Patricia the Great.
It would be difficult to say when the awakening first came to Lawrence.
Before it came he felt it growing every day. After it came, it seemed
to have been there all along. At first he blinded himself with the
belief that he was only piqued. That it would on the whole be
entertaining to break down her defences and subdue her. He was grateful
to her for giving him even that much new interest in life.
Afterward he faced the situation with entire honesty. He admitted
frankly to himself that he loved her, and he knew, without going any
further, that it was the love of his life. All the past peccadilloes,
entanglements, fancies, were nothing—were mere episodes—nothing seemed
real any longer except that he loved Paddy Adair. He, the graceful
_dilettante_, the highly eligible society man, the casual, cynical
scholar—she, the harum-scarum tom-boy, the fearless Irish
romp—“Paddy-the-next-best-thing.”
When the awakening had come, and he faced the facts squarely, he
believed he had loved her ever since the night of the Omeath dance,
when, in his den, she had flung defiance at him, and marched off with
her head in the air, in lofty disdain.
He reviewed what had transpired between them since, and; his thoughts
were gloomy enough. Most emphatically the defiance and the disdain were
still the dominant notes she was at no further pains now, than then, to
hide her contempt. He knew that since the night of Gwen’s dance she had
resorted to strategy to avoid him. Since his mother and Kathleen
returned home there had been much sight-seeing and entertaining, and
Paddy was continually requisitioned. Yet she contrived to turn up on
the occasions when he had another engagement, and remain absent when he
made a victim of himself for the express purpose of seeing her. Even at
a second dance she had outwitted him.
“Lawrence will take you home,” Doreen had said in his presence, and
Paddy had politely replied: “Thank you.” Yet when he sought her neat
the end of the evening, it was to find she had already gone—undoubtedly
missing two dances rather than accept his escort.
The third time, however, he was one too many for her. He watched from a
safe vantage ground until he saw her give a quiet glance round, and
then surreptitiously slip away. Instantly he accosted Doreen.
“It is raining in torrents,” he told her, “and I don’t want the horses
to wait to-night. I shall go home now, and send a taxi for you and
Kathleen at one o’clock.”
Doreen thought it a little odd, but was immediately claimed by a
partner, and Lawrence gave her no time to reply.
When Paddy slipped cautiously out of the cloak-room and made for the
door, she stopped short before a coated figure unmistakably waiting for
her, and said: “Oh!”
“I’m going to take you home in the carriage,” said Lawrence, with a
resolution against which she felt powerless. “I’ve arranged with the
others to be fetched in a taxi.”
Paddy flashed defiance at him, bit her teeth together, and descended
the steps with the air of an outraged princess. Lawrence reflected that
it was a long way to Shepherd’s Bush, and smiled grimly to
himself—partly at the feelings of his coachman, and partly at the
success of his ruse.
So they bowled along in a comfortable brougham, though Paddy disdained
the padded cushions, and sat bolt upright like a terrier on guard.
Lawrence sat back in his corner and watched her, feeling for the moment
almost content. It was something, at least, to have captured her for a
few minutes and have her all to himself. Her skirts brushed against his
foot, her flowers exhaled a delicate perfume in the carriage, her
cloak, falling open, slipped back a little on to his knee. Lawrence had
reached the stage when a man is thankful for very small mercies, and he
was vaguely thankful for these.
“Am I permitted to express an old friend’s congratulations on your
appearance?” he asked presently, in a voice that held no mockery.
“When I am with you I seem to do nothing but repeat myself,” was the
crushing reply. “How often am I to tell you that what you do, say, or
think, is not of the smallest consequence to me.”
“You could not please me better than by repeating yourself,” a little
whimsically. She stared in front of her.
“Can any one come to your surgery for medicine?” presently. “If I came
with an ill, would you try to administer healing to me?”
“I should try to administer a rebuff that would prevent your ever
coming again.”
He smiled a little. “You couldn’t hit harder than you have; and yet I
still come.”
“That is your colossal obstinacy. Nothing in your life has ever
attracted you except the unattainable. I understand perfectly, that
because I happen to have the hardihood to withstand your overtures, and
the originality,” with finely toned satire, “to prefer your room to
your company, it amuses you to thrust your attentions upon me, just to
see how soon I shall give in and bow down with the rest. You may save
yourself the trouble. I shall never give in. It is only because of your
mother and sisters that I assume any degree of friendliness whatever.”
“And what if I say I will never give in either? I am a strong man,
Paddy, when I make up my mind about anything.”
“You are nothing of the kind. You are a coward, or you would not
persist in taking unfair advantages of me.”
He flushed, but refused to get angry.
“I have taken no unfair advantage to-night. Only yesterday you accepted
my escort before Doreen.”
“Only because I was cornered, and you knew it.”
He was silent for a space, then returned to the charge.
“Why won’t you cry a truce, Paddy?” and his voice was strangely
winsome. “No one is hurt now, and you cannot choose but feel in your
heart that it was a good thing I went away in time.”
