' waiting in a queue outside a theatre."

Down in the kitchen a scandalised Sarah looked on while they "foraged." She held a table-cloth in one hand and two table napkins in the other. Agitatedly she sought to thrust them upon the O'Briens, while they sat on the table and ate cold jam-tart, bread and cheese, and apples. Later, as they hurried out of the gate--Molly, gloveless, working her arms into her coat--she called after them:--

"You'll be faint with 'unger, missansir!"

On the omnibus Molly discovered that she had brought odd gloves with her.

As they drew near the theatre they were overcome with a sudden fear that they would be too late to get seats in the front row and they scrambled anyhow down the omnibus steps. Sheila Pat took a flying leap that brought down upon her shouts from the conductor and from the drivers of two cabs. The Atom, safe and sound on the curb, drew herself up with dignity.

"Really, in this _London_ a person can't do a thing at all, without being interfered with!"

Then they ran. When they arrived at the theatre, they found only about ten people there before them. Denis assured them they would get front-row seats, and they exulted.

The long wait did not seem long to them. But their money flew. There was the poor man who tied himself into horrible knots; the newspaper boy, who had blue eyes, and whom they thought might be Irish. When he thanked them for the sixpence, his Cockney accent shattered their hopes. They gave pennies to the little pink-nosed boy whose sister played the flageolet, and to an old man who sang.

Then the move began. A very big man directly behind Sheila Pat looked down amusedly at that excessively small, but excessively determined young person. He recognised the fact that the Atom meant no one to push in front of her. In the front row Sheila Pat sat her down, and looked around, quivering with excitement.

Just before the curtain went up Ted Lancaster strolled into the stalls, and sat down in front of the Atom. She bent forward and dug eager little fingers into his shoulder.

"Won't you be speakin' to me at all, then, Mr. Lancaster?"

He turned.

"Why, it's my lit--my Irish friend! How-do-you-do, Miss O'Brien?"

"Oh, please," said Sheila Pat, "is there anyone _Irish_ in the play?"

"I'm afraid not. But you'll lose your heart to Monsieur Beaucaire, though he's only a Frenchman!"

She shook an obstinate head.

"I won't!"

At the end of the first act he turned to her. A little faint pink colour dyed her cheeks, her eyes were wide and bright.

"Well? How about your heart?"

"I--I _haven't_! I won't!"

"I love him!" said Molly. "And oh, I _loathe_ that wicked Duke of Winterset!"

When the curtain went down at the end of the first scene of the second act, he turned to her again. Her eyes were brighter, her cheeks pinker than before. She refused to look at him.

"It's only two minutes," Ted said. "Miss Sheila Patricia?" he finished with an uplifting of brows.

"I--I _haven't_! You are a very intruding boy!"

The curtain went up, and he turned away.

The moment when she finally and absolutely and openly capitulated was when Monsieur Beaucaire came down the stairs, taking the old Countess of Greenbury to supper. In the midst of the storm of applause, one ecstatic little voice rang out.

"He's _worthy_ to be Irish, anyway!"

As they went out Molly managed to become separated from them and lost.

Denis said, "You stay out here with Lancaster," and plunged back into the crowd.

Sheila Pat, excited, too restless to stand still, plunged eagerly after him.

Nell was left standing with Ted. Now Ted Lancaster was possessed of some physical attributes that particularly displeased Nell, as being so ridiculously untrue to his character. She fell to pondering the strength of his rather thin mouth and of his chin; on the look of cleverness about his deep-set eyes. The very breadth of his shoulders displeased her. She told herself that a slack creature such as he must be, who lounged about and did nothing except drive in a motor, had no business with a face like his. Irritatedly she fought against a strong inclination to like him.

"Isn't your motor waiting for you?" she broke the silence in a bland tone of voice.

"No." He sounded a little surprised. "There're always hansoms, you know," he added.

"Oh! But you prefer your motor, don't you?"

He gave her a quick, shrewd glance; there was just the suspicion of a smile at the corners of his lips as he answered carelessly:--

"Well, they get you along quicker, you know."

"Yes," she said, "and of course when you've a lot to do--when you are very busy--that's a consideration."

There was a little pause. She glanced at him and smiled maliciously. He had flushed a little.

"Yes," he agreed nonchalantly.

