CHAPTER XLI

In Lawrence’s Den.

It was to a small luncheon party, given especially for the three pairs of lovers at Mourne Lodge, that Eileen and Paddy and Jack set out that bright, crisp morning. Gwen and her giant, Doreen and her barrister, Eileen and her stalwart rancher—these were the three amorous couples whom Lawrence, Kathleen and Paddy had to severally and together keep within the bounds of rational dinner-table conversation for a whole hour. After that they were prepared to wash their hands of them and let them hide away and discuss delightful nothings to their own delectation until tea-time. Doreen and the pump-handle court representative announced their intention of playing billiards, which no one thought it worth while to contradict, however sceptical he felt, and anyhow they bent their steps in the direction of the billiard-room. Eileen and Jack decided upon a quick walk, and the giant, of course, merely waited orders. At first they seemed to hang fire. Gwen was manoeuvring in a way that certainly meant something, but it was very difficult to tell exactly what. As a matter of fact, she was waiting on the off chance of Kathleen being called away. Directly the hoped-for call came she was prompt to act.

“Come along, Paddy,” she said, putting her arm through hers; “let’s go and rummage round in Lawrence’s den. I think it’s just the loveliest spot in the whole house! Did you ever see such a rag-tag and bobtail of odds and ends before? I just love poking round there.” And she led the way at once, Lawrence and the giant following.

For several minutes she really did poke round, and then she discovered she had lost her handkerchief, and promptly dispatched the giant in search. As he was naturally as close to her as he could be she had no difficulty in adding in a tone that he only could hear, “Don’t come back.” After three minutes she looked up in the most natural way imaginable and remarked, “Whatever can Goliath be doing? My handkerchief must be in the dining-room. Perhaps he can’t see so far as the floor.”

Paddy had seated herself in a large easy-chair, and, scenting nothing of the plot, was idly watching the fire. She had, in consequence, no time to realise what was on foot until it was too late.

“I shall have to go and help him search,” said Gwen with a pretence at annoyance. “He is a terrible muff at finding any thing.”

Whereupon she calmly departed and closed the door behind her, leaving Paddy sitting in the big arm-chair, and Lawrence leaning against the mantelpiece, looking down at her with an odd little twinkle in his eyes.

In the dining-room Gwen found Kathleen, but she was quite prepared for the emergency.

“Where has everybody gone?” Kathleen asked wonderingly.

“All gone out, I think,” Gwen replied unblushingly, and then went off with her Giant to the drawing-room, knowing perfectly well Lawrence’s sisters never went into his den, and that therefore her strategy was quite successful.

Meanwhile, when Paddy saw that Gwen had closed the door after her, she leaned forward with a doubtful expression and appeared about to follow.

“Don’t run away,” said Lawrence, “or I shall think you are afraid of me.”

“I am not afraid of anyone,” stoutly, still looking toward the door.

“No, I know you are not. Still, the others most certainly don’t want us; we should only be in the way.”

It was too true. Paddy leaned back and stared into the fire, and that little droop hovered round her lips again. Kathleen was sure to be with her mother, and the others all dispersed.

“Not even anyone to go ratting with,” he said, with a tender little smile.

The lips twitched and then settled again to the droop, while she tried to reinforce herself for the struggle that loomed ahead. No use to run away now. The time had come for a final understanding, and it must be faced.

Lawrence watched her a little while in silence, and there was absolute stillness in the room except for the cheery crackling of the fresh log he had just thrown on the fire.

“You look, somehow, as if you were prepared for the worst,” he told her, smiling. “Am I such a terrible ogre?”

She did not speak, and he pulled up a chair beside her and sat down, holding his thin white hands out to the blaze.

“Do you remember the last time you were in my den?” running on. “It was the night of the girls’ ‘coming-out’ dance—the ultimatum, so to speak, when you declared war. I remember it perfectly—I always shall. You were all in white, Paddy—a fluffy kind of dress that suited you, admirably. I remember being surprised to see how pretty you _could_ look. But, of course, it was your hair—you had always treated it so abominably before. I sometimes think it is the loveliest hair I have ever seen in my life—and I’ve seen a good deal,” with a humorous little shrug. “And then, of course, your eyes are good, and there’s the fascinating mouth.”

Paddy could not resist a smile. “When you’ve done going over my points?”

“Your points are A1, Patricia,” with admiration in his eyes. “You are a thoroughbred to your finger-tips.”

“Well, don’t be personal, or I shall go. You know I don’t like it.”

“No, don’t go. I’ll try to be good.”

He was silent a moment, and slowly that same air of the previous evening, suggestive of sadness, crept over her face again, and there was a weariness in her attitude as she sat back watching the flames and clasping each arm of the chair with delicate, tapering fingers.

“Paddy,” he said simply, “chuck all those foolish doubts and fancies of yours, and give in. I can’t bear to see you looking forlorn.”

“I will not: I will never give in.”

He squared his shoulders unconsciously, and her fingers gripped the arms of her chair more tightly.

“You can’t help yourself in the end. Why prolong my suspense? Everything is against you. Even Fate is pairing off the others and leaving you and me alone. I know quite well you are lonely—desperately lonely—but it is your own fault. If you would only be sensible and let yourself follow the dictates of your heart, instead of a warped conscience, you could be happy with the rest. I say your heart, because somewhere, hidden away, there’s a soft corner for me you are afraid of. Isn’t that so, Paddy!” and he looked searchingly into her face.

