There was a young moon in the southwest--a slender tracery in the
April twilight--curved high over his right shoulder as he walked
northward and homeward through the flare of Broadway.
His thoughts were still occupied with the pleasant excitement of his
encounter with Thessalie Dunois; his mind and heart still responded to
the delightful stimulation. Out of an already half-forgotten realm of
romance, where, often now, he found it increasingly difficult to
realise that he had lived for five happy years, a young girl had
suddenly emerged as bodily witness, to corroborate, revive, and
refresh his fading faith in the reality of what once had been.
Five years in France!--France with its clear sun and lovely moon; its
silver-grey cities, its lilac haze, its sweet, deep greenness, its
atmosphere of living light!--France, the dwelling-place of God in all
His myriad aspects--in all His protean forms! France, the sanctuary of
Truth and all her ancient and her future liberties; France, blossoming
domain of Love in Love's million exquisite transfigurations, wherein
only the eye of faith can recognise the winged god amid his
camouflage!
* * * * *
Wine-strong winds of the Western World, and a pitiless Western sun
which etches every contour with terrible precision, leaving nothing to
imagination--no delicate mystery to rest and shelter souls--had swept
away and partly erased from his mind the actuality of those five past
years.
Already that past, of which he had been a part, was becoming
disturbingly unreal to him. Phantoms haunted its ever-paling sunlight;
its scenes were fading; its voices grew vague and distant; its hushed
laughter dwindled to a whisper, dying like a sigh.
Then, suddenly, against that misty tapestry of tinted spectres,
appeared Thessalie Dunois in the flesh!--straight out of the
phantom-haunted void had stepped this glowing thing of life! Into the
raw reek and familiar dissonance of Broadway she had vanished. Small
wonder that he had followed her to keep in touch with the vanishing
past, as a sleeper, waking against his will, strives still to grasp
the fragile fabric of a happy dream.
Yet, in spite of Thessalie, in spite of dreams, in spite of his own
home-coming, and the touch of familiar pavements under his own feet,
the past, to Barres, was utterly dead, the present strange and unreal,
the future obscure and all aflame behind a world afire with war.
For two years, now, no human mind in America had been able to adjust
itself to the new heaven and the new earth which had sprung into lurid
being at the thunderclap of war.
All things familiar had changed in the twinkling of an eye; all former
things had passed away, leaving the stunned brain of humanity dulled
under the shock.
Slowly, by degrees, the world was beginning to realise that the
civilisation of Christ was being menaced once again by a resurgence
from that ancient land of legend where the wild Hun denned;--that
again the endless hordes of barbarians were rushing in on Europe out
of their Eastern fastnesses--hordes which filled the shrinking skies
with their clamour, vaunting the might of Baal, cheering their
antichrist, drenching the knees of their own red gods with the blood
of little children.
It seemed impossible for Americans to understand that these things
could be--were really true--that the horrors the papers printed were
actualities happening to civilised people like themselves and their
neighbours.
Out of their own mouths the German tribes thundered their own disgrace
and condemnation, yet America sat dazed, incredulous, motionless.
Emperor and general, professor and junker, shouted at the top of their
lungs the new creed, horrible as the Black Mass, reversing every
precept taught by Christ.
Millions of Teuton mouths cheered fiercely for the new
religion--Frightfulness; worshipped with frantic yells the new
trinity--Wotan, Kaiser and Brute Strength.
Stunned, blinded, deafened, the Western World, still half-paralysed,
stirred stiffly from its inertia. Slowly, mechanically, its arteries
resumed their functions; the reflex, operating automatically, started
trade again in its old channels; old habits were timidly resumed;
minds groped backward, searching for severed threads which connected
yesterday with to-day--groped, hunted, found nothing, and, perplexed,
turned slowly toward the smoke-choked future for some reason for it
all--some outlook.
There was no explanation, no outlook--nothing save dust and flame and
the din of Teutonic hordes trampling to death the Son of Man.
So America moved about her worn, deep-trodden and familiar ways, her
mind slowly clearing from the cataclysmic concussion, her power of
vision gradually returning, adjusting itself, little by little, to
this new heaven and new earth and this hell entirely new.
