the meeting between eileen creagh and stella comerford brought the flying dimple to lady o'gara's cheek. she watched them as though they were young children meeting in the shy yet uncompromising atmosphere of the nursery.
stella was inclined to be friendly and then drew back, chilled by something she detected in eileen's manner. eileen was indifferently polite.
terry and his father were out when the party arrived for luncheon, but they returned very soon afterwards. lady o'gara's attention was otherwise absorbed so that she did not notice the sudden delighted friendliness in terry towards stella nor the quick withdrawal into sullenness which spoilt eileen's looks for the luncheon-hour.
lady o'gara was wondering about her husband. why should he have looked so startled when his eye fell on stella? he had known that she was coming. to lady o'gara's anxious eye sir shawn looked pale. he had been pale of late, with curious shadows about his face, but when she had asked him if he was not feeling well he had answered with an air of lightness that he felt as well as ever he had felt.
at the luncheon table he sat with his back to the light. the persistence of those shadows in his face worried her loving heart. she wondered if mrs. comerford saw a great change in him. it ought to have been a very happy occasion. mrs. comerford had met shawn with an air of affection mingled with deprecation, as though she asked pardon for the old unreason. if she saw that the years had changed him she made no sign.
"i have stayed away a long time from you and mary," she said. "i had made it difficult for myself to come back: but i have wanted to come back. now i hope we shall remain neighbours to the end."
sir shawn had not responded as he ought to have done. he had worn a queer look. after a while his wife had found the proper adjective for it: his eyes were haunted. he might have seen a ghost. it distracted her from her talk across the table with mrs. comerford, happy talk of friends long parted and re-united, full of "don't you remember?" and "have you forgotten?": arrears of talk in which so much had to be explained, so many fates elucidated. it might have been so happy if only shawn had not worn that odd look.
once lady o'gara thought she caught his eyes fixed with a gloomy intentness on the group of young people at the other end of the table. she glanced that way, and the ready smile came. terry was making himself very agreeable to the two pretty girls. it was obvious, even at a glance, that eileen had little chance against the new-comer's vivacity. she sat with her lips pursed a little and something of gloom on her face. terry, between his sallies with stella, who was at once shy and bright, full of those charming glances out of the eyes which were grey at one moment, golden brown at another,—sent now and again a tenderly apologetic look eileen's way, trying to draw the sulking beauty into the conversation. there was nothing for shawn to be gloomy about in this little comedy. terry was always so sweetly amiable.
in the days that followed the comedy unfolded itself. stella was very often at castle talbot, or they were at inch. terry was evidently drawn towards stella, while loyally endeavouring to keep up his former attitude towards eileen. if eileen wished to keep him she went the worst possible way about it, for she sulked, and sulkiness did not become her. her fair skin took on a leaden look. she repulsed stella's advances till stella was hurt and vexed.
"eileen will not be friends with me," she complained to lady o'gara. "she is so cold. that lovely pale hair of hers i took it in my hands one day when it was undone, and it was cold as ice. her heart is like her hair. why will she not like me?"
why not, indeed? apart from the fact that stella chattered, pretty chatter like the singing of a bird, and was so quickly intelligent about everything, and so interested in the new life that the slower eileen was rather left out of things, her attitude towards eileen was most disarming. she admired her greatly and was evidently quite unaware of her own good looks. she tried to win her over with gifts, which eileen accepted, while she was not propitiated.
"she will not like me," stella complained with a flash of tears in her eyes, "if i was to give her my heart she would not like me."
"you should not have given her your seed-pearls," said lady o'gara.
"it is too valuable a gift to pass from one girl to another."
it was beginning to dawn on her that eileen was greedy and selfish. perhaps she had had intuitions of it when eileen had disappointed her. eileen was only friendly to stella when she wanted something. once she had obtained it she relapsed into her former coldness. lady o'gara realized that eileen had always been greedy. she had laid terry under heavy toll for small attentions and such gifts as he might give her. eileen's incessant eating of chocolate had made lady o'gara wonder how she could give so good an account of herself at meal-times. she smoked—it was a new fashion of which lady o'gara did not altogether approve—a cigarette now and again and terry supplied the gold-tipped, scented kind which eileen took from a cigarette case of platinum with her name in turquoise at the corner. the cigarette case was a new possession. lady o'gara supposed that it came from terry. she had not asked. a violet scent, so good that on its first introduction lady o'gara had cried out that some one was wearing wet violets, now always heralded miss creagh's coming into a room.
