Paddy The Next Best Thing Part 17

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 att.i.tude 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.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

THE CONSERVATORY AND THE DEN.

The fountain had a little tinkling, singing sound, and there was a delicious odour of flowers, which mingled entrancingly with the shaded lights and graceful bending ferns. Eileen felt it rather than saw it, as though all her senses had become one deep appreciation and enjoyment.

Long afterward, when recalling every moment of that quiet half-hour, she was conscious of exactly the light, and the scent, and the sound, and would shrink away from certain hot-house flowers as if they hurt her.

But for the present there was only a deep content in her heart and a vague dream of happiness, shedding a soft light over all her future. In all their intercourse, it seemed to her that Lawrence had never been quite so fascinating before, and though now and then he seemed to draw himself up sharply and suddenly adopt a very matter-of-fact tone, she scarcely heeded it. In truth, though Lawrence meant to enjoy his half-hour to the full, he had no intention of becoming lover-like; and when he found her charm growing too much for him, he did indeed pull himself up with a jerk and try to resist. Yet he could not bring himself to be sufficiently honest to speak of his approaching departure for India. He felt there was time enough, and if he told her now, he might be led into explanations that would be troublesome.

And Lawrence hated anything at all disturbing or troublesome, or in the nature of an explanation.

Eileen was not blind to his failings, and many a time his callousness had hurt her, but, like so many good women, she had a boundless faith in the power of goodness, and believed she could make anything of him once he loved her. In this she was doubtless right, but she was too pure-minded and honest herself to perceive double-dealing in others, and she did not realise that a man like Lawrence might act one thing and feel another.

_If_ he had loved her, she might have made anything of him; yet--but what if he did not? Lawrence admired her beauty and respected her goodness, but he did not love her--he only pretended to himself that he liked her better than any one else when they happened to be together.

Possibly, if "love" came at will, he would have chosen then and there to love her with his whole heart and make her his wife. But Love is a fugitive, wild thing--bold as a robin, and timid as a lark--and usually none can fit any "why" or "wherefore" to its erratic wanderings. And hand in hand with Love is usually Pain--pain against which we cry out blindly, and wrestle and struggle to escape--childishly indifferent to the teaching of the Ages--that Pain alone is the soil in which grow Strength, and Courage, and Joy.

In the worst hour of her suffering afterward, Eileen was yet, in a sense, happier and richer than the man who caused the pain.

But now the fountain tinkled and the lights glowed softly, and the scent of hot-house flowers filled the air.