V
IN DRAGON COURT
There was a young moon in the southwest--a slender tracery in theApril twilight--curved high over his right shoulder as he walkednorthward and homeward through the flare of Broadway.
His thoughts were still occupied with the pleasant excitement of hisencounter with Thessalie Dunois; his mind and heart still responded tothe delightful stimulation. Out of an already half-forgotten realm ofromance, where, often now, he found it increasingly difficult torealise that he had lived for five happy years, a young girl hadsuddenly emerged as bodily witness, to corroborate, revive, andrefresh his fading faith in the reality of what once had been.
Five years in France!--France with its clear sun and lovely moon; itssilver-grey cities, its lilac haze, its sweet, deep greenness, itsatmosphere of living light!--France, the dwelling-place of God in allHis myriad aspects--in all His protean forms! France, the sanctuary ofTruth and all her ancient and her future liberties; France, blossomingdomain of Love in Love's million exquisite transfigurations, whereinonly the eye of faith can recognise the winged god amid hiscamouflage!
* * * * *
Wine-strong winds of the Western World, and a pitiless Western sunwhich etches every contour with terrible precision, leaving nothing toimagination--no delicate mystery to rest and shelter souls--had sweptaway and partly erased from his mind the actuality of those five pastyears.
Already that past, of which he had been a part, was becomingdisturbingly unreal to him. Phantoms haunted its ever-paling sunlight;its scenes were fading; its voices grew vague and distant; its hushedlaughter dwindled to a whisper, dying like a sigh.
Then, suddenly, against that misty tapestry of tinted spectres,appeared Thessalie Dunois in the flesh!--straight out of thephantom-haunted void had stepped this glowing thing of life! Into theraw reek and familiar dissonance of Broadway she had vanished. Smallwonder that he had followed her to keep in touch with the vanishingpast, as a sleeper, waking against his will, strives still to graspthe fragile fabric of a happy dream.
Yet, in spite of Thessalie, in spite of dreams, in spite of his ownhome-coming, and the touch of familiar pavements under his own feet,the past, to Barres, was utterly dead, the present strange and unreal,the future obscure and all aflame behind a world afire with war.
For two years, now, no human mind in America had been able to adjustitself to the new heaven and the new earth which had sprung into luridbeing at the thunderclap of war.
All things familiar had changed in the twinkling of an eye; all formerthings had passed away, leaving the stunned brain of humanity dulledunder the shock.
Slowly, by degrees, the world was beginning to realise that thecivilisation of Christ was being menaced once again by a resurgencefrom that ancient land of legend where the wild Hun denned;--thatagain the endless hordes of barbarians were rushing in on Europe outof their Eastern fastnesses--hordes which filled the shrinking skieswith their clamour, vaunting the might of Baal, cheering theirantichrist, drenching the knees of their own red gods with the bloodof little children.
It seemed impossible for Americans to understand that these thingscould be--were really true--that the horrors the papers printed wereactualities happening to civilised people like themselves and theirneighbours.
Out of their own mouths the German tribes thundered their own disgraceand condemnation, yet America sat dazed, incredulous, motionless.Emperor and general, professor and junker, shouted at the top of theirlungs the new creed, horrible as the Black Mass, reversing everyprecept taught by Christ.
Millions of Teuton mouths cheered fiercely for the newreligion--Frightfulness; worshipped with frantic yells the newtrinity--Wotan, Kaiser and Brute Strength.
Stunned, blinded, deafened, the Western World, still half-paralysed,stirred stiffly from its inertia. Slowly, mechanically, its arteriesresumed their functions; the reflex, operating automatically, startedtrade again in its old channels; old habits were timidly resumed;minds groped backward, searching for severed threads which connectedyesterday with to-day--groped, hunted, found nothing, and, perplexed,turned slowly toward the smoke-choked future for some reason for itall--some outlook.
There was no explanation, no outlook--nothing save dust and flame andthe din of Teutonic hordes trampling to death the Son of Man.
So America moved about her worn, deep-trodden and familiar ways, hermind slowly clearing from the cataclysmic concussion, her power ofvision gradually returning, adjusting itself, little by little, tothis new heaven and new earth and this hell entirely new.