The _Lusitania_ went down; the Great Republic merely quivered. Other
ships followed; only a low murmur of pain came from the Western
Colossus.
But now, after the second year, through the thickening nightmare the
Great Republic groaned aloud; and a new note of menace sounded in her
drugged and dreary voice.
And the thick ears of the Hun twitched and he paused, squatting
belly-deep in blood, to listen.
* * * * *
Barres walked homeward. Somewhere along in the 40's he turned eastward
into one of those cross-streets originally built up of brownstone
dwelling houses, and now in process of transformation into that
architectural and commercial miscellany which marks the transition
stage of the metropolis anywhere from Westchester to the sea.
Altered for business purposes, basements displayed signs and
merchandise of bootmakers, dealers in oriental porcelains, rare
prints, silverware; parlour windows modified into bay windows, sheeted
with plate-glass, exposed, perhaps, feminine headgear, or an expensive
model gown or two, or the sign of a real-estate man, or of an
upholsterer.
Above the parlour floors lived people of one sort or another;
furnished and unfurnished rooms and suites prevailed; and the
brownstone monotony was already indented along the building line by
brand-new constructions of Indiana limestone, behind the glittering
plate-glass of which were to be seen reticent displays of artistic
furniture, modern and antique oil paintings, here and there the
lace-curtained den of some superior ladies' hair-dresser, where
beautifying also was accomplished at a price, alas!
Halfway between Sixth Avenue and Fifth, on the north side of the
street, an enterprising architect had purchased half a dozen squatty,
three-storied houses, set back from the sidewalk behind grass-plots.
These had been lavishly stuccoed and transformed into abodes for those
irregulars in the army of life known as "artists."
In the rear the back fences had been levelled; six corresponding
houses on the next street had been purchased; a sort of inner court
established, with a common grass-plot planted with trees and
embellished by a number of concrete works of art, battered statues,
sundials, and well-curbs.
Always the army of civilisation trudges along screened, flanked, and
tagged after by life's irregulars, who cannot or will not conform to
routine. And these are always roaming around seeking their own
cantonments, where, for a while, they seem content to dwell at the end
of one more aimless etape through the world--not in regulation
barracks, but in regions too unconventional, too inconvenient to
attract others.
Of this sort was the collection of squatty houses, forming a
"community," where, in the neighbourhood of other irregulars, Garret
Barres dwelt; and into the lighted entrance of which he now turned,
still exhilarated by his meeting with Thessalie Dunois.
The architectural agglomeration was known as Dragon Court--a faience
Fu-dog above the electric light over the green entrance door
furnishing that priceless idea--a Fu-dog now veiled by mesh-wire to
provide against the indiscretions of sparrows lured thither by
housekeeping possibilities lurking among the dense screens of Japanese
ivy covering the facade.
Larry Soane, the irresponsible superintendent, always turned gardener
with April's advent in Dragon Court, contributions from its denizens
enabling him to pepper a few flower-beds with hyacinths and tulips,
and later with geraniums. These former bulbs had now gratefully
appeared in promising thickets, and Barres saw the dark form of the
handsome, reckless-looking Irishman fussing over them in the
lantern-lit dusk, while his little daughter, Dulcie, kneeling on the
dim grass, caressed the first blue hyacinth blossom with thin,
childish fingers.
Barres glanced into his letter-box behind the desk, above which a
drop-light threw more shadows than illumination. Little Dulcie Soane
was supposed to sit under it and emit information, deliver and receive
letters, pay charges on packages, and generally supervise things when
she was not attending school.
There were no letters for the young man. He examined a package, found
it contained his collars from the laundry, tucked them under his left
arm, and walked to the door looking out upon the dusky interior
court.
"Soane," he said, "your garden begins to look very fine." He nodded
pleasantly to Dulcie, and the child responded to his friendly greeting
with the tired but dauntless smile of the young who are missing those
golden years to which all childhood has a claim.