She watched three women frantically tearing about in search of a hansom, but she was thinking of Ted. What a cool voice he had! She wasn't sure that it wasn't impertinent. And as for his looking tired and ill--well, of course he would, living an unhealthy, self-indulgent, lazy life. Suddenly she began to contrast his mode of life with Denis's before they had left Kilbrannan. Impulsively she spoke her thoughts aloud, keeping, in actual words, only to Denis, his prowess in the hunting field, football, and so on; but her expressive voice and face pointed the moral, drew the contrast, as plainly as if she had spoken it. There was another pause when she stopped.

Then Denis appeared with the others. The relief in her welcome was unmistakable.

"Got her! She was rushing off in a frenzy straight for the North Pole! You're not going, Lancaster? Rot! Come along with us, old chap, and be introduced to Jimmy O'Driscoll."

Ted glanced at Nell; it was an odd glance, and his mouth twisted in a sudden dry smile.

"Yes, won't you?" she said carelessly.

"Thanks, no, I've to meet a fellow!"

He raised his hat and walked away.

Sarah let them in at No. 35. She looked scared and spoke in a loud whisper.

"Oh, missansir, there's been murder done as sure as my name's Sarah Jones! Hush! She's in! The poor little dog! Its dying 'owls were pitiful! I allus knew that unchristian monkey-thing would do us a 'arm!"

She managed to work on their feelings to a certain extent, although they knew that Jim had conceived a deep affection for Kate Kearney, which that young person returned with a disdainful and bullying sort of tolerance. They hurried up to the Stronghold, Denis produced the key, and they opened the door. The room presented a somewhat chaotic appearance; bits of Denis's slippers strewed the floor; a fur rug distributed itself in bunches round the room; the table-cloth had been pulled off, and with it various books, papers, and a bowl of chrysanthemums. With the chaos a dead silence greeted them; they could see neither Kate Kearney nor Jim O'Driscoll.

Molly gasped:--

"Oh--they're both killed!"

Behind the easy chair they sat, two little mute, obstinate figures, palpably worn out, and each still holding on grimly to a battered thing of felt and ribbon that once had been a hat of Nell's. In Jim's thin little hands, as they gripped the hat, bunches of black fur were discernible, which told a tale. At their approach K.K. arose, panting, and renewed the struggle. She was very strong and Jim was very small. With her teeth fixed firmly in the felt, she pulled and pulled, backing all round the room, and at the other end of the hat came Jim, hopping, sliding, but never letting his hold slip. His pathetic little wizened face added to the ludicrousness of the spectacle. In the end Denis bethought him brilliantly of a way to end the struggle with fairness to both sides. He took a knife and sawed Nell's hat in halves. Immediately each went straight for the piece the other held, and as each dropped its own piece, Nell picked them up, and the battle was perforce at an end.

Jim fled, chattering with rage, to the top of the curtain, and Kate Kearney had resort to what no doubt she would have termed a hurt dignity, but what looked considerably like a fit of the sulks.

"Now," said Denis, "how did that little beggar undo his cage door?"

Nell said, still laughing:--

"It's just struck me that it's rather hard on my hat!"

*CHAPTER XIII*

Denis was immersed, fathoms deep, in unutterable gloom. It was the all-important day, at last. That morning he had risen in wild spirits. "Don't believe my poor old essay is so bad after all! Anyhow, what's it matter?"

At luncheon time he was still hilarious; at tea time down, down in the depths. His thermometer had been very much like that in regard to his speech, up and down, down and up, for the past week.

"It's tea time, Denis."

"All right." He glanced up from his notes with his eyebrows up, his forehead wrinkled. "T'won't make any difference whether I go on reading up or not--it's awful rot, anyway."

"It's grand," declared Sheila Pat, and the Pearl chattered his teeth angrily at the enthusiastic squeeze she gave him.

"Don't lose heart, Denis, it's a fine speech," said Nell.

"It's stiff--stilted," he said, frowning.

She flushed; he had put her own secret fear into words.

"I'm quite sure you will get the prize," remarked Stewart, who had been invited to tea. He spoke with deep earnestness; he had an intense admiration for Denis.

But Denis sat glum and gloomy while they pressed bread and butter on him, and Stewart made him a slice of French toast. Then suddenly he looked up, and he burst out laughing.

"Oh, how you're all waiting on Sir Doldrums Gloomy-grump! Look at the noble Stewart's flushed countenance, reddened in my unworthy service! Not another word on literature! Let's forget that such things as speeches exist!"

But presently he began to laugh again:--

"I'm thinking of poor old Lancaster. Saw him this afternoon--talk about gloom! He was in a vile temper! 'Pretty lot of fools we'll look! But I deserve all I get!' he growled, and off he marched, though I wanted to speak to him particularly!"

