"Yes," she nodded breathlessly. "Don"t notice me, please. I don"t seem to know how to behave myself when I"m with you----"
"What nonsense, Dulcie! You"re a wonderful comrade. We have bully times when we"re together. Don"t we?"
"Yes."
"Well, then, for the love of Mike! What"s a little teasing between friends? Buck up, Sweetness, and don"t ever let me upset you again."
"No." She turned and looked at him, laughed. But there was a wonderful beauty in her grey eyes and he noticed it.
"You little kiddie," he said, "your eyes are all starry like a baby"s!
You are not growing up as fast as you think you are!"
She laughed again deliciously:
"How wise you are," she said.
"Aha! So you"re joshing me, now!"
"But aren"t you very, very wise?" she asked demurely.
"You bet I am. And I"m going to prove it."
"How, please?"
"Listen, irreverent youngster! If you are going to Foreland Farms with me, you will require various species of clothes and accessories."
At that she was frankly dismayed:
"But I can"t afford----"
"Piffle! I advance you sufficient salary. Thessalie had better advise you in your shopping----" He hesitated, then: "You and Thessa seem to have become excellent friends rather suddenly."
"She was so sweet to me," explained Dulcie. "I hadn"t cared for her very much--that evening of the party--but to-day she came into your room, where I was lying on the bed, and she stood looking at me for a moment and then she said, "Oh, you darling!" and dropped on her knees and drew me into her arms.... Wasn"t that a curious thing to happen?
I--I was too surprised to speak for a minute; then the loveliest shiver came over me and I--I cuddled up close to her--because I had never remembered being in mother"s arms--and it seemed wonderful--I had wanted it so--dreamed sometimes--and awoke and cried myself to sleep again.... She was so sweet to me.... We talked.... She told me, finally, about the reason of her visit to you. Then she told me about herself.... So I became her friend very quickly. And I am sure that I am going to love her dearly.... And when I love"--she looked steadily away from him--"I would die to serve--my friend."
The girl"s quiet ardour, her simplicity and candour, attracted and interested him. Always he had seemed to be aware, in her, of hidden forces--of something fresh and charmingly impetuous held in leash--of controlled impulses, restless, uneasy, bitted, curbed, and reined in.
Pride, perhaps, a natural reticence in the opposite s.e.x--perhaps the habit of control in a girl whose childhood had had no outlet--some of these, he concluded, accounted for her subdued air, her restraint from demonstration. Save for the impulsive little hand on his arm at times, the slightest quiver of lip and voice, there was no sign of the high-strung, fresh young force that he vaguely divined within her.
"Dulcie," he said, "how much do you know about the romance of your mother?"
She lifted her grey eyes to his:
"What romance?"
"Why, her marriage."
"Was that a romance?"
"I gather, from your father, that your mother was very much above him in station."
"Yes. He was a gamekeeper for my grandfather."
"What was your mother"s name?"
"Eileen."
"I mean her family name."
"Fane."
He was silent. She remained thoughtful, her chin resting between two fingers.
"Once," she murmured, as though speaking to herself, "when my father was intoxicated, he said that Fane is my name, not Soane.... Do you know what he meant?"
"No.... His name is Soane, isn"t it?"
"I suppose so."
"Well, what do you suppose he meant, if he meant anything?"
"I don"t quite know."
"He _is_ your father, isn"t he?"
She shook her head slowly:
"Sometimes, when he is intoxicated, he says that he isn"t. And once he added that my name is not Soane but Fane."
"Did you question him?"
"No. He only cries when he is that way.... Or talks about Ireland"s wrongs."
"Ask him some time."
"I have asked him when he was sober. But he denied ever saying it."
"Then ask him when he"s the other way. I--well, to be frank, Dulcie, you haven"t the slightest resemblance to your father--not the slightest--not in any mental or physical particular."
"He says I"m like mother."
"And her name was Eileen Fane," murmured Barres. "She must have been beautiful, Dulcie."
"She was----" A bright blush stained her face, but this time she looked steadily at Barres and neither of them smiled.
"She was in love with Murtagh Skeel," said Dulcie. "I wonder why she did not marry him."
"You say her family objected."