there were some things which had not come from terry. when lady o'gara had noticed them eileen had said carelessly that they were given her by robin gillespie, the son of the doctor at inver, and a doctor himself in the indian army. anthony creagh and his wife had an overflowing quiverful. lady o'gara made excuses for the girl who must have had it in her blood to do without. still, robin gillespie, the doctor's son at inver, could not have much to spare, but apparently he had given eileen a good many trinkets.
"when does terry join his regiment?" sir shawn asked his wife one day with a certain sharpness.
"not till september."
"and it is now august. a pity he should waste his time philandering."
"does he philander?"
lady o'gara's voice had a hurt sound in it. she found nothing amiss in her one child.
"he philandered with eileen till stella came. now apparently he inclines to stella. he mustn't play fast and loose with girls."
"it sounds so ugly, shawn. terry is incapable of such a thing,—as incapable as you yourself. he is not the flirting sort. he is just a simple boy."
there was something piteous in her voice.
her husband lifted her face by the chin till he looked down into her eyes.
"if he were like me he would only have one love," he said. "you made your own of me, mary, altogether, from the first moment i saw you."
stella had made friends with every one round about her. she was in and out of the cottages. she knew all about the old people's ailments and nursed all the children. eileen complained with a fastidious disgust that stella did not seem to know whether the children were dirty or clean. she kissed and hugged them all the same. in likewise she loved and petted the animals and so commended herself hugely to patsy kenny.
"she's worth twenty of miss eileen," he said. "all i'm afeard of is she'll run herself into danger. she doesn't know what fear is. she ups and says to me the other day whin i bid her not make too free with the mares that the only rayson the crathurs ever was wicked was that men wasn't good to them."
"i've heard you say the same yourself, mr. kenny," said susan horridge, over the half-door of whose lodge he was leaning. he often paid susan a visit in this uncomfortable fashion, refusing a chair in the kitchen or even one outside.
"so you have," patsy acknowledged, and made as if to go; but lingered to ask what mrs. horridge thought of miss stella.
"i like fair hair best myself," he said, with a shy glance at susan's hair, neatly braided around a face that began to have soft, even plump, contours once more.
"miss eileen has a lovely head of hair," susan acknowledged.
"and yet," said patsy, "miss stella's my choice. did you ever take notice of her side-face? it's the purtiest, softest thing i ever seen. i think i seen somethin' like it wance, but where i disremimber."
"which of the young ladies is mr. terry sweet on, mr. kenny?"
"bedad, i don't know, ma'am." patsy scratched his head. "i wouldn't be sure he's not sweet on the two o' them."
a day came when the two girls, crossing the fields by a short cut, found themselves face to face with a very fine bull. they had not noticed him till they came quite near him. their path wound round by a little wood which, since it belonged to the paddock of the mares, was surrounded by high hurdles. the bull must have broken into the field, for he had no right to be there. the piece of rope hanging from his neck showed that he had escaped from bondage.
the path curved gently by the edges of the coppice. they came upon the bull unawares. he was grazing when they first saw him, his fine curled head half-buried in the long grass.
"it is brady's bull," eileen said in a whisper. "he is not to be trusted. and—he sees your red cloak."
the bull lifted his head and stared at them. eileen had slipped behind
stella and had begun to retreat backwards.
the bull stamped with his foot and emitted a low roar. stella did not seem to feel afraid. she kept her eye steadily on the bull. the day was chilly and lady o'gara had wrapped the girls up in connemara cloaks of red and blue flannel. she had put the blue one about eileen's shoulders, remarking that it matched her eyes.
