A Strange Coincidence.
“Let me introduce my friends to you,” he said. “This is Pat O’Connor,
of your own proud nationality, known as the lady-killer of Middlesex
Hospital, and this is his brother, Captain O’Connor, of Dargai renown,
now home on leave from India. Gentlemen,” he added wickedly, “allow me
to introduce you to Miss Paddy Adair, the snipe-shooter.”
Paddy blushed again, which was most becoming to her, and Basil could
not help looking candidly surprised, though he forbore from any more
personalities at present. The individual introduced as Captain O’Connor
was sitting next to Paddy, and she was rather glad, as “lady-killers”
were not in her line, and she liked the look of this sunburnt soldier.
She commenced chatting to him at once in her pleasant, friendly way,
and Captain O’Connor was more than pleased. With the delightful
humility of his nation, his first thought was—“Any one would have known
she’s Irish, she’s so nice.”
Presently the topic of India was introduced, that of their respective
Irish counties and the general perfection of the Emerald Isle becoming
a little exhausted, and the Captain told her about the gayeties of the
hill stations, and of Calcutta during the season.
“I stayed two or three weeks in Calcutta,” he told her, “on my way
home, as I knew I should have quite as good a time there as in
England.” He suddenly became thoughtful, as if struck by some memory,
and with equal suddenness turned upon her with the startling remark:
“By the way, Lawrence Blake comes from near Omeath. Do you know him?”
Paddy was so taken aback, she caught her breath with a little gasp
before she answered.
“Yes, very well indeed.”
“How odd,” said the Captain and paused.
“Why?” eyeing him keenly.
He coloured under his sunburn.
“Oh, nothing,” and then after a moment—as if changing his mind—“He’s
engaged to a great friend of mine.”
“Engaged!” exclaimed Paddy, too taken aback to hide her astonishment.
“Yes; why!” and this time it was Captain O’Connor’s turn to look with
keen eyes.
“Oh, nothing!” she answered, “only I’m rather surprised I hadn’t heard
of it. Whom is he engaged to?”
“The Hon. Grant-Carew’s daughter. She’s well known over there.”
“Do you know her?” unable to hide her curiosity.
“Yes, very well.”
“What is she like?”
He paused a moment.
“She’s the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen,” he said at last, with
conviction.
For some minutes Paddy was silent.
“Are you quite sure they’re engaged?” she asked presently.
“Quite. I had it from her own lips, and congratulated the two of them
the same evening. It hadn’t been publicly announced yet, but she had
her own reasons for telling me then. He’s rich, isn’t he? I hope so,
because she’s the sort of girl who ought to have just everything she
wants. He’s a thundering lucky chap,” and poor Guy looked sufficiently
miserable to make his own part in the story very plain.
“Yes, he’s rich,” Paddy answered, “and he has a lovely place near
Omeath. I wonder when they will be married? I don’t like the idea of
somebody fresh coming there at all. I’m sure I shan’t like her.”
“I think you will. She’s very popular in India. Everybody likes her.”
“I’m rather difficult to please,” asserted Miss Paddy with her nose in
the air and Guy O’Connor wondered why she seemed so unnecessarily down
upon both Gwendoline and Lawrence.
At Lancaster Gate the two brothers got off, and Paddy and Basil
proceeded alone. Paddy was very thoughtful, and Basil wanted to talk,
which made her somewhat cross.
“I don’t know what’s happened to you,” he said. “You’re looking real
stunning! I could scarcely believe my eyes when I first saw you.”
“Don’t talk nonsense,” snapped Paddy. “I’ve only got a new dress on,
and there’s nothing so very extraordinary in that.”
“But there is,” he insisted, “it’s all very extraordinary. The last
time I saw you, you were just dressed anyhow, and suggested
milking-stools and hayfields; now you’re—well, you’re a Londoner.”
“I’m _not_,” emphatically. “I wouldn’t be a Londoner for all the
world—grasping, conceited, money-grubbing lot.”
“Whew!” whistled Basil softly. “What’s Captain O’Connor been saying to
get her little temper up?”
“Nothing, only you’re so silly, and I haven’t the patience to talk to
boys.”
Basil proceeded to do a little sum on his fingers, looking abnormally
grave.
“Umph! thirty-five I should think,” he said musingly, “though you
hardly look it. No chicken that! eh—what?”
Paddy was obliged to burst out laughing.
“Do you know I think you’re improving rather,” she told him. “You
aren’t half such a namby-pamby coxcomb as you were when I first came to
London at Christmas.”
“Not easy when you’re about,” he commented, adding, “I think we might
be said to have formed a mutual improvement society. If you only knew
what you looked like that first night! A sort of antediluvian Joan of
Arc! I thought you were the oddest fish I had ever come across.”
“Why Joan of Arc?”