Dulcie's three cats came strolling out of the dusk across the lamplit
grass--a coal black one with sea-green eyes, known as "The Prophet,"
and his platonic mate, white as snow, and with magnificent azure-blue
eyes which, in white cats, usually betokens total deafness. She was
known as "The Houri" to the irregulars of Dragon Court. The third cat,
unanimously but misleadingly christened "Strindberg" by the dwellers
in Dragon Court, has already crooked her tortoise-shell tail and was
tearing around in eccentric circles or darting halfway up trees in a
manner characteristic, and, possibly accounting for the name, if not
for the sex.
"Thim cats of the kid's," observed Soane, "do be scratchin' up the
plants all night long--bad cess to thim! Barrin' thim three omadhauns
yonder, I'd show ye a purty bed o' poisies, Misther Barres. But
Sthrin'berg, God help her, is f'r diggin' through to China."
Dulcie impulsively caressed the Prophet, who turned his solemn,
incandescent eyes on Barres. The Houri also looked at him, then,
intoxicated by the soft spring evening, rolled lithely upon the new
grass and lay there twitching her snowy tail and challenging the stars
out of eyes that matched their brilliance.
Dulcie got up and walked slowly across the grass to where Barres
stood:
"May I come to see you this evening?" she asked, diffidently, and with
a swift, sidelong glance toward her father.
"Ah, then, don't be worritin' him!" grumbled Soane. "Hasn't Misther
Barres enough to do, what with all thim idees he has slitherin' in his
head, an' all the books an' learnin' an' picters he has to think
of--whithout the likes of you at his heels every blessed minute, day
an' night!----"
"But he always lets me--" she remonstrated.
"G'wan, now, and lave the poor gentleman be! Quit your futtherin' an'
muttherin'. G'wan in the house, ye little scut, an' see what there is
f'r ye to do!----"
"What's the matter with you, Soane?" interrupted Barres good-humouredly.
"Of course she can come up if she wants to. Do you feel like paying me
a visit, Dulcie, before you go to bed?"
"Yes," she nodded diffidently.
"Well, come ahead then, Sweetness! And whenever you want to come you
say so. Your father knows well enough I like to have you."
He smiled at Dulcie; the child's shy preference for his society always
had amused him. Besides, she was always docile and obedient; and she
was very sensitive, too, never outwearing her welcome in his studio,
and always leaving without a murmur when, looking up from book or
drawing he would exclaim cheerfully: "Now, Sweetness! Time's up! Bed
for yours, little lady!"
It had been a very gradual acquaintance between them--more than two
years in developing. From his first pleasant nod to her when he first
came to live in Dragon Court, it had progressed for a few months,
conservatively on her part, and on his with a detached but kindly
interest born of easy sympathy for youth and loneliness.
But he had no idea of the passionate response he was stirring in the
motherless, neglected child--of what hunger he was carelessly
stimulating, what latent qualities and dormant characteristics he was
arousing.
Her appearance, one evening, in her night-dress at his studio doorway,
accompanied by her three cats, began to enlighten him in regard to her
mental starvation. Tremulous, almost at the point of tears, she had
asked for a book and permission to remain for a few moments in the
studio. He had rung for Selinda, ordered fruit, cake, and a glass of
milk, and had installed Dulcie upon the sofa with a lapful of books.
That was the beginning.
But Barres still did not entirely understand what particular magnet
drew the child to his studio. The place was full of beautiful things,
books, rugs, pictures, fine old furniture, cabinets glimmering with
porcelains, ivories, jades, Chinese crystals. These all, in minutest
detail, seemed to fascinate the girl. Yet, after giving her permission
to enter whenever she desired, often while reading or absorbed in
other affairs, he became conscious of being watched; and, glancing up,
would frequently surprise her sitting there very silently, with an
open book on her knees, and her strange grey eyes intently fixed on
him.
Then he would always smile and say something friendly; and usually
forget her the next moment in his absorption of whatever work he had
under way.
Only one other man inhabiting Dragon Court ever took the trouble to
notice or speak to the child--James Westmore, the sculptor. And he was
very friendly in his vigorous, jolly, rather boisterous way, catching
her up and tossing her about as gaily and irresponsibly as though she
were a rag doll; and always telling her he was her adopted godfather
and would have to chastise her if she ever deserved it. Also, he was
always urging her to hurry and grow up, because he had a wedding
present for her. And though Dulcie's smile was friendly, and
Westmore's nonsense pleased the shy child, she merely submitted, never
made any advance.