"run, eileen, run," stella said quietly without taking her eyes from the bull. "keep the gate open for me."
eileen ran with a will, never looking back to see what was happening.
stella took off the red cloak. the bull had put his head to the earth as though about to charge. he roared, a roar that seemed to shake the ground. as he came on she flung the offending garment on to his horns and stepped to one side.
she did not wait to see the result. she could run like atalanta. it was a pretty good sprint to the gate, which closed and opened by an iron switch. as she ran, the roars of the bull followed her. he was rending lady o'gara's connemara cloak. presently he would discover that the perpetrator of this outrage upon his dignity was yet in sight.
she was some distance from the gate when she heard the thudding of the bull behind her. for a second or two she did not discover that eileen was not holding the gate open for her. it was apparently shut to. would she have time to open it before the bull came up! the switch, which was new, took some pressure to move. would she have time?
she had just a wild hope that eileen might have left the gate unfastened. she flung herself against it. no, the switch had fallen into its place: there was no time, no time even to climb the gate. the bull was upon her with a rush. she felt the wind of his approach. she closed her eyes and clung to the gate. her mind was never clearer. she saw herself trampled and gored, flung in the air and to earth again a helpless thing for the bull to wreak his wrath upon.
suddenly there was a shout, close at hand, almost at her ear. something hurtled through the air, a stone flung with an unerring aim which struck the bull in the forehead. the gate opened with her and she felt herself drawn through the opening while the switch fell with a sharp click.
"i say, that was a near thing!" said terry o'gara. "you're not going to faint, are you? just look at that chap tearing up my old football blazer. thank god, it isn't you."
"where is eileen?" she asked. "she was terribly frightened."
"i know," he answered, somewhat grimly. "i dare say she has done a faint. i left her over there by the stile. she was sitting down, recovering herself. lucky i heard the roars of the bull and was so close at hand. i suppose it was eileen who shut the gate. she made some sort of explanation, but there was no time to listen. what a fright you've had, you poor child!"
the bull, having reduced the blazer to rags like the connemara cloak, had trotted away and was grazing quietly, some of the tattered pieces still hanging to his horns, with an odd effect of absurdity.
"i never thought an animal could be so alarming," said stella.
"you must be more careful in future," he answered. "not that i want you to be afraid—like eileen. this brute had no business here. he must have broken through the hedge. he might have got into the foals' paddock. there's a way in for anything very determined where the water runs in that far ditch."
"oh, i'm glad he didn't get in among the pretty foals."
"it would have been a horrible thing, but better the foals than you."
he looked at her with a simple boyish tenderness. there was something childish about her beauty, something boyish about the slight figure and the curly head, borne out by her frank gaze.
"i wish i had killed the brute," he said, with a vengeful glance in the direction of the quietly-feeding bull.
"you probably cut him with that stone, poor beast."
"yes: it had a good sharp edge. how lucky i found it just there!"
he noticed that she turned very pale. quickly his arm went round her to give her support.
"you poor little thing!" he said. "i am so sorry. are you better now?"
the colour came back to her face. she withdrew gently from his arm.
"i am all right," she said. "it was splendid how you came to my rescue."
her frank eyes thanked him in a way he found bewildering. he was very goodly in his flannels, with his alert slender darkness and his bright eyes, softened now as his gaze rested upon her.
"it won't make you afraid?" he asked anxiously. "i mean, of course, you must be cautious; but any one would be afraid of brady's bull. don't be timid like eileen, who screams if a foal trots up to her, and is afraid even of shot."
he had quite forgotten the time when he had found eileen's timidity pleasing.
"oh, i shall not be afraid of shot, or the foals," she said, and laughed. "after all," she lifted her eyes to him as though she asked for pardon—"any one might be afraid of a bull. i'm not a coward for that."
"of course you're not," he answered, with a sound in his voice as though she was very pleasant to him. "bulls are treacherous brutes."
they went back slowly to where eileen sat watching their approach gloomily.
"well!" she said. "you've been a long time. wasn't that a horrid brute? i never ran such danger in my life before."
"stella ran a greater because you had taken care to slam the gate after you," terry said, with young condemning eyes. "i was only just in time to save her from that brute."
"oh well, i was frightened. i only thought of getting away as far as i could from him. i shan't walk in the fields again in a hurry. if it isn't horses, it's bulls."
eileen's face kept its unbecoming gloom on the homeward way, even though she pressed very close to terry for protection whenever they came near the feeding horses, or one of them trotted up to be petted and stroked. she knew she was disapproved of, and the knowledge was unpleasant to her, although it did not cause her any searchings of conscience. eileen always took the line of least resistance, as her clever sister, paula, who was a b.a. of dublin university, had said.
