"It sounds the same. Lady Maper!" she murmured. "But, oh, how funny! There'd be two Lady Mapers."
"My mother would be the Dowager Lady-"
"That's funnier still."
He ate in silence. Eileen mused on the picture of the Dowager, her forefinger to heaven.
"The Royalty-how did that go off?" she said, as he carved the chicken.
"With fireworks. For the reception father built a new house and furnished it with old furniture. Royalty stopped an hour and a quarter. Oh, she was wonderful. I mean my mother. Copied your phrases-see what an impression you made."
"And what have you been doing since you came into the title?"
"Looking for you."
"Nonsense!" She dropped her fork. "But you knew I had people in Ireland."
"I never knew exactly where."
"But what put you on the track of the music-halls?"
"Nothing. I never dreamed of looking for you there. I just went." Master Harold Lee Carter's phrase flashed back to her memory, "All the chaps go."
"But what about the Black Hole-I mean the works?"
"They go on," he said. "I just get the profits."
"And how about your Socialism?"
"You taught me the fallacy of it."
"I? Well, that's the cream of the joke."
"Yes. Don't laugh at me, please. When you came into my life, or rather when you went out of it-yes, I am Irish-I saw that money and station are the mere veneer of life: the central reality is-Love."
Again her eyes filled with tears, but she remained silent.
"And I saw that I, the master, was really poorer than the majority of my serfs, with their wives and bairns."
"You are a good fellow," she murmured. "I-I meant to say," she corrected herself, "what have you done with your clothes?"
"My clothes!" he echoed vaguely, looking down at his spotless shirt-front.
"Your factory clothes! Wouldn't it be fun to wear them at supper here? Do you think they could turn you out? I don't see how, legally. Do test the question. Yes, do. Please do." And she laid her hand on his black sleeve. "I won't marry you if you don't."
"I did think you were serious to-night, Eileen," he said, disappointed.
"How could you think that, if you read the programme, as you say? 'Nelly O'Neill, Serio-Comic.' Allons, ne faites cette tete mine de hibou. Admit the world is entirely ridiculous and give me some more champagne." Her eyes glittered strangely.
A clock struck twelve.
"What, midnight!" she cried, starting up. "I must go."
"No, no;" he took her hand.
"Yes, yes; don't you know, at the stroke of midnight I change back to a governess."
"Well, the magic didn't work, for that clock's very slow. Sit down, please."
"You have spoken the omen. I remain Nelly O'Neill and drop Eileen for ever. Vogue la galere."
"Absit omen!" He shuddered.
"Why not? What do you offer me? The love of one man. But my public loves me as one man-with a much more voluminous love-I love it in return. Why should I change?"
"Shall we say merely because the public changes? I am constant."
"Yes, you are very wonderful.... And if it's to-morrow already, my fate will be settled to-day. Drink to my destiny."
"I drink to our destiny," he said, raising his glass.
"No. Only to mine. It will be decided this afternoon."
"You will give me your answer this afternoon?" he cried joyfully.
"I don't say that. It's my answer I shall know this afternoon. Yours you shall have to-morrow afternoon. You don't mind giving me one day's option of your hand?"
"One day's! When you have had-"
She interrupted impatiently. "Let bygones be bygones. You shall have a letter by Monday afternoon. But, oh, Heavens! how could we marry? You believe in nothing!"
"There's the Registrar."
She pouted: "Dry legality. No flowers, no organ, no feeling sweet and virginal in a long veil. Oh, dear! Besides, there's mother-"
"I don't object to the church ceremony."
"I'm glad. The law may end marriage. Marriage shouldn't begin with law. It ought to look beautiful at the start, at least, though one may know it's a shaky scraw."
"A shaky what?"
"Oh, it's an Irish term for a bit of black bog that looks like lovely green meadow. You step out so gaily on the glittering grass, and then squish! squash! down you go to choke in the ooze."
"Don't be so pessimistic. It would be much more sensible to think of marriage as solid meadow-land after your present scramble over a shaky what-d'ye-call it."
"True for you! I give you the stage as the shakiest of all scraws. But where is solid footing to be found? The world itself is only a vast bog that sucks in the generations."
"I am sorry I asked you to be serious," he said glumly. "You're such a quick-change artiste."
"I must quickly assume the governess or I'll lose my character," she said, rising resolutely.
He put her cloak tenderly round her.
"You know I'll take you without a character," he said lightly.
"If I had no character I might be tempted to take you," she retorted dispiritingly. "Thank you so much for my first supper."
XX.
Eileen slept little. The dramatic possibilities of the interview with Colonel Doherty were too agitating and too numerous. This time the marionette-play needed writing. Who should receive him when he called? Eileen O'Keeffe or Nelly O'Neill?
Either possibility offered exquisite comedy.
Eileen-as plain as possible-with a high, black dress, drooped lids, stiffly brushed hair, even eyeglasses perhaps, with a deportment redolent of bread-and-butter and five-finger exercises, could perhaps disenchant him sufficiently to make him moderate his matrimonial ardour, even to hurry off apologetically to his serio-comic Circe round the corner. What a triumph of acting if she could drive him to her rival! Then as he went through the door-to loosen her hair, throw off her glasses and whistle him back to Nelly O'Neill!
The part was tempting; it bristled with opportunities. But it was also too trying. He might begin by taking lover's liberties, and the strain of repulsing him would be too great. Besides, she wasn't clear how to play the opening of the scene. But then there was another star part open to her.
Nelly O'Neill's role was much easier: it played itself. She had only to go on with the episode. And the way the episode went on would also serve to determine finally her attitude when the moment came to throw off the mask and turn to governess. The only difficult moment would be the first-to obfuscate him immediately with the notion that he had mixed up the two addresses. Even if she failed and he realised his ghastlier blunder, it would only precipitate the dramatic duel which she must face sooner or later. All these high-strung possibilities deadened the horrible pain she knew her soul held for her, as soldiers carry wounds to be felt when the charge is over. She fell asleep near morning, her battle planned, and slept late, a sleep full of strange dreams, in one of which her drunken father counted her, and couldn't decide how many she was. "It's two I am, father asthore, only two, Eileen and Nelly," she kept crying. But he counted on.
Towards four in the afternoon she posted herself at the window. It was absolutely necessary to the comedy that she should open the door to him herself. At last a cab containing him halted at the door. She flew down, just supplanting the butler.
"How good of you, Colonel!" she cried. "But where is the Major?"
It was exquisitely calculated. She had pulled the string and the marionette moved with precision. A daze, a flash, a stammer-all the embarrassment of a man who believes that in a day-dream he has given a second address first.
"Miss-Miss O'Neill," he stuttered, mechanically removing his hat.
"Nelly to my friends," she smiled fascinatingly. "Come in!" Christopher Sly was not more bewildered when he opened his eyes on the glories of his Court.
"What-what is this address?" he blurted, as she prisoned him by closing the door.