"Still?" She sipped the wine: her eyes sparkled.
"Yes; I've still a long opinion of myself."
She put out her hand quickly and pressed his an instant.
"Thank you!" he said huskily. "That was why I said I was sorry to know
that to the world you were still a governess. Of course I was glad,
too."
"I don't understand. I always said you were more Irish than I."
"I was glad you had kept yourself unspotted from the stage-world."
"Good God! You call that unspotted! What are men made of?"
"You were in a bad atmosphere. Your lips caught phrases."
"Nonsense. I'm a crow, not a parrot; a thoroughly sooty bird."
"It was your whiteness that attracted--your morning freshness. You don't
know what vulgarity is."
"You don't know what _I_ am."
"I know you to your delicious finger-tips. And that's why I am sorry you
told me so much. I wanted to ask Nelly O'Neill to marry me. Now she'll
think I'm only asking Eileen O'Keeffe, the daughter of the Irish
gentleman."
Her eyes filled with tears. "No, they both believe you capable of any
folly. Besides, somebody would find out Nelly all the same." And a smile
made a rainbow across her tears.
The arrival of the soup relaxed the tension of emotion. In mid-plate she
suddenly put down her spoon and laughed softly.
"What is it?" he said, not without alarm at her transitions.
"Why, it would be one of those stock theatrical marriages, into which we
entrap titles! Fascinated by a Serio-Comic, poor silly young man. She
played her cards well, that Nelly. Ha! ha! ha! Who would dream of Plato's
dialogues? And you talk of incredible!"
"I am content to be called silly." He tried to take her hand.
"Well, don't be it in public. You will rank with Lord Tippleton who
married Bessie Bilhook, and made a Lady of her--the only ladyhood she's
ever known."
"No, I can't rank with him," he smiled back. "I'm only a Baronet."
"It sounds the same. Lady Maper!" she murmured. "But, oh, how funny!
There'd be two Lady Mapers."
"My mother would be the Dowager Lady--"
"That's funnier still."
He ate in silence. Eileen mused on the picture of the Dowager, her
forefinger to heaven.
"The Royalty--how did that go off?" she said, as he carved the chicken.
"With fireworks. For the reception father built a new house and furnished
it with old furniture. Royalty stopped an hour and a quarter. Oh, she was
wonderful. I mean my mother. Copied your phrases--see what an impression
you made."
"And what have you been doing since you came into the title?"
"Looking for you."
"Nonsense!" She dropped her fork. "But you knew I had people in Ireland."
"I never knew exactly where."
"But what put you on the track of the music-halls?"
"Nothing. I never dreamed of looking for you there. I just went." Master
Harold Lee Carter's phrase flashed back to her memory, "All the chaps
go."
"But what about the Black Hole--I mean the works?"
"They go on," he said. "I just get the profits."
"And how about your Socialism?"
"You taught me the fallacy of it."
"I? Well, that's the cream of the joke."
"Yes. Don't laugh at me, please. When you came into my life, or rather
when you went out of it--yes, I am Irish--I saw that money and station
are the mere veneer of life: the central reality is--Love."
Again her eyes filled with tears, but she remained silent.
"And I saw that I, the master, was really poorer than the majority of my
serfs, with their wives and bairns."
"You are a good fellow," she murmured. "I--I meant to say," she corrected
herself, "what have you done with your clothes?"
"My clothes!" he echoed vaguely, looking down at his spotless
shirt-front.
"Your factory clothes! Wouldn't it be fun to wear them at supper here? Do
you think they could turn you out? I don't see how, legally. Do test the
question. Yes, do. Please do." And she laid her hand on his black sleeve.
"I won't marry you if you don't."
"I did think you were serious to-night, Eileen," he said, disappointed.
"How could you think that, if you read the programme, as you say? 'Nelly
O'Neill, Serio-Comic.' _Allons, ne faites cette tete mine de hibou_.
Admit the world is entirely ridiculous and give me some more champagne."
Her eyes glittered strangely.
A clock struck twelve.
"What, midnight!" she cried, starting up. "I must go."
"No, no;" he took her hand.
"Yes, yes; don't you know, at the stroke of midnight I change back to a
governess."
"Well, the magic didn't work, for that clock's very slow. Sit down,
please."
"You have spoken the omen. I remain Nelly O'Neill and drop Eileen for
ever. _Vogue la galere._"
"Absit omen!" He shuddered.
"Why not? What do you offer me? The love of one man. But my public loves
me as one man--with a much more voluminous love--I love it in return. Why
should I change?"
"Shall we say merely because the public changes? I am constant."
"Yes, you are very wonderful.... And if it's to-morrow already, my fate
will be settled to-day. Drink to my destiny."
"I drink to our destiny," he said, raising his glass.
"No. Only to mine. It will be decided this afternoon."
"You will give me your answer this afternoon?" he cried joyfully.
"I don't say that. It's my answer I shall know this afternoon. Yours you
shall have to-morrow afternoon. You don't mind giving me one day's option
of your hand?"
"One day's! When you have had--"
She interrupted impatiently. "Let bygones be bygones. You shall have a
letter by Monday afternoon. But, oh, Heavens! how could we marry? You
believe in nothing!"
"There's the Registrar."
She pouted: "Dry legality. No flowers, no organ, no feeling sweet and
virginal in a long veil. Oh, dear! Besides, there's mother--"
"I don't object to the church ceremony."
"I'm glad. The law may end marriage. Marriage shouldn't begin with law.
It ought to look beautiful at the start, at least, though one may know
it's a shaky scraw."
"A shaky what?"
"Oh, it's an Irish term for a bit of black bog that looks like lovely
green meadow. You step out so gaily on the glittering grass, and then
squish! squash! down you go to choke in the ooze."
"Don't be so pessimistic. It would be much more sensible to think of
marriage as solid meadow-land after your present scramble over a shaky
what-d'ye-call it."
"True for you! I give you the stage as the shakiest of all scraws. But
where _is_ solid footing to be found? The world itself is only a vast bog
that sucks in the generations."
"I am sorry I asked you to be serious," he said glumly. "You're such a
quick-change artiste."
"I must quickly assume the governess or I'll lose my character," she
said, rising resolutely.
He put her cloak tenderly round her.
"You know I'll take you without a character," he said lightly.
"If I had no character I might be tempted to take you," she retorted
dispiritingly. "Thank you so much for my first supper."