castle talbot took on new lightness and brightness when terry came home. his mother said fondly that it was like the palace of the sleeping beauty where life hung in suspense between his goings and comings. the mere presence of this one young man seemed to put all the servants on their mettle. the cook sent up such meals as she did not at any other time. "sure sir shawn and her ladyship never minded what they would be atin," she said. the gardener, a gruff old cynic usually, gave his best grapes and peaches for "master terry"; even the small sewing maid who sat in a slip of a room at a remote corner of the house, mending the house-linen under the supervision of the housekeeper, was known to have said that though she never saw master terry she felt he was there.
the dogs were aware of his coming before he came. they had their own intuitions of the joyful expectancy in the house and what it meant. shot would take to lying in the hall, with one wistful eye fixed on the open hall door, while lady o'gara's two poms became quite hysterical, rushing out when there was no one at all or some one they were well accustomed to, assailing them with foolish shrieks.
"it is all right when terence is coming home," lady o'gara said, smiling. "i can forgive chlo? and cupid for yapping. it is when he is gone and they rush out at every sound that i find it unbearable."
"you will kill the fatted calf for terry," sir shawn grumbled, "as though he had been a year away. the youngster does nothing but amuse himself. when i was his age we got in some hard work at soldiering."
"every generation says the same of the one that comes after it," lady o'gara rejoined. "terry loves his work, though he manages to enjoy himself."
"too much of a golden youth," grumbled his father. "you spoil the boy, mary!" but his eyes were glad all the time, and the grumbling was only a pretence.
"you'll see what the golden boys are capable of if the war they are always talking about comes in our time," lady o'gara said, and a swift shadow passed over her face. "i hope there will be no more wars, even to vindicate them. i suffered enough in those years of the south african war when you were out and terry and i were alone."
eileen arrived a few hours earlier than terry. she clapped her hands to her ears when she arrived, and the poms broke out into shrill chorus. shot, who began already to be very dim-sighted, came to the door to see what the clamour was about, and with the most indifferent movement of his tail returned to his place on the rug before the fire.
"little beasts!" said eileen, poking viciously at the poms with her umbrella. "i don't know how you endure them, cousin mary; i can hardly tell which is the worst, chlo? or cupid."
eileen had never liked the dogs any more than she liked the horses. she was fond of cats and had a favourite smoke-blue persian, between whom and the poms there was an armed neutrality. the cat's name was cleopatra, and she deserved it. her green eyes shone like emeralds when she curled boa-fashion about her mistress's white neck and looked down at the poms.
lady o'gara had come out on the steps to meet eileen and had kissed her on each cold satin cheek, making a tender fuss about removing her wraps. her coldnesses were easily dispelled.
"come right in, darling, and have some tea," she said fondly. "why, you are perished! it is very cold. we shall have a frost to-night. and how are all at home?"
"oh, much the same as usual. mother has rheumatism. dad is grumbling over his large and expensive family and the bad year it has been for everything. it is always a bad year with farmers, isn't it? the house is tight-packed, as usual. they always have visitors. i was glad to escape to this delicious roominess. they are all outrageously well and hungry, as dad says. and some of them will love to come after christmas, if you can really have them. they must be at home for christmas, they say. i am sure some of them could well be spared."
a momentary vision passed before lady o'gara's inner eyes. it was of mrs. anthony creagh and the quiverful, three boys and five girls then, to be increased later. mrs. anthony sat in her armchair, one child on her lap, a second with its face buried in her trailing, somewhat shabby silk skirt, two others peeping from behind her chair. the boys were at a table with books open before them. eileen, aged eight, and already the beauty of the family, stood by her mother's knee, eating an apple.
"cousin mary wants one of my little girls to go home with her," mrs. creagh had said, rather tearfully. she was an incurably motherly person, whose heart expanded with the quiver—"she wants one of my little girls to play with her terry. who will go?"
the boys had looked indifferent. the child whose face was buried in her mother's skirts seemed to burrow a little further in, while the two standing behind the chair disappeared. the baby on its mother's knee only gurgled cheerfully, as though at the best joke in the world.
then eileen had laid down her half-eaten apple, and turning, had thrust her moist little hand into lady o'gara's, warm from her muff. dear friendly thing! lady o'gara had brought her back in triumph to castle talbot, feeling that she could never do enough to make up to the child for forsaking for her that long family, happy and happy-go-lucky. eileen had become conventional in her growing-up, not much like the others, who frolicked like puppies and grew up pretty well at their own sweet will.
"i told mother she should not fill the house with visitors in addition to her long family, if dad had had a bad year," said eileen, putting off her furs in the hall. "she said that what people ate never counted. isn't it just like mother? what a jolly fire, darling cousin mary! and how sweet to see you again!"
she took up lady o'gara's hand and kissed it. she had done the same thing that evening long ago when she had come for the first time to castle talbot, and had snuggled against lady o'gara in the brougham, warming her heart, which was chilly because in a very short time terry was to go off to his preparatory school for eton. it was his father's will and she had not grumbled, but she had often felt in her own heart that she had had very little of terry since he was eight years old.
"come and eat something," she said, leading the girl into the drawing-room, where the lamps had been lit and the tea-table drawn near the fire. "i told cook to send up an extra good tea, knowing you would be cold and hungry after your journey."
"how delicious!" miss creagh said, lifting off one cover after another. "i haven't had a decent tea since i went away. we are such a hungry family, to say nothing of the visitors."
