“Eugene, knock at the door of the Geralds,” said The Macnamara from his seat on the car, with a dignity the emphasis of which would have been diminished had he dismounted.
Eugene—looked upward at this order, shook his head in wonderment, and then got down, but not with quite the same expedition as his boot, which could not sustain the severe test of being suspended for any time in the air. He had not fully secured it again on his bare foot before a laugh sounded from the balcony over the porch—a laugh that made Standish's face redder than any rose—that made Eugene glance up with a grin and touch his hat, even before a girl's voice was heard saying:
“Oh, Eugene, Eugene! What a clumsy fellow you are, to be sure.”
“Ah, don't be a sayin' of that, Miss Daireen, ma'am,” the boy replied, as he gave a final stamp to secure possession of the boot.
The Macnamara looked up and gravely removed his hat; but Standish having got down from the car turned his gaze seawards. Had he followed his father's example, he would have seen the laughing face and the graceful figure of a girl leaning over the balustrade of the porch surveying the group beneath her.
“And how do you do, Macnamara?” she said. “No, no, don't let Eugene knock; all the dogs are asleep except King Cormac, and I am too grateful to allow their rest to be broken. I'll go down and give you entrance.”
She disappeared from the balcony, and in a few moments the hall door was softly sundered and the western sunlight fell about the form of the portress. The girl was tall and exquisitely moulded, from her little blue shoe to her rich brown hair, over which the sun made light and shade; her face was slightly flushed with her rapid descent and the quick kiss of the sunlight, and her eyes were of the most gracious gray that ever shone or laughed or wept. But her mouth—it was a visible song. It expressed all that song is capable of suggesting—passion of love or of anger, comfort of hope or of charity.
“Enter, O my king-,” she said, giving The Macnamara her hand; then turning to Standish, “How do you do, Standish? Why do you not come in?”
But Standish uttered no word. He took her hand for a second and followed his father into the big square oaken hall. All were black oak, floor and wall and ceiling, only while the sunlight leapt through the open door was the sombre hue relieved by the flashing of the arms that lined the walls, and the glittering of the enormous elk-antlers that spread their branches over the lintels.
“And you drove all round the coast to see me, I hope,” said the girl, as they stood together under the battle-axes of the brave days of old, when the qualifications for becoming a successful knight and a successful blacksmith were identical.
“We drove round to admire the beauty of the lovely Daireen,” said The Macnamara, with a flourish of the hand that did him infinite credit.
“If that is all,” laughed the girl, “your visit will not be a long one.” She was standing listlessly caressing with her hand the coarse hide of King Corrnac, a gigantic Wolf-dog, and in that posture looked like a statue of the Genius of her country. The dog had been welcoming Standish a moment before, and the young man's hand still resting upon its head, felt the casual touch of the girl's fingers as she played with the animal's ears. Every touch sent a thrill of passionate delight through him.
“The beauty of the daughter of the Geralds is worth coming so far to see; and now that I look at her before me——”
“Now you know that it is impossible to make out a single feature in this darkness,” said Daireen. “So come along into the drawing-room.”
“Go with the lovely Daireen, my boy,” said The Macnamara, as the girl led the way across the hall. “For myself, I think I'll just turn in here.” He opened a door at one side of the hall and exposed to view, within the room beyond, a piece of ancient furniture which was not yet too decrepit to sustain the burden of a row of square glass bottles and tumblers. But before he entered he whispered to Standish with an appropriate action, “Make it all right with her by the time come I back.” And so he vanished.
“The Macnamara is right,” said Daireen. “You must join him in taking a glass of wine after your long drive, Standish.”
For the first time since he had spoken on the car Standish found his voice.
“I do not want to drink anything, Daireen,” he said.
“Then we shall go round to the garden and try to find grandpapa, if you don't want to rest.”
With her brown unbonneted hair tossing in its irregular strands about her neck, she went out by a door at the farther end of the square hall, and Standish followed her by a high-arched passage that seemed to lead right through the building. At the extremity was an iron gate which the girl unlocked, and they passed into a large garden somewhat wild in its growth, but with its few brilliant spots of colour well brought out by the general feeling of purple that forced itself upon every one beneath the shadow of the great mountain-peak. Very lovely did that world of heather seem now as the sun burned over against the slope, stirring up the wonderful secret hues of dark blue and crimson. The peak stood out in bold relief against the pale sky, and above its highest point an eagle sailed.
“I have such good news for you, Standish,” said Miss Gerald. “You cannot guess what it is.”
“I cannot guess what good news there could possibly be in store for me,” he replied, with so much sadness in his voice that the girl gave a little start, and then the least possible smile, for she was well aware that the luxury of sadness was frequently indulged in by her companion.
“It is good news for you, for me, for all of us, for all the world, for—well, for everybody that I have not included. Don't laugh at me, please, for my news is that papa is coming home at last. Now, isn't that good news?”
“I am very glad to hear it,” said Standish. “I am very glad because I know it will make you happy.”
“How nicely said; and I know you feel it, my dear Standish. Ah, poor papa! he has had a hard time of it, battling with the terrible Indian climate and with those annoying people.”
“It is a life worth living,” cried Standish. “After you are dead the world feels that you have lived in it. The world is the better for your life.”
“You are right,” said Daireen. “Papa leaves India crowned with honours, as the newspapers say. The Queen has made him a C.B., you know. But—only think how provoking it is—he has been ordered by the surgeon of his regiment to return by long-sea, instead of overland, for the sake of his health; so that though I got his letter from Madras yesterday to tell me that he was at the point of starting, it will be another month before I can see him.”
“But then he will no doubt have completely recovered,” said Standish.
“That is my only consolation. Yes; he will be himself again—himself as I saw him five years ago in our bungalow—how well I remember it and its single plantain-tree in the garden where the officers used to hunt me for kisses.”
Standish frowned. It was, to him, a hideous recollection for the girl to have. He would cheerfully have undertaken the strangulation of each of those sportive officers. “I should have learned a great deal during these five years that have passed since I was sent to England to school, but I'm afraid I didn't. Never mind, papa won't cross-examine me to see if his money has been wasted. But why do you look so sad, Standish? You do look sad, you know.”
“I feel it too,” he cried. “I feel more wretched than I can tell you. I'm sick of everything here—no, not here, you know, but at home. There I am in that cursed jail, shut out from the world, a beggar without the liberty to beg.”
“Oh, Standish!”
“But it is the truth, Daireen. I might as well be dead as living as I am. Yes,