CHAPTER XIII

Paddy’s Views on Sentimentality.

When the music for the first dance commenced, General Adair led out Mrs Blake, and almost simultaneously Kathleen and Doreen with their partners, and Lawrence with Eileen followed suit. Paddy, however, waited breathless, to watch her father.

“I’m all on thorns,” she explained to her partner. “I simply can’t dance for a minute or two. Daddy’s clothes are too tight for him to laugh in with any safety, so goodness knows what will happen if he dances long!—I must warn him.”

She succeeded in getting within earshot, and at a loss for an appropriate warning, remarked in an audible whisper, with feigned anxiety: “Daddy—remember Lot’s wife,” which so tickled the old soldier that he nearly come to grief through her, instead of being saved from it.

“How well she looks to-night!” Mrs Blake said warmly, following Paddy with admiring eyes. “You must be very proud of your girls, General. One is beautiful, and the other full of originality and charm.”

“I am, Madam,” he said. “I am, indeed. There’s not an officer in the British Army knows less about fear than Paddy—she’d storm any stronghold in the face of any guns, and never turn a hair. If she’d been a man, she’d have written her name in English History. I used to fret about it a little, but Lord! I wouldn’t change her now for all the fame in Europe. I’m thinking there’s just as much need in the world for brave women as brave men, and none too many of them.”

“Indeed, you are right, General. Paddy will find her vocation yet, and perhaps write her name in history too.”

Meanwhile, Lawrence and Eileen glided round almost in silence. Both were perfect dancers, and content while the music continued to leave all conversation alone. Afterward they rested in a small alcove, and Lawrence took the opportunity to feast his eyes on his partner’s loveliness.

“You are looking splendid, Eileen,” he said, with unwonted warmth for him, “that dress suits you perfectly. Did you choose it yourself?”

“Yes,” lowering her eyes, that they might not tell too plainly their tale of gladness.

He hatched her a moment, thinking of her perfect naturalness, and then across his mind floated the picture and remembrance of Gwendoline Carew. How different they were, these two girls, who, for the present at any rate, held sway in his fickle affections.

Against Eileen’s simplicity, he could not help a little inward smile at the thought of Gwendoline’s past-masterdom in the art of attracting, and holding, and queening it generally over the opposite sex. He thought he would like to see them together, and supposing Gwendoline should take it into her head to be jealous, he smiled inwardly at the notion of what her summing up of her rival might be.

Then Eileen looked up into his face, and somehow again his defences grew weak.

“Out of sight, out of mind,” had ever been his motto, and while the image of Gwendoline faded, a recklessness took possession of him to enjoy the evening to the full. It was so seldom he found anything to enjoy now, and he easily persuaded himself Eileen was too sensible to jump to rash conclusions.

And for the rest! well! he was going to India directly, and things would easily smooth themselves out again.

So he leaned forward and talked to her just in the way she liked best, and the way that brought the colour quickest to her cheeks, and the changing lights to her eyes that were so good to look upon.

“Now I must go and give myself up to duty,” he finished with a sigh, when the second dance was about to commence. “It feels rather like journeying through a sandy desert, with an occasional oasis when I dance with you.”

“Oh, no!” she said quickly. “There are such a lot fit nice people here, you will enjoy it all ever so much.”

“Opinions differ,” with a slight shrug of his shoulders. “But I shall certainly get half an hour’s amusement out of Paddy.”

The supper-dance at all private dances in the neighbourhood of Newry was looked upon as the dance of the evening, because it was the one in which any two young people who had a special preference for each other could be quite sure of a _tête-à-tête_. Things were arranged very leisurely, as it was customary for the hand to follow to supper after the guests, and meanwhile the young folks amused themselves.

On this particular occasion, however, there chanced to be several young folks to whom circumstances had not been kind, and consequently, contrary to all precedent, the time hung heavily.

Of these, Jack perhaps was the greatest sufferer. If he could have been with Eileen he would have been in a seventh heaven, but not only was he debarred of this, but he saw with raging heart two vanishing forms in the direction of one of the conservatories, unmistakably those of Eileen and Lawrence Blake. At supper he had been near them, and in one or two brief passages, his honest outspoken antipathy to Lawrence has been neatly turned upon himself by the accomplished society man, and there had at the same time been a half-tolerant, amused expression in his eyes that made Jack feel like a caged wild beast. This naturally had only given his enemy the greater secret satisfaction.

Then if only he had had Paddy, he thought he might have relieved his feelings a little; but having Lawrence’s own sister for a partner, there was nothing for it but to try and hide his chagrin under a show of hilarity. In this he at least entertained such of those who remained chatting in groups by the fire.

He little dreamed, however, that poor Paddy was in scarcely better plight. Not that she disliked Ted Masterman in any way, indeed she liked him immensely, but when he was lover-like it fidgeted her, feeling just that soreness over Eileen, that made any other man’s attentions unwelcome and irritating.

Nevertheless, she found herself sitting in the little alcove half-way up the big staircase with him, where the moonlight came through the stained-glass window and made a pattern on the floor, shaded by the heavy curtains from the glare of the lights.

Below them in the bright comfortable hall near a large log fire, they could see the little groups, that laughed and applauded, while Jack in company with a youth as lively and irresponsible as himself, feigned a merriment he was far from feeling. Paddy watched, and in her own quaint way, rebelled against a Fate that made puppets of herself and her friends, for she understood exactly what was passing in Jack’s mind.