* * * * *
Barres's menage was accomplished by two specimens of mankind, totally
opposite in sex and colour; Selinda, a blonde, slant-eyed, and very
trim Finn, doing duty as maid; and Aristocrates W. Johnson, lately
employed in the capacity of waiter on a dining-car by the New York
Central Railroad--tall, dignified, graceful, and Ethiopian--who cooked
as daintily as a debutante trifling with culinary duty, and served at
table with the languid condescension of a dilettante and wealthy
amateur of domestic arts.
* * * * *
Barres ascended the two low, easy flights of stairs and unlocked his
door. Aristocrates, setting the table in the dining-room, approached
gracefully and relieved his master of hat, coat, and stick.
Half an hour later, a bath and fresh linen keyed up his already
lively spirits; he whistled while he tied his tie, took a critical
look at himself, and, dropping both hands into the pockets of his
dinner jacket, walked out into the big studio, which also was his
living-room.
There was a piano there; he sat down and rattled off a rollicking air
from the most recent spring production, beginning to realise that he
was keyed up for something livelier than a solitary dinner at home.
His hands fell from the keys and he swung around on the piano stool
and looked into the dining-room rather doubtfully.
"Aristocrates!" he called.
The tall pullman butler sauntered gracefully in.
Barres gave him a telephone number to call. Aristocrates returned
presently with the information that the lady was not at home.
"All right. Try Amsterdam 6703. Ask for Miss Souval."
But Miss Souval, also, was out.
Barres possessed a red-leather covered note-book; he went to his desk
and got it; and under his direction Aristocrates called up several
numbers, reporting adversely in every case.
It was a fine evening; ladies were abroad or preparing to fulfil
engagements wisely made on such a day as this had been. And the more
numbers he called up the lonelier the young man began to feel.
Thessalie had not given him either her address or telephone number. It
would have been charming to have her dine with him. He was now
thoroughly inclined for company. He glanced at the empty dining-room
with aversion.
"All right; never mind," he said, dismissing Aristocrates, who receded
as lithely as though leading a cake-walk.
"The devil," muttered the young fellow. "I'm not going to dine here
alone. I've had too happy a day of it."
He got up restlessly and began to pace the studio. He knew he could
get some man, but he didn't want one. However, it began to look like
that or a solitary dinner.
So after a few more moments' scowling cogitation he went out and down
the stairs, with the vague idea of inviting some brother painter--any
one of the regular irregulars who inhabited Dragon Court.
Dulcie sat behind the little desk near the door, head bowed, her thin
hands clasped over the closed ledger, and in her pallid face the
expressionless dullness of a child forgotten.
"Hello, Sweetness!" he said cheerfully.
She looked up; a slight colour tinted her cheeks, and she smiled.
"What's the matter, Dulcie?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing? That's a very dreary malady--nothing. You look lonely. Are
you?"
"I don't know."
"You don't know whether you are lonely or not?" he demanded.
"I suppose I am," she ventured, with a shy smile.
"Where is your father?"
"He went out."
"Any letters for me--or messages?"
"A man--he had one eye--came. He asked who you are."
"What?"
"I think he was German. He had only one eye. He asked your name."
"What did you say?"
"I told him. Then he went away."
Barres shrugged:
"Somebody who wants to sell artists' materials," he concluded. Then he
looked at the girl: "So you're lonely, are you? Where are your three
cats? Aren't they company for you?"
"Yes...."
"Well, then," he said gaily, "why not give a party for them? That
ought to amuse you, Dulcie."
The child still smiled; Barres walked on past her a pace or two,
halted, turned irresolutely, arrived at some swift decision, and came
back, suddenly understanding that he need seek no further--that he had
discovered his guest of the evening at his very elbow.
"Did you and your father have your supper, Dulcie?"
"My father went out to eat at Grogan's."
"How about you?"
"I can find something."
"Why not dine with me?" he suggested.
The child stared, bewildered, then went a little pale.
"Shall we have a dinner party for two--you and I, Dulcie? What do you
say?"
