“So yer at yer old games,” he began, in a blustering voice, addressing himself to Mary, “talking at the corner, talking to any one. Faith!”--to the strangers--“she’s the gabbiest little divil in Ireland!”
Mary glanced at him furtively. Patsie Maguire was drunk.
“An’ now she’s pratin’ to gentlemen no less; and for a change--but let me tell ye,”--here he paused and swayed a little--“yer--not--the first gentlemen--that Mary here--has talked to. Aye”--and his wink expressed malicious significance--“Mary knows that I’m telling the holy truth, don’t ye, Mary, me darlin’?”
The girl’s colour had faded; there was a momentary tightening of the lips, but she merely said--
“Patsie, I’ll thank ye to behave yerself! You don’t know what yer saying.” What was the use, she said to herself, in argufying with a man who was not sober? Patsie, when in such a state, was more or less mad. Had he forgotten, that she was not Mary Foley, now?
They were an uncommonly good-looking couple in Sir Harry’s opinion, this Irishman and his sweetheart--the one, so fair, vivacious, and in a way brilliant, with wonderful hair; the other, dark as a Spaniard, with equally wonderful eyes, undeniably well-favoured, and undeniably jealous. So this was the fellow she had been thinking of, and expecting. The gate was their trysting place, and without permission Sir Harry took a joint photograph of the couple.
“Ye’d no call to do that!” cried Pat. “It’s a shame to steal a person’s face unknownst.”
“Do you think so?” rejoined Sir Harry airily. “I’ve not the slightest objection to any one stealing mine.”
“No, for yer quite safe! No one would be at the trouble of taking off your picture; it’s ugly enough to break the plate!”
“I say, my good fellow,” he cried, colouring up, “don’t presume on my good-nature. Don’t go too far!”
“Go back to your motor that’s lying up the road there on its belly, and take a picture of that!” scoffed the Irishman.
“Yes, I suppose”--ignoring this insult, and turning to his companion--“that we ought to be moving.”
Captain Deverell had made himself comfortable on the wall, and was smoking a pipe.
“Before I go, won’t you tell me your name?” said Sir Harry, appealing to Mary. “You are better-looking, and better fun, than half the girls in England.”