While they were dressing, Stewart slipped away next door.

He reappeared, oddly red and shy.

Sheila Pat, in short white petticoat and stockinged feet, met him on the landing.

"Where have you been, Tommy?"

"Just home."

"What's the matter, Tommy?"

"Nothing!"

Sheila Pat considered him gravely.

"Your face is very red."

"Rot!"

"And why are you keepin' your hand behind you?"

"Want to!"

She made a dart, but he turned, too. Round and round they went, and she won. She was too quick and elf-like for him.

"Oh!" she said. "It's a red rose. Is it for Nell?"

"No!"

"Is it for me?"

"If--if you like--you can have it!"

"Oh, yes, please, Tommy."

He held it out to her, a lovely deep red rose with a spray of maiden hair.

"I'll pin it in front of my dress, Tommy, and I'll look so nice, won't I? Janie and Benny Jones are comin' to look at us when we're dressed."

"Sheila Pat! Sheila Pat!"

She slipped away from him.

Presently she reappeared in the Stronghold.

"Tommy, _don't_ you think--with my button-hole and all--_I might be seven_?"

Stewart looked at her in her little loose, short white frock; at her long, slim legs and little white heelless shoes.

"Don't look at my _legs_!" she breathed.

"Ten!" he said unblinkingly.

"Oh, Tommy! I do so want to look old to-night! It's very erportant--what I've got to do! And I'll put some cakes in my pocket for you."

Nell ran past the room and upstairs to see how Denis was getting on. He had lost his collar stud. She found it for him; she put it in for him; she sewed the bow on to his shoe; she rearranged his tie; helped him on with his coat, and all he said in thanks was:--

"Oh, Jemima! how I pity the poor chap who marries you!"

Nell pulled her hair a trifle looser, using his glass. She turned on him, young, slim, radiantly pretty. "Do you?" she laughed. "I'll be an old maid, then!"

"You do look stunning, old girl! Bet I'll have the prettiest sister there to-night."

"Oh, I do believe you carry a chip of the blarney stone about with you. Come down and let Janie and Benny look at you. Denis, there's a most delicious scent in this room. What is it?"

"Eh? Oh, a bit of lily of the valley I thought you might like. It's on the wash-hand stand."

He whistled a bar of "Widow Macree."

"Oh, Denis!" She was holding up a lovely bunch of lilies of the valley to her cheek.

He turned with sudden irritation.

"Don't start about it's being extravagant! It isn't! If you say a word, I'll chuck 'em in the dust-bin!"

She smiled demurely. The flowers had been behind the water-jug, with a suspicious air of having been hidden there.

"They're lovely," she said, tucking them into her soft folded belt. "I must pin them in. Are you coming, twin?"

"If it weren't for taking you two, I wouldn't come at all."

"Oh, yes, you would."

"What's the good? I haven't a ghost of a chance--"

"If you _knew_ you were bound to make the worst speech there," her head was up, "you would go. We never funk anything, Denis!"

"Neither we do, old lady!"

He seized her round the waist and ran her downstairs to her room.

"Nell," called out the Atom, "aren't you ready? Janie and Benny have come!"

"O dear, then hurry I _must_! Molly, I wish you were coming, too!"

"I don't! I wouldn't for anything," she whispered eagerly. "I shall go and talk to Aunt Kezia!"

"Molly, you're getting too good altogether for the likes of us! Don't, in your exaltation, forget to shut Jim up. Benny, what big eyes! Janie, how's the cold? Duckies, ask Sarah if we didn't leave two nice cakes at tea. Coming, Denis! Good-bye, Aunt Kezia. Molly, there's a packet of butter-scotch somewhere--find it for them. Good-bye!"

Mark Yovil greeted the Atom as an old friend.

"Of course," said Sheila Pat, anxiously, "I don't know which ladies you've spoke to before I came."

"Oh, that doesn't count," he reassured her.

Nell looked round the room interestedly. There were not many people there yet. Standing by a lounge talking to a girl with an elaborately dressed head of colourless hair, she saw Ted Lancaster. Another girl, younger, sat between her and an older, stouter edition of them both, obviously the mother. Nell had a quick thought of a hairdresser's shop, the three heads were so stiffly held, so carefully dressed. Then she wondered, humorously, whether the husband and father didn't get tired of seeing his wife in three stages of age and size.

"Will you come?" Mr. Yovil asked. "I'd like to introduce you to Mrs. Lancaster. She's Ted Lancaster's aunt, you know--he and your brother are chums, aren't they?"

"Y-yes."

