"Nobly spoken, Mr. Glenarm! Yours is really an
admirable, though somewhat complex character."
"My character is my own, whatever it is," I blurted.
"I shouldn't call that a debatable proposition," she
replied, and I was angry to find how the mirth I had
loved in her could suddenly become so hateful. She
half-turned away so that I might not see her face. The
thought that she should countenance Pickering in any
way tore me with jealous rage.
"Mr. Glenarm, you are what I have heard called a
quitter, defined in common Americanese as one who
quits! Your blustering here this afternoon can hardly
conceal the fact of your failure,-your inability to keep
a promise. I had hoped you would really be of some
help to Sister Theresa; you quite deceived her,-she
told me as she left to-day that she thought well of you,
-she really felt that her fortunes were safe in your
hands. But, of course, that is all a matter of past history
now."
Her tone, changing from cold indifference to the
most severe disdain, stung me into self-pity for my stupidity
in having sought her. My anger was not against
her, but against Pickering, who had, I persuaded myself,
always blocked my path. She went on.
"You really amuse me exceedingly. Mr. Pickering
is decidedly more than a match for you, Mr. Glenarm,
-even in humor."
She left me so quickly, so softly, that I stood staring
like a fool at the spot where she had been, and then I
went gloomily back to Glenarm House, angry, ashamed
and crestfallen.
While we were waiting for dinner I made a clean
breast of my acquaintance with her to Larry, omitting
nothing,-rejoicing even to paint my own conduct as
black as possible.
"You may remember her," I concluded, "she was the
girl we saw at Sherry's that night we dined there. She
was with Pickering, and you noticed her,-spoke of her,
as she went out."
"That little girl who seemed so bored, or tired? Bless
me! Why her eyes haunted me for days. Lord man,
do you mean to say-"
A look of utter scorn came into his face, and he eyed
me contemptuously.
"Of course I mean it!" I thundered at him.
He took the pipe from his mouth, pressed the tobacco
viciously into the bowl, and swore steadily in Gaelic
until I was ready to choke him.
"Stop!" I bawled. "Do you think that's helping me?
And to have you curse in your blackguardly Irish dialect!
I wanted a little Anglo-Saxon sympathy, you
fool! I didn't mean for you to invoke your infamous
gods against the girl!"
"Don't be violent, lad. Violence is reprehensible,"
he admonished with maddening sweetness and patience.
"What I was trying to inculcate was rather the fact,
borne in upon me through years of acquaintance, that
you are,-to he bold, my lad, to be bold,-a good deal
of a damned fool."