The _Lusitania_ went down; the Great Republic merely quivered. Otherships followed; only a low murmur of pain came from the WesternColossus.
But now, after the second year, through the thickening nightmare theGreat Republic groaned aloud; and a new note of menace sounded in herdrugged and dreary voice.
And the thick ears of the Hun twitched and he paused, squattingbelly-deep in blood, to listen.
* * * * *
Barres walked homeward. Somewhere along in the 40's he turned eastwardinto one of those cross-streets originally built up of brownstonedwelling houses, and now in process of transformation into thatarchitectural and commercial miscellany which marks the transitionstage of the metropolis anywhere from Westchester to the sea.
Altered for business purposes, basements displayed signs andmerchandise of bootmakers, dealers in oriental porcelains, rareprints, silverware; parlour windows modified into bay windows, sheetedwith plate-glass, exposed, perhaps, feminine headgear, or an expensivemodel gown or two, or the sign of a real-estate man, or of anupholsterer.
Above the parlour floors lived people of one sort or another;furnished and unfurnished rooms and suites prevailed; and thebrownstone monotony was already indented along the building line bybrand-new constructions of Indiana limestone, behind the glitteringplate-glass of which were to be seen reticent displays of artisticfurniture, modern and antique oil paintings, here and there thelace-curtained den of some superior ladies' hair-dresser, wherebeautifying also was accomplished at a price, alas!
Halfway between Sixth Avenue and Fifth, on the north side of thestreet, an enterprising architect had purchased half a dozen squatty,three-storied houses, set back from the sidewalk behind grass-plots.These had been lavishly stuccoed and transformed into abodes for thoseirregulars in the army of life known as "artists."
In the rear the back fences had been levelled; six correspondinghouses on the next street had been purchased; a sort of inner courtestablished, with a common grass-plot planted with trees andembellished by a number of concrete works of art, battered statues,sundials, and well-curbs.
Always the army of civilisation trudges along screened, flanked, andtagged after by life's irregulars, who cannot or will not conform toroutine. And these are always roaming around seeking their owncantonments, where, for a while, they seem content to dwell at the endof one more aimless etape through the world--not in regulationbarracks, but in regions too unconventional, too inconvenient toattract others.
Of this sort was the collection of squatty houses, forming a"community," where, in the neighbourhood of other irregulars, GarretBarres dwelt; and into the lighted entrance of which he now turned,still exhilarated by his meeting with Thessalie Dunois.
The architectural agglomeration was known as Dragon Court--a faienceFu-dog above the electric light over the green entrance doorfurnishing that priceless idea--a Fu-dog now veiled by mesh-wire toprovide against the indiscretions of sparrows lured thither byhousekeeping possibilities lurking among the dense screens of Japaneseivy covering the facade.
Larry Soane, the irresponsible superintendent, always turned gardenerwith April's advent in Dragon Court, contributions from its denizensenabling him to pepper a few flower-beds with hyacinths and tulips,and later with geraniums. These former bulbs had now gratefullyappeared in promising thickets, and Barres saw the dark form of thehandsome, reckless-looking Irishman fussing over them in thel
antern-lit dusk, while his little daughter, Dulcie, kneeling on thedim grass, caressed the first blue hyacinth blossom with thin,childish fingers.
Barres glanced into his letter-box behind the desk, above which adrop-light threw more shadows than illumination. Little Dulcie Soanewas supposed to sit under it and emit information, deliver and receiveletters, pay charges on packages, and generally supervise things whenshe was not attending school.
There were no letters for the young man. He examined a package, foundit contained his collars from the laundry, tucked them under his leftarm, and walked to the door looking out upon the dusky interiorcourt.
"Soane," he said, "your garden begins to look very fine." He noddedpleasantly to Dulcie, and the child responded to his friendly greetingwith the tired but dauntless smile of the young who are missing thosegolden years to which all childhood has a claim.