She made no reply, staring into the fire with a perplexed, unhappy expression.

He put one hand over the fingers nearest him and held them fast. She attempted to draw them away, but he retained his hold, and for the moment she went with the flood.

“You have not answered me, mavourneen.”

“I have only one answer—I will not give in.”

“And I say you will. This new loneliness has come to help me. Already you are nearer to me than ever before.”

She drew a long breath.

“It is only because I see we must come to a real understanding once for all. We can’t just go on as we have. That’s chiefly why I remained here now. I want to make you understand.”

She sat up and drew her hand away. “Lawrence, you must leave me in peace. A man cannot honestly want to marry a girl who—who—” Ah! why did she falter?

“Well, little woman! Who—who—!”

“Doesn’t love him,” a trifle lamely.

“Ah, Paddy! you were going to say ‘hate,’ and the lie died on your lips.”

She flushed in the firelight, but continued bravely:

“It makes very little difference. The fact remains that I do not love you and I will not marry you.”

“Marry me first, and I will soon teach you to love.”

She felt her breath coming fitfully and her pulses leaping strangely, and she bit her teeth together to steady herself as she still stared into the fire. Oh! why did he give her that unnerved feeling! What in the world was the matter with her! She felt as if she only waited to hide her face in the cushion. He seemed to understand, for he turned his eyes away, and, leaning forward, softly kissed her hand. “It would be difficult, little woman—you were made for love, and I—well, I somehow seem to just worship you, and that’s all about it.”

Once more she tried to rally herself, pressing her hands to her eyes as if to shut out everything that distracted her from her one purpose.

“It is no use,” resolutely. “Of course, I understand you have a certain power when you like, and that you are so confident because sooner or later you have always won. But that is just what fortifies me now. I don’t want to go into the old arguments. I want you to understand once for all that I _am_ fortified, and I _do_ mean what I say, and not all the loneliness in the world will change me. It is no use talking as you do, and hoping as you do, because there are barriers which neither of us could move, even if we were both agreed. Be sensible and be kind. It would be kind to leave me alone in future, and sensible to be content that you have, to a certain extent, broken down my hate.”

“Content!—_content_!” and there was a low, vibrating passion in his voice that stirred her to her depths. “Content to give in when I have come within sight of my goal! Content to lose my wife for a whim—a prejudice—a quixotic idea of righting a wrong that, has long since been wiped out in the most satisfactory way in the world! Do you hear, Paddy?—_my wife_?—no, by God, because I choose to think of you like that now, I will not be content and I will not give in.”

His violence frightened her, and she shivered a little. He saw it, and, with one of his swift changes, became suddenly penitent.

“There—I didn’t mean to frighten you. You look quite bewildered, and so pale. I am a brute. Poor little woman. Don’t take any notice—don’t remember anything except that I won’t give in, because I know you are not as indifferent to me as you pretend, and also because you are lonely and forlorn.” His voice grew entrancingly gentle, “Patricia the Brave, Patricia the Independent, left out in the cold, and no one to realise that she feels it except the Mourne Lodge Bear. Mavourneen—mavourneen—bears have understanding when they love as I love you.”

Big tears gathered in her eyes and splashed down unheeded on her hands. He leaned nearer, and a tremor passed through her. When he spoke in that enthralling, wholly gentle cadence, it was as though her thoughts and faculties became numb. It was as though solid ground were slipping away beneath her feet—branches breaking to which she was clinging for safety. She could only clutch with a spasmodic grasp at the grim spectre of her old resolve. She hid her face in her hands, staggered at the growing feebleness of her own resistance.

“Paddy—dear little girl—my arms are still aching—_come_.”

She sprang up, white and trembling.

“Oh, Lawrence, please stop—I am not quite myself to-day. Let us go and look for the others.”

He hesitated a moment, then said:

“They don’t want us, and you look too tired to walk. I expect you’ve been lying awake instead of going to sleep the last two or three nights, worrying about future plans. Perhaps it isn’t quite fair to press you any more now. Anyhow, I’ve had more to-day than ever before, and I feel I can afford to wait. If I don’t say any more about the future, dear, will you just sit quietly there and rest until tea-time? See, I’ll give you two more days to get thoroughly readjusted to the new order of events, then I shall come to the Parsonage and claim you. Will you agree to stay here quietly, Paddy, if I promise not to worry you?”

She murmured an assent.

“That’s a sensible little woman. I’ll clean my gun—do you see? I like doing it myself occasionally, and I’ve often thought how I’d love to do those sorts of things in here with you—I fiddling round with my hobbies and you sitting there—no need to say anything, but just to see your skirts, and your little feet, and your hair, and feel in every breath of me, not only that you are there, but that you _belong_ there.” He moved away. “I suppose we’re all family men at heart, directly we pass the frivolous stage and have wearied of banal excitements. I never meant to be anything but a bachelor, but now I want a home and a fireside that is the real thing the same as all the rest of them. I want you—_belonging_ there.

“But I’m trespassing already. If I don’t mind you’ll fly yet—you’re such a wild little bird. Don’t take any notice; you can go to sleep if you like. There’s just half an hour before tea-time. No one will know you are here; they are all too taken up with each other to think of anything else.”

Paddy closed her eyes gratefully, wondering why she felt so deathly tired.