"terry will be here in time for dinner," lady o'gara said, her eyes joyful. "so put on your best bib-and-tucker. we don't get many occasions to wear our finery. i shall wear my limerick lace and emeralds."
"and terry won't see them because he will be thinking only of yourself," eileen said, devouring sandwiches and hot cakes. for a girl of her slender delicacy she had a very good appetite and usually indulged it, although there were moments when she tried to hold it in check, having detected, as she said, a tendency to embonpoint.
"i can really afford to be greedy, cousin mary," she said, with a laughing apology. "i've been starved at inver. how the stacks of food went! they have such healthy appetites. i couldn't eat potato-cakes, soaked in butter, nor doorsteps as the boys called them, of bread and jam and honey. fearfully fattening food."
"you remind me of when you came to me and started to grow out of your clothes with such alarming rapidity. when your white satin, long-waisted frock grew too small for you, you said, for you did not like giving it up, 'i can really get into it if i hold myself in like this. and anyhow i've given up pudding!'"
"ah, that was the worst of me," said eileen mournfully. "i could never continue long doing without pudding."
she came down to dinner wearing a pale green frock with a prim fichu of chiffon and lace. terry had already arrived and was in the drawing-room, standing on the hearthrug with his back to the fire.
"hullo, eileen!" he shouted, "how stunning you look! you grow prettier every day!"
the compliment was too brotherly in its easy candour to please her altogether: but she knew very well she was "stunning." she could see herself in a long old-fashioned mirror on the wall. her hair was like gold floss. there was no sign of the embonpoint she feared in the slender grace of her figure. the pearls about her neck became her mightily, as did the green ribbon, the same shade as her dress, snooded in her hair.
she lifted her eyes to the boy's frank gaze in a way which she had usually found very effective. she had been able to do anything with terry when she looked at him like that, and she had tried the same allurement on others than terry.
"you're only just back," he went on. "jolly nice of you to come for me. the mater must have missed you."
"they insist on my presence at inver now and again. i don't know why.
it is very unreasonable of them!"
she put out a satin slipper and stirred shot with it.
"the only drawback to this dear house," she said, "is that there are dogs everywhere."
shot growled in his sleep. perhaps she had not touched him in quite the right way. she withdrew her foot in alarm, more alarm that she felt, and turned eyes of a child-like fear upon terry. "oh! shot is cross," she said innocently. the man in terry answered. he bent towards her as though drawn irresistibly.
there was a flutter of feminine garments in the doorway of the room. some one looked in and withdrew. sir shawn, coming down the stairs, did not notice the small figure by the fire in the hall, fast fading to ashes, the centre of a circle of adoring dogs, who had withdrawn themselves from miss creagh's unfriendliness.
he went on to the drawing-room door. he too was attracted by the tableau. nothing could have been prettier than the boy's bold advance, the girl's withdrawal. they were too engrossed in each other, or appeared to be, to notice his face in the doorway.
with a deep sigh, as of relief, he turned away. then he caught sight of the pink blob by the fireplace in the hall. stella was down on her knees feeding the dying fire with sods of turf. her rose geranium frock made what the children call a "cheese" about her. her golden brown head was charming against the audacious colour of her frock. the dogs had taken advantage of her position to press about her. now and again she pushed off cupid, who was the bold one, with the sod of turf in her hand.
sir shawn felt particularly kind towards the girl.
"hullo, stella," he said: "i didn't know you had come."
"some little time ago," she replied. "grannie is with lady o'gara. do you mind my making up the fire?"
"not a bit." his heart was light within him, almost to the extent of taking stella into his confidence. discreet little thing! she, too, had surprised the pretty picture in the drawing-room, and had withdrawn, leaving the lovers to themselves.
"the lovers." he said the words over to himself, mouthing them as though they were sweet. he had been unnecessarily alarmed. things were arranging themselves beautifully. he believed in early marriages. the happiness of the youngsters would keep him young. he would get away from his shadows. after a while terry must come home and settle down somewhere near. a few years of soldiering in these piping times of peace were as much as the boy need do.
so his mind ran on into the happy future while he sat on the arm of one of the red-leather chairs and beamed at stella, who had always been rather alarmed of sir shawn, and came out now as prettily as a flower in the warm sun.
he looked at his watch. it was a quarter to eight. dinner-time. a pity the youngsters had not more time to settle their pretty affair. he began to think of what gift he would give eileen. his mother's pearl cross—large pearls set en cabochon. mary had so many things. she would not grudge that to terry's wife.
there were mary and grace comerford coming down the staircase, talking as though they did not see each other constantly. how well mary looked in the brown silk! it brought out the dear shades of red in her hair and eyes.
he went over and joined the two ladies.
"only just in time!" he said, in rather a loud voice, as he opened the drawing-room door.
he intended it as a warning, but it was apparently not necessary. terry was sitting in a chair at one side of the fireplace with shot's head on his knee. miss creagh, a cloud on her face, was in the opposite chair, caressing cleopatra. sir shawn's heart sank. had they been quarrelling, silly children? he began to tremble for his dream.
"cleopatra scratched shot's nose," said terry, holding up the liver-coloured nose for inspection. "see, it has bled. eileen will have it that it was shot's fault. of course it was not. shot is so gentle."
he stood up to meet the ladies and, swift as an arrow from the bow, he went to stella's side.
poor sir shawn! poor gentleman! the fabric of his rosy dreams had faded to ashes. he looked almost piteously towards eileen: and, unreasonably, was angry with her because with that sullenness of expression her beauty had departed: she was almost plain. under his breath he damned cleopatra.