Dulcie's three cats came strolling out of the dusk across the lamplitgrass--a coal black one with sea-green eyes, known as "The Prophet,"and his platonic mate, white as snow, and with magnificent azure-blueeyes which, in white cats, usually betokens total deafness. She wasknown as "The Houri" to the irregulars of Dragon Court. The third cat,unanimously but misleadingly christened "Strindberg" by the dwellersin Dragon Court, has already crooked her tortoise-shell tail and wastearing around in eccentric circles or darting halfway up trees in amanner characteristic, and, possibly accounting for the name, if notfor the sex.
"Thim cats of the kid's," observed Soane, "do be scratchin' up theplants all night long--bad cess to thim! Barrin' thim three omadhaunsyonder, I'd show ye a purty bed o' poisies, Misther Barres. ButSthrin'berg, God help her, is f'r diggin' through to China."
Dulcie impulsively caressed the Prophet, who turned his solemn,incandescent eyes on Barres. The Houri also looked at him, then,intoxicated by the soft spring evening, rolled lithely upon the newgrass and lay there twitching her snowy tail and challenging the starsout of eyes that matched their brilliance.
Dulcie got up and walked slowly across the grass to where Barresstood:
"May I come to see you this evening?" she asked, diffidently, and witha swift, sidelong glance toward her father.
"Ah, then, don't be worritin' him!" grumbled Soane. "Hasn't MistherBarres enough to do, what with all thim idees he has slitherin' in hishead, an' all the books an' learnin' an' picters he has to thinkof--whithout the likes of you at his heels every blessed minute, dayan' night!----"
"But he always lets me--" she remonstrated.
"G'wan, now, and lave the poor gentleman be! Quit your futtherin' an'muttherin'. G'wan in the house, ye little scut, an' see what there isf'r ye to do!----"
"What's the matter with you, Soane?" interrupted Barres good-humouredly."Of course she can come up if she wants to. Do you feel like paying mea visit, Dulcie, before you go to bed?"
"Yes," she nodded diffidently.
"Well, come ahead then, Sweetness! And whenever you want to come yousay so. Your father knows well enough I like to have you."
He smiled at Dulcie; the child's shy preference for his society alwayshad amused him. Besides, she was always docile and obedient; and shewas very sensitive, too, never outwearing her welcome in his studio,and always leaving without a murmur when, looking up from book ordrawing he would exclaim cheerfully: "Now, Sweetness! Time's up! Bedfor yours, little lady!"
It had been a very gradual acquaintance between them--more than twoyears in developing. From his first pleasant nod to her when he firstcame to live in Dragon Court, it had progressed for a few months,conservatively on her part, and on his with a detached but kindlyinterest born of easy sympathy for youth and loneliness.
But he had no idea of the passionate response he was stirring in themotherless, neglected child--of what hunger he was carelesslystimulating, what latent qualities and dormant characteristics he wasarousing.
Her appearance, one evening, in her night-dress at his studio doorway,accompanied by her three cats, began to enlighten him in regard to hermental starvation. Tremulous, almost at the point of tears, she hadasked for a book and permission to remain for a few moments in thestudio. He had rung for Selinda, ordered fruit, cake, and a glass ofmilk, and had installed Dulcie upon the sofa with a lapful of books.That was the beginning.
But Barres still did not entirely understand what particular magnetdrew the child to his studio. The place was full of beautiful things,books, rugs, pictures, fine old furniture, cabinets glimmering withporcelains, ivories, jades, Chinese crystals. These all, in minutestdetail, seemed to fascinate the girl. Yet, after giving her permissionto enter whenever she desired, often while reading or absorbed inother affairs, he became conscious of being watched; and, glancing up,would frequently surprise her sitting there very silently, with anopen book on her knees, and her strange grey eyes intently fixed onhim.
Then he would always smile and say something friendly; and usuallyforget her the next moment in his absorption of whatever work he hadunder way.
Only one other man inhabiting Dragon Court ever took the trouble tonotice or speak to the child--James Westmore, the sculptor. And he wasvery friendly in his vigorous, jolly, rather boisterous way, catchingher up and tossing her about as gaily and irresponsibly as though shewere a rag doll; and always telling her he was her adopted godfatherand would have to chastise her if she ever deserved it. Also, he wasalways urging her to hurry and grow up, because he had a weddingpresent for her. And though Dulcie's smile was friendly, andWestmore's nonsense pleased the shy child, she merely submitted, nevermade any advance.