She said nothing, but her big grey eyes were fixed on him in a passion
of inquiry.
"A real party," he repeated. "Let the people get their own mail and
packages until your father returns. Nobody's going to sneak in,
anyway. Or, if that won't do, I'll call up Grogan's and tell your
father to come back because you are going to dine in my studio with
me. Do you know the telephone number? Very well; get Grogan's for me.
I'll speak to your father."
Dulcie's hand trembled on the receiver as she called up Grogan's;
Barres bent over the transmitter:
"Soane, Dulcie is going to take dinner in my studio with me. You'll
have to come back on duty, when you've eaten." He hung up, looked at
Dulcie and laughed.
"I wanted company as much as you did," he confessed. "Now, go and put
on your prettiest frock, and we'll be very grand and magnificent. And
afterward we'll talk and look at books and pretty things--and maybe
we'll turn on the Victrola and I'll teach you to dance--" He had
already begun to ascend the stairs:
"In half an hour, Dulcie!" he called back; "--and you may bring the
Prophet if you like.... Shall I ask Mr. Westmore to join us?"
"I'd rather be all alone with you," she said shyly.
He laughed and ran on up the stairs.
* * * * *
In half an hour the electric bell rang very timidly. Aristocrates,
having been instructed and rehearsed, and, loftily condescending to
his role in a kindly comedy to be played seriously, announced: "Miss
Soane!" in his most courtly manner.
Barres threw aside the evening paper and came forward, taking both
hands of the white and slightly frightened child.
"Aristocrates ought to have announced the Prophet, too," he said
gaily, breaking the ice and swinging Dulcie around to face the open
door again.
The Prophet entered, perfectly at ease, his eyes of living jade
shining, his tail urbanely hoisted.
Dulcie ventured to smile; Barres laughed outright; Aristocrates
surveyed the Prophet with toleration mingled with a certain respect.
For a black cat is never without occult significance to a gentleman of
colour.
With Dulcie's hand still in his, Barres led her into the living-room,
where, presently, Aristocrates brought a silver tray upon which was
a glass of iced orange juice for Dulcie, and a "Bronnix," as
Aristocrates called it, for the master.
"To your health and good fortune in life, Dulcie," he said politely.
The child gazed mutely at him over her glass, then, blushing, ventured
to taste her orange juice.
When she finished, Barres drew her frail arm through his and took her
out, seating her. Ceremonies began in silence, and the master of the
place was not quite sure whether the flush on Dulcie's face indicated
unhappy embarrassment or pleasure.
He need not have worried: the child adored it all. The Prophet came in
and gravely seated himself on a neighbouring chair, whence he could
survey the table and seriously inspect each course.
"Dulcie," he said, "how grown-up you look with your bobbed hair put
up, and your fluffy gown."
She lifted her enchanted eyes to him:
"It is my first communion dress.... I've had to make it longer for a
graduation dress."
"Oh, that's so; you're graduating this summer!"
"Yes."
"And what then?"
"Nothing." She sighed unconsciously and sat very still with folded
hands, while Aristocrates refilled her glass of water.
She no longer felt embarrassed; her gravity matched Aristocrates's;
she seriously accepted whatever was offered or set before her, but
Barres noticed that she ate it all, merely leaving on her plate, with
inculcated and mathematical precision, a small portion as concession
to good manners.
They had, toward the banquet's end, water ices, bon-bons, French
pastry, and ice cream. And presently a slight and blissful sigh of
repletion escaped the child's red lips. The symptoms were satisfactory
but unmistakable; Dulcie was perfectly feminine; her capacity had
proven it.
The Prophet's stately self-control in the fragrant vicinity of
nourishment was now to be rewarded: Barres conducted Dulcie to the
studio and installed her among cushions upon a huge sofa. Then,
lighting a cigarette, he dropped down beside her and crossed one knee
over the other.
"Dulcie," he said in his lazy, humorous way, "it's a funny old world
any way you view it."
"Do you think it is always funny?" inquired the child, her deep, grey
eyes on his face.
