Paddy-The-Next-Best-Thing. Gertrude Page
father does,” Paddy replied to her hostess’ expostulations, “you’d as soon have thought of putting me down the well, as locking me in a ‘common or garden’ bedroom. There’s always a spout, or a coping, or a bow-window with leads, or something. How do you do, Colonel Masterman?” extending her hand graciously. “I couldn’t be expected to stay upstairs, with such delicious odours coming from the kitchen, could I now?”
“Why, of course not, of course not,” exclaimed her host, who vied with her father in enjoying all her adventures; “you must be very hungry after such an adventure.”
“I should just think I am—ravenous!”
“But my dear, there is a tray all ready for you, and I was just going to send your dinner upstairs.”
“I know you were, and you are very sweet and kind, but I’ve got an odd failing about meals. I simply can’t eat, however hungry I am, if I’m alone. It’s quite terrible, you know,” looking abnormally serious. “I might be ready to eat myself with hunger, and if I’m all alone I couldn’t take one single bite.”
“A lucky thing for yourself,” laughed Colonel Masterman, “though not, perhaps, for anyone who chanced to be with you—for you’d be quite certain to begin on them first.”
“It would depend upon who it was, and if they were nice and plump.”
“Oh, my dear,” exclaimed Mrs. Masterman in a shocked voice; “what a dreadful idea!”
“Then we’ll change the subject,” said Paddy, adding roguishly, “Do you like picture post-cards, Mr. Masterman?”
“I think people are very wanting in taste and very out-of-date who don’t,” he answered promptly; “but perhaps in an out-of-the-way place like this you have not yet seen many?”
“On the contrary,” sweetly, “we have seen so many that we are positively sick of the very sight of them. I’m thinking of starting a society, like the one in New York, for suppressing the tune called ‘Hiawatha,’ only mine will be directed against the post-card craze.”
“But I think they are so beautiful,” said Mrs. Masterman, looking up from her plate with a puzzled expression. “Really! sometimes I can hardly tear myself away from Linton’s, they have such beautiful specimens.”
“No? Well, you must take Mr. Masterman with you to-morrow. He’ll simply love it, and he won’t know how to tear himself away either. Colonel Masterman will have to come by the next train to try and lure you both home again.”
Ted Masterman’s expression had a “wait-till-I-catch-you” air, but she only went off into an airy description of her youthful admirer on the tennis court, which lasted until the two elder ones retired to their books, leaving her and Ted to amuse each other over their coffee in the conservatory. Paddy at once opened fire with a cross-examination.
“So you live in London?” she remarked; “seems to me one might as well live in a coal mine.”
“Oh, come! that’s rather strong; London is a grand place.”
“It’s a good thing you think so, since you live there. I loathe the very name of it.”
“But why?”
“Why? Everything’s why. Look at the dirt, and the smoke, and the smuts,” in a tone of unutterable disgust. “On a fine day the poor sun struggles to shine through the atmosphere, and only succeeds in giving a pale, sickly glow, and on a wet day the clouds appear to literally rest on the house-tops and rain-smuts. If you look up, you see nothing but roofs and chimneys, and if you look down, you see nothing but paving-stones and basements, and if you look round generally, you see little else but pale, sickly, tired people all trampling on each other to live.”
“Didn’t you ever look in the shops?”
“Yes, and I got so sick of them, I just longed to go inside the windows and jumble everything up into a heap anyhow, and then write a big 1 shilling 11 pence farthing over the whole lot.
“The only thing I really enjoyed,” running on, “was the front seat on the top of an omnibus, with a talkative driver. That was always funny, whether he discoursed on politics, or religion, or the aristocracy; or expressed himself forcibly on motor-cars and the ‘Twopenny Tube.’ Do you use the Tube much?”
“Nearly every day of my life.”
“Goodness!—and you still live! Don’t you think Dante must wish he had thought of a Tube for his Inferno? It must be like Heaven to come here and sniff our lovely mountain air all day long. I wonder you don’t go about with your nose in the air too busy sniffing to speak.”
“It reminds one of what one might imagine Heaven, in various ways,” he said, with smiling innuendo.
“Eileen and mother might stand for the angels,” she ran on, “and Jack for the prodigal son or penitent sinner.”
“And where would you be?”
“Well, I guess I’d be most useful helping Saint Peter keep the door,” looking wicked, “but perhaps I shouldn’t be admitted at all.
“Not but that I’d stand as good a chance as Jack,” she finished with a decisive air.
“Is Jack Mr. O’Hara?”
“Yes. He lives at the Parsonage next door to us.”
“And you’ve known him all your life?”
“Every single bit of it. I can remember hitting him in the face, and kicking at him generally, as soon as I can remember anything.”
“Then I suppose you’ve made up for it all since.”
“Oh, dear no! except to hit harder as I grew stronger.”
“He’s very handsome,” said Ted a little thoughtfully. “He’s Irish,” replied Paddy promptly.
“Ah, yes! I forgot,” slyly; “it covers a multitude of sins, doesn’t it, to be Irish?”
“We usually call them virtues!” she rapped out, quick as lightning, and then they both laughed, and a moment later the Colonel was heard calling to them to come and play Bridge with him.
The following morning they sailed back together, and Ted was made to remain, much to his delight, for the rest of the day. They played tennis all the afternoon, and then, after having tea on the lawn, rowed across the Loch to Warrenpoint to listen to the Pierrots. When they came to sit quietly, however, everything did not continue quite so smoothly. Jack had been playing tennis with Paddy most of the afternoon, because it made more even games, but now he manifested a marked desire to talk to Eileen, just as Ted, who had been playing with Eileen, wanted now to talk to Paddy. With the usual contrariness of events, Eileen was perfectly indifferent which of the two she talked to, but Paddy, a little upset by her old playfellow’s growing predilection for her quiet sister, wanted to talk to Jack.
The time had hardly come yet for Paddy to realise just why she was upset. She only knew that Jack somehow stood alone in her little world, and felt vaguely that no future could be happy without him.
For a little while she succeeded in keeping the conversation general, but as Eileen grew more and more dreamy, and Jack silent, she finally tossed her head, told them they were the dullest pair she had ever the misfortune to be out with, and went for a walk along the front with Ted.
Meanwhile, left to themselves, Jack again introduced a certain topic constantly in his mind.
“The Blakes came back to-day,” he said suddenly; “they crossed last night.”
Eileen gave a little start, and was silent a moment.
“How do you know?” she asked at last.
“Barrett, at the station, told me they were in the boat train.”
“How