Mrs. Lancaster bent a stiff head, Miss Lancaster and Miss Gertrude Lancaster did likewise. Ted shook hands.

"Is your brother going to make a speech?" Gertrude asked as Nell sat down beside her.

"Yes. When are they going to start?"

"I don't know. The whole thing is an awful bore, isn't it?"

"No; I love it."

"Really? Alicia," turning to her sister, "Miss O'Brien is actually enjoying herself!"

"Really? How queer! We only came because we thought dear Mr. Yovil would be hurt if we refused."

Up came Denis.

"I say, can't you squeeze me in somehow?"

Gertrude unbent and laughed as he sat down between her and Nell.

Sheila Pat, always earnest, trotted gravely at her host's heels till he released her. Even then she watched. He was standing talking to an imposing matron when he felt a sharp little nip on his arm. He looked down and met Sheila Pat's chiding eyes.

"You've spoken to her _twice_! I would have thought you'd remember her--_by her nose_!"

The whisper was loud; he muttered a hasty excuse and fled. But he fled in the wrong direction. After him ran Sheila Pat.

"You haven't spoken _once_ to the lady in the bathing dress!"

In her eagerness her voice rose, and several pairs of eyes glanced instinctively across the room to where a lady in a red and white striped silk gown sat amiably looking on, and several people hid smiles.

"Ted isn't a bit nervous," Gertrude Lancaster confided to Nell. "He's quite calm and cool. Now, that poor Cuthbert Pennington who's just been introduced to you is all on wires about it."

Nell looked across to where Ted lounged, talking to an old gentleman.

"Is he convinced he'll win the prize?"

"Oh, I don't know. But nothing ever troubles him, I think. Can you catch his eye? I want to ask him about a dinner-party--I _can't_ make him look this way!"

"Isn't it unkind to disturb him? He looks so comfortable."

"Oh, no--oh, that's it. Now he'll come."

He came slowly and stood before them.

"You want me?"

Gertrude chattered about an approaching dinner-party, then she turned to join in another conversation.

Ted stood silent.

Nell glanced up at him. "Nothing ever troubles him," rang in her ears. She frowned impatiently.

"Poor Mr. Pennington!" she said softly.

He glanced across at Pennington, surrounded, the centre of a noisy group, and raised his eyebrows.

"He's nervous about his speech. He," there was the faintest accent on the "he," "doesn't feel sure he will win the Shakespeare."

"How queer! Surely each one in his heart is convinced he'll pull it off!" There was an odd mocking note in his voice.

"Only the conceited ones!" she laughed.

There was a little pause.

She looked up at him, smiling.

"_You_ feel as if you will win it, don't you?" she said amiably.

"Thanks. I take it, Miss O'Brien."

"The speeches are going to begin," observed Gertrude, turning round.

"I say," Cuthbert Pennington's dark face was trying to look injured, "they've made me go up first! Wish me luck! I'm a-trembling all over. Shouldn't wonder if I faint away in a swoond!"

His speech was good, bright, and vivacious, and sometimes humorous. There was a good deal of applause at its finish.

Nell felt terribly excited. She glanced often at Denis, who looked gay and debonnair enough.

The two next speeches were not so good; in both there was a stiffness of phrase that made her put them aside with a metaphoric wave of her hand. Then came the poetic Morley's turn. He was inclined to be grandiloquent, he brought in a great many poetical quotations, his metaphors were inclined to run away with him; but he used fervid gestures, he flung back his hair a good deal, and people seemed enthusiastic.

Nell felt uneasy; she did not herself care for his speech, but she recognised a good deal of merit in it.

Ted Lancaster was the next.

He rose and strolled slowly to the end of the room.

"Isn't he at his ease!" laughed Gertrude.

Nell was conscious of a quick, uncharitable wish that his speech should be bad--bad--that he should receive hardly any applause--that that conceited ease of his should be ruffled--upset. He bowed to his audience. A little hot spasm of shame went through her. Surely--surely he was nervous! His face was quite white, and his eyes stared out sombrely from beneath frowning brows.

"The Influence of Music on Mankind," he announced in his deep, quiet voice. He paused, looked down, then straight out before him again.

"It is impossible," he began, "to exaggerate--" his eyes met Nell's, he stumbled, stopped--"to exaggerate--er--er--the important part that--that music--that music--has played in the--er--history of the world--"

Nell was tingling all over with shame and pity; her cheeks burnt; she bit her lip cruelly. She could see his hand, resting on the top of the Grand piano beside him, shake; and then suddenly, abruptly, in the middle of a sentence, he bowed and strolled back to his seat.