He smiled:
"Yes, I do; but sometimes the joke in on one's self. And then,
although it is still a funny world, from the world's point of view,
you, of course, fail to see the humour of it.... I don't suppose you
understand."
"I do," nodded the child, with the ghost of a smile.
"Really? Well, I was afraid I'd been talking nonsense, but if you
understand, it's all right."
They both laughed.
"Do you want to look at some books?" he suggested.
"I'd rather listen to you."
He smiled:
"All right. I'll begin at this corner of the room and tell you about
the things in it." And for a while he rambled lazily on about old
French chairs and Spanish chests, and the panels of Mille Fleur
tapestry which hung behind them; the two lovely pre-Raphael panels in
their exquisite ancient frames; the old Venetian velvet covering
triple choir-stalls in the corner; the ivory-toned marble figure on
its wood and compos pedestal, where tendrils and delicate foliations
of water gilt had become slightly irridescent, harmonising with the
patine on the ancient Chinese garniture flanking a mantel clock of
dullest gold.
About these things, their workmanship, the histories of their times,
he told her in his easy, unaccented voice, glancing sideways at her
from time to time to note how she stood it.
But she listened, fascinated, her gaze moving from the object
discussed to the man who discussed it; her slim limbs curled under
her, her hands clasped around a silken cushion made from the robe of
some Chinese princess.
Lounging there beside her, amused, humorously flattered by her
attention, and perhaps a little touched, he held forth a little
longer.
"Is it a nice party, so far, Dulcie?" he concluded with a smile.
She flushed, found no words, nodded, and sat with lowered head as
though pondering.
"What would you rather do if you could do what you want to in the
world, Dulcie?"
"I don't know."
"Think a minute."
She thought for a while.
"Live with you," she said seriously.
"Oh, Dulcie! That is no sort of ambition for a growing girl!" he
laughed; and she laughed, too, watching his every expression out of
grey eyes that were her chiefest beauty.
"You're a little too young to know what you want yet," he concluded,
still smiling. "By the time that bobbed mop of red hair grows to a
proper length, you'll know more about yourself."
"Do you like it up?" she enquired naively.
"It makes you look older."
"I want it to."
"I suppose so," he nodded, noticing the snowy neck which the new
coiffure revealed. It was becoming evident to him that Dulcie had her
own vanities--little pathetic vanities which touched him as he glanced
at the reconstructed first communion dress and the drooping hyacinth
pinned at the waist, and the cheap white slippers on a foot as
slenderly constructed as her long and narrow hands.
"Did your mother die long ago, Dulcie?"
"Yes."
"In America?"
"In Ireland."
"You look like her, I fancy--" thinking of Soane.
"I don't know."
Barres had heard Soane hold forth in his cups on one or two
occasions--nothing more than the vague garrulousness of a Celt made
more loquacious by the whiskey of one Grogan--something about his
having been a gamekeeper in his youth, and that his wife--"God rest
her!"--might have held up her head with "anny wan o' thim in th' Big
House."
Recollecting this, he idly wondered what the story might have been--a
young girl's perverse infatuation for her father's gamekeeper,
perhaps--a handsome, common, ignorant youth, reckless and irresponsible
enough to take advantage of her--probably some such story--resembling
similar histories of chauffeurs, riding-masters, grooms, and
coachmen at home.
The Prophet came noiselessly into the studio, stopped at sight of his
little mistress, twitched his tail reflectively, then leaped onto a
carved table and calmly began his ablutions.
Barres got up and wound up the Victrola. Then he kicked aside a rug or
two.
"This is to be a real party, you know," he remarked. "You don't dance,
do you?"
"Yes," she said diffidently, "a little."
"Oh! That's fine!" he exclaimed.
Dulcie got off the sofa, shook out her reconstructed gown. When he
came over to where she stood, she laid her hand in his almost
solemnly, so overpowering had become the heavenly sequence of events.
For the rite of his hospitality had indeed become a rite to her. Never
before had she stood in awe, enthralled before such an altar as this
man's hearthstone. Never had she dreamed that he who so wondrously
served it could look at such an offering as hers--herself.
But the miracle had happened; altar and priest were accepting her; she
laid her hand, which trembled, in his; gave herself to his guidance
and to the celestial music, scarcely seeing, scarcely hearing his
voice.
