"Now tell me the story," I said. "Have you done
murder? Is the offense treasonable?"
"It was a tenants' row in Galway, and I smashed a
constable. I smashed him pretty hard, I dare say, from
the row they kicked up in the newspapers. I lay low
for a couple of weeks, caught a boat to Queenstown, and
here I am, waiting for a chance to get back to The Sod
without going in irons."
"You were certainly born to be hanged, Larry. You'd
better stay in America. There's more room here than
anywhere else, and it's not easy to kidnap a man in
America and carry him off."
"Possibly not; and yet the situation isn't wholly tranquil,"
he said, transfixing a bit of pompano with his
fork. "Kindly note the florid gentleman at your right
-at the table with four-he's next the lady in pink.
It may interest you to know that he's the British
consul."
"Interesting, but not important. You don't for a
moment suppose-"
"That he's looking for me? Not at all. But he undoubtedly
has my name on his tablets. The detective
that's here following me around is pretty dull. He lost
me this morning while I was talking to you in the
bank. Later on I had the pleasure of trailing him for
an hour or so until he finally brought up at the British
consul's office. Thanks; no more of the fish. Let us
banish care. I wasn't born to be hanged; and as I'm a
political offender, I doubt whether I can be deported if
they lay hands on me."
He watched the bubbles in his glass dreamily, holding
it up in his slim well-kept fingers.
"Tell me something of your own immediate present
and future," he said.
I made the story of my Grandfather Glenarm's legacy
as brief as possible, for brevity was a definite law of our
intercourse.
"A year, you say, with nothing to do but fold your
hands and wait. It doesn't sound awfully attractive to
me. I'd rather do without the money."
"But I intend to do some work. I owe it to my grandfather's
memory to make good, if there's any good in
me."
"The sentiment is worthy of you, Glenarm," he said
mockingly. "What do you see-a ghost?"
I must have started slightly at espying suddenly
Arthur Pickering not twenty feet away. A party of
half a dozen or more had risen, and Pickering and a
girl were detached from the others for a moment.
She was young,-quite the youngest in the group
about Pickering's table. A certain girlishness of height
and outline may have been emphasized by her juxtaposition
to Pickering's heavy figure. She was in black,
with white showing at neck and wrists,-a somber contrast
to the other women of the party, who were arrayed
with a degree of splendor. She had dropped her fan,
and Pickering stooped to pick it up. In the second that
she waited she turned carelessly toward me, and our
eyes met for an instant. Very likely she was Pickering's
sister, and I tried to reconstruct his family, which I had
known in my youth; but I could not place her. As she
walked out before him my eyes followed her,-the erect
figure, free and graceful, but with a charming dignity
and poise, and the gold of her fair hair glinting under
her black toque.