To any one less unsophisticated than Paddy, less direct in all her
thoughts and actions, less fearlessly independent, such a tone of voice
must have been dangerously alluring—coming, moreover, from such as he,
with all his advantages, to such as she with all her losses. But Paddy
was a soldier to the backbone. Having thrown down the glove and entered
the combat, she would give and take no quarter. Personal gain was
nothing—personal loss still less—Lawrence was the enemy—the enemy she
had declared war against, and until the conduct that had so infuriated
her was amply atoned for, she would not only stick to her guns, but was
of the stuff to die uselessly beside them for a lost cause. She was her
father over again at the sternest moments of his brilliant career. No
parleying with the enemy—War. The old charm for once fell on heedless
ears. She continued to look rigidly out into the night, with her face
averted, and did not even condescend to reply.
She was thinking with no small satisfaction that he would no doubt soon
be leaving London for a long time. Already arrangements were in
progress for Mrs Blake and the girls to go to Mourne Lodge, and it was
not in the least likely that Lawrence would accompany them. At any time
he had only gone under protest, and that very evening Doreen had
expressed curiosity as to where he would go when they departed. The
thought that she would probably not see him again for months after
to-night, further gladdened and fortified her.
When he spoke again she was ready for him.
“Well?” he asked, in that most beguiling of voices. “Is it to be a
truce, Paddy—for the sake of the old days!”
She stared straight before her.
“It is only when the old days cease to exist there can be a truce
between you and me,” in measured tones. “On account of the old days,
and because they will live to our last gasp, I shall never again be
your friend.”
Then a surprising thing happened—a thing that took her breath away, and
left her speechless. Suddenly, from leaning back in his corner, he
started up, and bent forward, and seized both her hands in his in a
grip of iron.
“I don’t want you to be my friend!” he exclaimed, almost roughly. “Good
God! as if I should put myself out, and go to the lengths I have, just
to gain a friend!” He gave a little harsh laugh. “A friend, indeed!—no,
I don’t want your friendship, listen, Paddy—” the hands gripping hers
tightened, and she saw in the dim light that he was very white, and his
eyes gleamed strangely, and masterful resolve filled his face. “It is a
_wife_ I want—not a friend—and a _wife_ I mean to have. This feud is
nonsense. It is mere obstinacy now. If I behaved wrongly to Eileen I am
sorry. I can’t say any more, and you can see for yourself it was a good
thing we never got engaged. Are you going to let an ancient thing like
that come between us—punish two people for a third one who is unhurt? I
say ‘two,’ because I know I could make you happy, if you would drop
this—this—prejudice, and be your old self again.”
While he was speaking Paddy herself turned very pale and for a moment
there was a bewildered expression in her eyes, as she continued to gaze
fixedly before her. Then once again she rallied her forces for a final
blow. She wrenched her hands from his and faced him squarely.
“You must be mad!” she said. “You can’t know what you are talking
about. How many times am I to tell you that I hate you?—Listen! hate
you—_hate_ you. I do not know what you mean by a prejudice. I know that
you dared to trifle with one of my house—I know that you nearly broke
my sister’s heart—I know that you are heartless, and cruel, and
selfish—and then you talk to me of love and marriage,”—she paused for
very indignation.
“Yes, I do,” he interrupted decisively, “and I shall again, in spite of
your kind summing up.”
“Then thank goodness you are going away, and, at least, we shall not
meet any more for a long time!”
“Who told you I was going away!”
“Don’t you always go away in the summer?—and besides the others are
leaving for Mourne Lodge directly.”
“And what if they are?”
“You must go somewhere.”
“Certainly. I am going to Mourne Lodge with them.”
Paddy was momentarily staggered, then she peered out of the window at
the street. “We are just arriving,” she said, “I can let myself in. You
need not get out in the rain.”
He only gave a low laugh, and took the latchkey out of her hand.
As he opened the door, he looked once more hard into her eyes:
“Good-night, Patricia the Great. We shall meet again at Omeath.”
Paddy went upstairs feeling a little dazed, and then commenced throwing
things about to relieve her feelings.
“How he dare!—how he dare—!” a slipper crashed into the fireplace.
“Anything for novelty. I suppose he thinks he will amuse himself with
me next! He talks as if he imagines I am merely playing—as if a little
coaxing and cajolery—he’s—he’s—bother these tangles!” and the beautiful
hair began to suffer badly from its owner’s perturbed frame of mind.
“But he’ll soon find he’s mistaken,”—the hairbrush missed the window by
half-an-inch, and fell into the water-jug: “Oh! if only I were a man
and could fight him!—But I’m a Dublin Fusilier General’s daughter—and I
ought to know something about fighting!” Over went a chair backward,
bringing down a small table laden with photo frames. “I’ll be even with
him yet—the sweep!” with which she dived under the bedclothes, as if
she were a whole regiment of Fusiliers storming a position.