"You dance delightfully," he was saying; "you're a born dancer,
Dulcie. I do it fairly well myself, and I ought to know."
He was really very much surprised. He was enjoying it immensely. When
the Victrola gave up the ghost he wound it again and came back to
resume. Under his suggestions and tutelage, they tried more intricate
steps, devious and ambitious, and Dulcie, unterrified by terpsichorean
complications, surmounted every one with his whispered coaching and
expert aid.
Now it came to a point where time was not for him. He was too
interested, enjoying it too genuinely.
Sometimes, when they paused to enable him to resurrect the defunct
music in the Victrola, they laughed at the Prophet, who sat upon the
ancient carved table, gravely surveying them. Sometimes they rested
because he thought she ought to--himself a trifle pumped--only to
find, to his amazement, that he need not be solicitous concerning
her.
* * * * *
A tall and ancient clock ringing midnight from clear, uncompromising
bells, brought Barres to himself.
"Good Lord!" he exclaimed, "this won't do! Dear child, I'm having a
wonderful time, but I've got to deliver you to your father!"
He drew her arm through his, laughingly pretending horror and haste;
she fled lightly along beside him as he whisked her through the hall
and down the stairs.
A candle burned on the desk. Soane sat there, asleep, and odorous of
alcohol, his flushed face buried in his arms.
But Soane was what is known as a "sob-souse"; never ugly in his cups,
merely inclined to weep over the immemorial wrongs of Ireland.
He woke up when Barres touched his shoulder, rubbed his swollen eyes
and black, curly head, gazed tragically at his daughter:
"G'wan to bed, ye little scut!" he said, getting to his feet with a
terrific yawn.
Barres took her hand:
"We've had a wonderful party, haven't we, Sweetness?"
"Yes," whispered the child.
The next instant she was gone like a ghost, through the dusky,
whitewashed corridor where distorted shadows trembled in the
candlelight.
"Soane," said Barres, "this won't do, you know. They'll sack you if
you keep on drinking."
The man, not yet forty, a battered, middle-aged by-product of hale and
reckless vigour, passed his hands over his temples with the dignity
of a Hibernian Hamlet:
"The harp that wanst through Tara's halls--" he began; but memory
failed; and two tears--by-products, also, of Grogan's whiskey--sparkled
in his reproachful eyes.
"I'm merely telling you," remarked Barres. "We all like you, Soane,
but the landlord won't stand for it."
"May God forgive him," muttered Soane. "Was there ever a landlord but
he was a tyrant, too?"
Barres blew out the candle; a faint light above the Fu-dog outside,
over the street door, illuminated the stone hall.
"You ought to keep sober for your little daughter's sake," insisted
Barres in a low voice. "You love her, don't you?"
"I do that!" said Soane--"God bless her and her poor mother, who could
hould up her pretty head with anny wan till she tuk up with th' like
o' me!"
His brogue always increased in his cups; devotion to Ireland and a
lofty scorn of landlords grew with both.
"You'd better keep away from Grogan's," remarked Barres.
"I had a bite an' a sup at Grogan's. Is there anny harrm in that,
sorr?"
"Cut out the 'sup,' Larry. Cut out that gang of bums at Grogan's, too.
There are too many Germans hanging out around Grogan's these days. You
Sinn Feiners or Clan-na-Gael, or whatever you are, had better manage
your own affairs, anyway. The old-time Feinans stood on their own
sturdy legs, not on German beer-skids."
"Wisha then, sorr, d'ye mind th' ould song they sang in thim days:
"_Then up steps Bonyparty
An' takes me by the hand,
And how is ould Ireland,
And how does she shtand?
It's a poor, disthressed country
As ever yet was seen,
And they're hangin' men and women
For the wearing of the green!_
_Oh, the wearing of the_----"
"That'll do," said Barres drily. "Do you want to wake the house? Don't
go to Grogan's and talk about Ireland to any Germans. I'll tell you
why: we'll probably be at war with Germany ourselves within a year,
and that's a pretty good reason for you Irish to keep clear of all
Germans. Go to bed!"