Indeed, she was so engrossed that she gave quite a start when her companion, after watching her in silence for some minutes, remarked quietly:

“I’d give something to know what you are thinking of, Miss Adair.”

“Why! the group down there, of course,” she answered. “They look so pretty, don’t they, in evening dress, with the big old hall for background and the firelight on their faces?”

“Yes,” quietly, “but personally I can find a still more pleasing picture close at hand.”

“Oh, the moonlight!” with a gesture of impatience. “It’s making you look quite sentimental. Please don’t give way to it, though, because if so, I shall be obliged, to give up this comfortable chair and go to the hall. I can’t bear sentimental people; they irritate me frightfully.”

The man smiled a little in the shadow, and the look of innate strength and resoluteness of purpose deepened on his face. There was that in Ted Masterman’s eyes to-night, as from the vantage ground of shadow, they jested unceasingly on Paddy’s face, which suggested a preparation for a struggle in which he meant to win.

How long or how short seemed a matter of little importance just then; for one instinctively saw in him the steady perseverance of the man who knows how to wait.

And it is generally to such the victory is given; for greater than the power of riches, or learning, is the power of knowing how to wait.

Ever since Ted Masterman helped a drenched, dripping figure of a girl into his little sailing yacht, and met that frank face that ended in laughter, in spite of her sorry plight, he had known himself her slave, and that henceforth the purpose of his life would be to win her. If the winning was to be hard, and suffering entailed, he was prepared to face it, because he knew that Paddy was worth the cost, whatever it proved, from the first time that he saw her in her own home.

His keen eyes noted instantly that the charm and brightness, which made her so popular abroad, were just as freely lavished upon her own circle, and that if she were beloved by her outside friends, she was yet more beloved and idolised there.

Then, when he found her perfectly indifferent to his attentions, the spirit of conquest was roused within him tenfold, and he loved her yet more for her airy independence.

He half guessed her feeling for Jack O’Hara; but Jack’s devotion to Eileen had recently become so plaint to all except Eileen herself, that he did not let it trouble him. In this he was wrong, for Paddy was, before all thing, staunch, and having given her affections, she would not easily change.

“I’m not getting sentimental at all,” he replied. “I know better, for I don’t want to have my head bitten off my last evening.”

Paddy smiled, and was mollified.

“It’s awfully silly, isn’t it?” she said. “I hate anything sentimental. I like people who call a spade a spade.”

“And I wonder what you like them to call love?” he suggested.

“Oh, ‘love,’ I suppose, only they needn’t look like sick sheep over it, and prefix half a dozen idiotic adjectives.”

“I thought perhaps the mere word was too sentimental,” with a little smile, “and you would prefer to invent some term of your own.”

“Very likely I shall, when the time comes for it. At present I have a great deal too much on my hands to have time to think of anything of the kind.”

“In what way?”

“Why! every way of course! There’s Daddy, and mother, and Eileen, and the aunties.” She paused a moment, but something in his eyes made her run on recklessly. “Oh! and the Sunday School, and the garden, and the hockey club, and the aunties’ cats, and Jack—!”

“It’s quite a long list,” looking amused, “and O’Hara at the far end.”

“He’s in good form to-night,” she said, gazing down at the group in the hall.

Ted followed her eyes.

“He seems to have cheered up since supper.”

“He can’t bear Lawrence Blake, he never could, and they were sitting rather near together at supper.”

“I fancy there’s a little rivalry,” he suggested.

“Oh, I don’t know!” with an attempt at unconcern. “He never did like him at any time.”

“Blake is a very clever man,” thoughtfully.

“Yes—but he’s awfully conceited. I’m always trying to take him down a little.”

There was a short silence, then Ted remarked very quietly:

“This time to-morrow I shall be on my way home, and my holiday will be over—the very best holiday I ever had in my life. I suppose I shall not see you again until next summer, when I hope to come back!”

“I guess not.”

“I’m sorry Omeath is so far from London—”

Paddy began to fidget, and kept her eyes fixed on the group in the hall.

Ted watched here again with that keen gaze of his; and a great tenderness all unknown to himself spread over his strong face. He seemed to see instinctively, that in some way, a hard time lay ahead for this eager, impulsive girl; and that with all his love and devotion, he would have to stand aside and look on, without being able to help her. If so, he knew that whatever it proved for her, it could not be less hard for him, and his heart sank a little. He wanted very much to tell her about his love before he went home, but her very attitude told him the uselessness of it, and he did not want to vex her their last evening.

So instead, he asked with a smile: “Would it be too sentimental to say ‘thank you’ for all you’ve done to make my holiday the best I’ve ever had?”

“Yes, decidedly. Besides, I haven’t done anything at all except torment you occasionally. Let us go down to the hall. I want to know what they’re all laughing at,” and she got up without another word and led the way downstairs.

Jack glanced toward them as they approached, and Paddy saw vaguely an expression of pain underlying the gaiety of his manner, that hurt her like a blow. She could not bear to be miserable herself, but she could bear it still less if those she loved were miserable. She looked round vaguely for Eileen, feeling an impulse to annihilate Lawrence, and make Eileen see how things stood. But neither were to be seen. Under the large palm by the fountain in the conservatory, Lawrence was again feasting his eyes on his partner’s loveliness, and skillfully drawing that changing colour to her cheeks, and those lights and shadows to her beautiful eyes.