“Because you had war in your eyes from the first moment we met. I
didn’t recognise it so quickly then as I should now, but I couldn’t
help seeing you didn’t mean to waste much cousinly affection on me.”
“I thought you were an awful idiot,” she remarked, with smiling
candour.
“And you tried to show it with more force than politeness; which was
cheek when you weren’t anything much to boast of yourself.”
They had reached the terminus and now climbed down, walking off
homeward together at a brisk pace.
“By the way, how’s that long-legged, broad-shouldered British bull-dog
specimen who came to say good-by before going to South Africa?” he
asked.
“Umph! sour grapes!” with a little snort.
Basil was pleased. He felt as if he were getting a little of his own
back again.
“Feeling a bit love-sick, eh?” he asked.
“If I were, I should think I had caught it from you,” scathingly.
“Oh, I’ve given all that sort of thing up now; but I’m naturally
interested in your affairs, being a cousin. When did he say he should
be back?”
“I didn’t ask him.”
“Ah! I expect he had already told you.”
“He had not.”
“What! not when he asked you if you’d have diamonds or emeralds?”
“He wouldn’t be likely to be so silly, and if you can’t talk sense,
Basil Adair, for heaven’s sake don’t talk at all.”
Basil laughed outright then with great enjoyment.
“It’s such fun to tease you, Paddy,” he said. “You do get so
deliriously wild about nothing. Good-night,” as they reached her door.
“Don’t fling the plates about when you get in, it’s such an expensive
amusement,” and he went off down the road.
All evening Paddy remained moody and preoccupied, revolving in her mind
how to tell Eileen about Lawrence. In the end she waited until
bed-time, and they were alone. She then began a long rigmarole about
the extraordinariness of coincidence, which made Eileen look at her
with wonderment, and question in her own mind if she had a bad headache
or anything. Paddy noticed it, but held on until she was hopelessly and
inextricably mixed up, and then, after all her fine preparation, she
suddenly blurted out:
“Lawrence Blake is engaged. I heard it from a friend of his this
afternoon.”
Eileen turned deathly white and gripped a table near her. She looked as
if she were going to faint.
“Oh, Eily! don’t look like that!” cried poor Paddy. “What a blundering
idiot I am. Oh! don’t take it to heart dreadfully—he isn’t worth
it—really, really, he isn’t.”
It was too late for Eileen to prevaricate, so she just sat down and
leaned her face in her hands and said, “Tell me about it.”
Paddy told her all she knew, and how she had heard of Gwendoline Carew
before and seen her photograph, but how, when she taxed Lawrence, he
had denied there was anything between them.
“I suppose he was just hesitating,” she finished, “and as soon as he
got back to her he made up his mind.”
Eileen said nothing. It was a bitter blow to her, but no words could
ease it now. Paddy, however, slipped down on her knees and threw her
arms round her.
“Eily, Eily!” she cried. “I’ll kill him, I will indeed, if you take it
to heart so. I don’t know how he dare hurt you, but you are well rid of
him; he is just a scoundrel and no gentleman at all, and he would never
have made you happy. I am quite sure he never would. You didn’t know
him so well as I did. I used to hear from Kathleen how queer he was at
home. Sometimes he would scarcely speak for days, and he just damped
everything for them all; but he was so selfish he did not care. And I
hate to tell tales, but I am not sure that he doesn’t drink, Eileen. He
used to at one time. I feel awful to think you are unhappy through him,
but I’d feel more awful still, I think, if you were going to marry
him.”
Eileen kissed her, but still remained silent. What was there to say?
She had loved this man, she had given him of her best, encouraged and
attracted by his attentions, and now at last she knew indeed that what
he had won he did not want, and all he had said meant nothing. She
remembered the incident in the boat—she remembered the half-hour in the
conservatory at the dance—ah! she would not easily forget that; but how
it hurt her, oh! how it _hurt_ that this man she loved had proved
himself fickle and false. She hid her face in her hands—her eyeballs
burnt and scorched, her head throbbed wildly, but she could not cry.
She felt as if all her tears were dried up for good.
“Don’t say anything to mother, Paddy,” she managed to plead at last.
“Keep it just between you and me. By and by I shall feel better about
it, and then I will tell her myself.”
Paddy was crying quietly now; she was devoted to her only sister and
cared as much as if the pain had been hers. For the time all thought of
her own feelings went out of her mind, and with true unselfishness she
pleaded for Jack. But Eileen only shook her head.
“I couldn’t love Jack in that way,” she said with quiet resolve. In her
heart she felt she could never love any one in that way again, but she
did not say so to Paddy. She waited until her sister’s regular
breathing told her she was asleep, and then had it out by herself in
the kindly darkness of the night.
And Paddy went to sleep vowing vengeance black and overwhelming upon
the cause of her sister’s misery.
“He shall suffer for it yet,” she told herself. “I, for one, will never
forgive him; and if I can make him pay, I will.”