Possessed of a sudden notion Cleo dressed for the street.
When she went out it was with a laughing remark to Miss Becky, whom she intercepted upon the broad carpeted main stairway, to the effect that a number of little shopping duties had to be looked after.
However, M'lle Cleo's ideas of the shopping district must have become a little mixed, for she sauntered in the direction of that quaint mass of stone and glass with its spire and numerous minarets known as St. Patrick's Cathedral.
She looked through the iron fence at the flat slabs and few monuments commemorating illustrious Irish dead, she studied the architecture of the historic building, and cast many a curious glance at those who passed in to late mass or came out from the interior.
Her object seemed doomed to disappointment, for the face she sought was not seen.
Once she eyed a lady closely veiled, who came out in company with a military looking gentleman sporting a shaggy head of gray hair à la Mark Twain, also a ferocious mustache waxed at the ends and giving the wearer the fierce appearance of King Humbert.
As the couple passed Cleo she chanced to hear the lady make a casual remark, and two things struck the listener as singular.
First it was pure Spanish she heard.
Second, her voice was so very melodious it seemed to conjure up visions of rippling water, warbling birds and all those things of which poets love to rave.
Cleo remembered—could she ever forget the pain that shot through her heart at the time—how Roderic had grown suddenly enthusiastic when he declared the voice of Senorita de Brabant as musical as the notes of a nightingale—she had doubtless sung for him many times those passionate serenades and love songs for which dark eyed daughters of old Spain have ever been famous.
Cleo could imagine how those wonderful black orbs glowed with love's sacred fire when he sat near, upon a soft divan, or bent over the gurgling fountain's basin.
She felt sick at heart, but such a nature never reveals the pain that rankles within.
Though suffering tortures such girls will laugh and seem as merry as the lightest hearted among their comrades.
After that came the shopping, and yet Cleo was annoyed to find herself listening to every voice upon the street and in the stores.
Surely there could not be another in all Dublin that so fully filled the brief but graphic description Roderic had given of a woman's tones sounding like the soft gurgling of water over the mossy stones in the primeval forest.
"I wonder under what conditions we will meet, for something tells me this is bound to occur. And shall I too be drawn to her because he has given his heart? Will she love him—love my old play fellow Roderic as—as I could do, have done these many years? Perhaps, but I doubt it, doubt whether these hot blooded girls of the tropic isles can love so truly that they will sacrifice even their own happiness in order that his life may be filled with sunshine. Still, God forgive me for judging her harshly. I have other things—his love may be all in all to her. Come what will I shall do what is right and loyal and true as becomes a daughter of Virginia. But oh! it is hard to give him up, my hope, my boy lover, my Roderic. Now I am done!"
Having thus grimly dismissed the matter from her mind for the present the young lady proceeded to carry out her designs.
Numerous things were on her list to be added to the abundant stores aboard the yacht, and it would probably puzzle the honest steward, she imagined, to know what to do with the last arrivals.
"If I remained in Dublin three days more I am sure we would be swamped in the bay made celebrated by song and story, or else be compelled to charter a companion boat to share our cargo—there are so many things I see that could be made useful among the wretched people just escaping from Spanish rule, and these Irish storekeepers one and all, must have had an intimate acquaintance with the Blarney stone, they have such engaging ways and a burning desire to accumulate Uncle Sam's coin. This is an era of good feeling—of hands across the sea—Brother John and Brother Jonathan, and they all want to be in it as deep as possible. However, I think I am actually done. It would be impossible to accept all they offer."
So the purchasing agency went reluctantly out of commission.
Even the owner of millions must draw the line somewhere.
Roderic was not to be seen at luncheon, although Cleo purposely lingered over the meal, hoping he would turn up.
Jerome was there, handsome as ever, and apparently much sought after by a designing lady mother from Chicago who possessed two plain girls of a marriageable age.
No doubt they believed him a marquis, or at the very least connected with some noble family anxious to make a "connection" with pork.
These things happen frequently, and there really seems no remedy—the market is there and the goods offered for sale. Occasionally a genuine love match occurs which redounds to the credit of Old England and Young America; but for the most part they are cut and dried affairs entered into for position on one side and gold on the other. Such unions are beneath contempt.
Jerome bowed and smiled in his usual affable manner, and Cleo answered him just as though she had not been informed of his dark schemes.
This matter of fact young woman had traveled far and wide—she had rubbed up against all manner of people, and long since ceased to be excessively surprised at anything.
Wellington was simply carrying out the business for which nature had endowed him.
There were many people gifted with more money than brains—the reverse was true in his case, and he amused himself by endeavoring to bring about a more evenly balanced condition of affairs, to his pecuniary advantage, of course.
Cleo could even find something to admire about his bold piratical way of living by his wits—at least he had more of the man about him than most of the petted darlings of society on both sides of the Atlantic who fawned upon her in a sickly sentimental way from precisely the same sinister motives that influenced Wellington's bold attacks.
Let these parvenu mammas with daughters to sell pay the penalty for their sin.
As the day wore on and she saw nothing of Roderic she began to feel a little worried.
Could harm have befallen him?
She knew the unscrupulous character of those elements which he usually pitted his powers against.
Perhaps Wellington, that suave deluder, not one whit discouraged by his first failure, had promptly opened his secondary batteries.
Still, it seemed almost ridiculous to believe harm could have befallen a sensible man like Roderic in the open streets of Dublin while the sun was shining.
Had it been Algiers, Constantinople, Pekin or some city of mysterious India, the case would have appeared far more serious, for uncanny things are liable to occur in such Oriental marts at any hour of the day or night.
As evening drew on apace she found herself watching the doorway beyond which lay the calm square known as St. Stephens' Green.
Her captain had come ashore for a comparison of ideas, and was still with her, since Cleo desired him to meet her cousin.
They would see much of each other during the voyage, and she particularly desired to bring about the meeting of two congenial souls.
Dinner passed.
Still no Roderic.
She confided her fears in part to the captain.
The worthy seadog was able to wrestle with any perplexing problem that might assail them afloat, but when it came to mastering the wiles apt to beset a man's path ashore he confessed his ignorance.
Nothing could be done—they must wait till a sign of some kind was given.
That was the exasperating part, for Cleo was naturally a girl