"That's some!" Harrigan beat his hands together thunderously. "Great

stuff; eh, Barone?"

The Barone raised his hands as if to express his utter inability to

describe his sensations. His elation was that ascribed to those fortunate

mortals whom the gods lifted to Olympus. At his feet lay the lace-hemming,

hopelessly snarled.

"Father, father!" remonstrated Nora; "you will wake up all the old ladies

who are having their siesta."

"Bah! I'll bet a doughnut their ears are glued to their doors. What ho!

Somebody's at the portcullis. Probably the padre, come up for tea."

He was at the door instantly. He flung it open heartily. It was

characteristic of the man to open everything widely, his heart, his mind,

his hate or his affection.

"Come in, come in! Just in time for the matinée concert."

The padre was not alone. Courtlandt followed him in.

"We have been standing in the corridor for ten minutes," affirmed the

padre, sending a winning smile around the room. "Mr. Courtlandt was for

going down to the bureau and sending up our cards. But I would not hear of

such formality. I am a privileged person."

"Sure yes! Molly, ring for tea, and tell 'em to make it hot. How about a

little peg, as the colonel says?"

The two men declined.

How easily and nonchalantly the man stood there by the door as Harrigan

took his hat! Celeste was aquiver with excitement. She was thoroughly a

woman: she wanted something to happen, dramatically, romantically.

But her want was a vain one. The man smiled quizzically at Nora, who

acknowledged the salutation by a curtsy which would have frightened away

the banshees of her childhood. Nora hated scenes, and Courtlandt had the

advantage of her in his knowledge of this. Celeste remained at the piano,

but Nora turned as if to move away.

"No, no!" cried the padre, his palms extended in protest. "If you stop the

music I shall leave instantly."

"But we are all through, Padre," replied Nora, pinching Celeste's arm,

which action the latter readily understood as a command to leave the

piano.

Celeste, however, had a perverse streak in her to-day. Instead of rising

as Nora expected she would, she wheeled on the stool and began Morning

Mood from Peer Gynt, because the padre preferred Grieg or Beethoven to

Chopin. Nora frowned at the pretty head below her. She stooped.

"I sha'n't forgive you for this trick," she whispered.

Celeste shrugged, and her fingers did not falter. So Nora moved away this

time in earnest.

"No, you must sing. That is what I came up for," insisted the padre. If

there was any malice in the churchman, it was of a negative quality. But

it was in his Latin blood that drama should appeal to him strongly, and

here was an unusual phase in The Great Play. He had urged Courtlandt, much

against the latter's will this day, to come up with him, simply that he

might set a little scene such as this promised to be and study it from the

vantage of the prompter. He knew that the principal theme of all great

books, of all great dramas, was antagonism, antagonism between man and

woman, though by a thousand other names has it been called. He had often

said, in a spirit of raillery, that this antagonism was principally due to

the fact that Eve had been constructed (and very well) out of a rib from

Adam. Naturally she resented this, that she had not been fashioned

independently, and would hold it against man until the true secret of the

parable was made clear to her.




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