There was an uncomfortable little silence. A few people clapped feebly.

"Oh," whispered Gertrude in Nell's ear, "_poor_ Ted! He must have been nervous, after all!"

"You were rather ridiculously out in your opinion, weren't you?" retorted Nell, hotly.

"How could I know? He--"

Some one said, "Hush!" It was a red-cheeked boy with a twinkle in his eye, but it stopped Gertrude. Nell forgot Ted then, for it was Denis's turn next. Head erect, he marched to his place. Nell's hands locked themselves together; she hardly breathed; but when he turned and bowed she drew a sharp breath. Denis was nervous! He stood there, tall, broad-shouldered, his head flung back. His blue eyes looked very dark; his mouth was shut tightly. And he stood there, silent.

No one moved. No one seemed to breathe. The stillness was awful. Nell felt as if she would shriek aloud. Then suddenly his eyes met hers; a little flush rose to his brow: "Early morning--the world gleaming green and wet through the blue haze--all the young things waking and stirring about you--" his voice rang out, musical, assured, and left Nell gasping. Dimly, with his talk of the stream glinting in the sunshine, the scent of the turf fires, there mingled in her ears--"names that still ring throughout all the lands--a grand and awe-inspiring age--the literature of that day--" and the result was bewildering. And then she was leaning forward, drinking it all in--for here was a bit of their old life--of Kilbrannan--home itself. Something caught in her throat, and for a moment Denis shone through a mist.

Others were listening, too,--really listening,--absorbed, interested; grave and smiling by turns, as he willed. He stood there, before them all, unself-conscious, eager, making them see what he saw; and the words came without stumble or pause--easy, fluent, enthusiastic. It was just a bit of the old life he was showing them--a wild hunt made them laugh aloud; the peasants, the scenery, kept them absorbed; and when he stopped, there was a perfect storm of applause. The room fairly rang with it.

He glanced swiftly, anxiously, at Nell, and then he bowed with all his own airy grace, again and again, laughing outright. One of the boys shouted out, "Encore!"

There was only one speaker to come after Denis, and the unfortunate boy was received with yawns behind fans and barely concealed indifference.

Of course Denis had won the Shakespeare. He received it in a storm of clapping. Everyone smiled on him and paid him compliments. Unabashed, he deftly returned them with interest to the ladies. The defeated boys nearly shook his arm out of its socket. Sheila Pat forgot, for the time being, her duties as Social Prompter, and went about informing everyone that she was Denis's sister.

"He doesn't mind me pinching him a bit!" she said proudly.

But she remembered her duty presently, and when Mr. Yovil was talking to Nell, down swooped Sheila Pat.

"It's not her turn! I think you'd better go and talk to the jingle lady now."

He went, meek as a lamb.

"Nell," said Denis, coming up to her a moment, "no, I won't answer any questions."

"But, Denis--"

"I'll tell you when we get home. I want you to be sweet to poor old Lancaster, Nell."

She blushed guiltily. "I'd like to, but he won't come near me, I'm afraid."

"I'll manage. Don't you want some sandwiches?"

"Awfully badly."

"I'll send him along with them. Mind," warningly, "that you're nice to him."

She grew hotter still.

Presently Ted came to her.

"O'Brien asked me to bring you these," he said stiffly.

"Oh, thanks!" She dimpled at him charmingly.

"Don't you want anything to eat or drink? The coffee's awfully good."

"No, thanks."

He stood a moment.

She wondered why he looked so terribly tired, why he was so pale, with such dark rings round his eyes. All the mother in her wakened, and, with her shame, swamped the old sense of antagonism and made her long to make amends.

He turned on his heel.

"I--there's room for you here." She drew her skirt aside with a quick little nervous gesture.

He looked back at her surprised. She was smiling at him anxiously; there was soft deprecation in her eyes.

He hesitated.

"I--thanks," he said, and sat down.

She began chattering about Sheila Pat; about the Zooelogical Gardens, where they had been that day. She rattled on about their own Zoo in Dublin, in the Phoenix Park. She laughingly owned that the Regent's Park Zoo was larger. "But it hasn't such a beautiful background, there are no mountains, and ours is such a dear little Zoo somehow. The pelicans and peacocks and seagulls wander about in the open. Sheila Pat scorns your Regent's Park because they don't have polo matches there--"

"Oh, Mr. Lancaster," a fair-haired girl stopped before them, "I _was_ so sorry for you! It must be _terrible_ to be so nervous!"

He stood up.