* * * * *
Barres's menage was accomplished by two specimens of mankind, totallyopposite in sex and colour; Selinda, a blonde, slant-eyed, and verytrim Finn, doing duty as maid; and Aristocrates W. Johnson, latelyemployed in the capacity of waiter on a dining-car by the New YorkCentral Railroad--tall, dignified, graceful, and Ethiopian--who cookedas daintily as a debutante trifling with culinary duty, and served attable with the languid condescension of a dilettante and wealthyamateur of domestic arts.
* * * * *
Barres ascended the two low, easy flights of stairs and unlocked hisdoor. Aristocrates, setting the table in the dining-room, approachedgracefully and relieved his master of hat, coat, and stick.
Half an hour later, a bath and fresh linen keyed up his alreadylively spirits; he whistled while he tied his tie, took a criticallook at himself, and, dropping both hands into the pockets of hisdinner jacket, walked out into the big studio, which also was hisliving-room.
There was a piano there; he sat down and rattled off a rollicking airfrom the most recent spring production, beginning to realise that hewas keyed up for something livelier than a solitary dinner at home.
His hands fell from the keys and he swung around on the piano stooland looked into the dining-room rather doubtfully.
"Aristocrates!" he called.
The tall pullman butler sauntered gracefully in.
Barres gave him a telephone number to call. Aristocrates returnedpresently with the information that the lady was not at home.
"All right. Try Amsterdam 6703. Ask for Miss Souval."
But Miss Souval, also, was out.
Barres possessed a red-leather covered note-book; he went to his deskand got it; and under his direction Aristocrates called up severalnumbers, reporting adversely in every case.
It was a fine evening; ladies were abroad or preparing to fulfilengagements wisely made on such a day as this had been. And the morenumbers he called up the lonelier the young man began to feel.
Thessalie had not given him either her address or telephone number. Itwould have been charming to have her dine with him. He was nowthoroughly inclined for company. He glanced at the empty dining-roomwith aversion.
"All right; never mind," he said, dismissing Aristocrates, who recededas lithely as though leading a cake-walk.
"The devil," muttered the young fellow. "I'm not going to dine herealone. I've had too happ
y a day of it."
He got up restlessly and began to pace the studio. He knew he couldget some man, but he didn't want one. However, it began to look likethat or a solitary dinner.
So after a few more moments' scowling cogitation he went out and downthe stairs, with the vague idea of inviting some brother painter--anyone of the regular irregulars who inhabited Dragon Court.
Dulcie sat behind the little desk near the door, head bowed, her thinhands clasped over the closed ledger, and in her pallid face theexpressionless dullness of a child forgotten.
"Hello, Sweetness!" he said cheerfully.
She looked up; a slight colour tinted her cheeks, and she smiled.
"What's the matter, Dulcie?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing? That's a very dreary malady--nothing. You look lonely. Areyou?"
"I don't know."
"You don't know whether you are lonely or not?" he demanded.
"I suppose I am," she ventured, with a shy smile.
"Where is your father?"
"He went out."
"Any letters for me--or messages?"
"A man--he had one eye--came. He asked who you are."
"What?"
"I think he was German. He had only one eye. He asked your name."
"What did you say?"
"I told him. Then he went away."
Barres shrugged:
"Somebody who wants to sell artists' materials," he concluded. Then helooked at the girl: "So you're lonely, are you? Where are your threecats? Aren't they company for you?"
"Yes...."
"Well, then," he said gaily, "why not give a party for them? Thatought to amuse you, Dulcie."
The child still smiled; Barres walked on past her a pace or two,halted, turned irresolutely, arrived at some swift decision, and cameback, suddenly understanding that he need seek no further--that he haddiscovered his guest of the evening at his very elbow.
"Did you and your father have your supper, Dulcie?"
"My father went out to eat at Grogan's."
"How about you?"
"I can find something."
"Why not dine with me?" he suggested.
The child stared, bewildered, then went a little pale.
"Shall we have a dinner party for two--you and I, Dulcie? What do yousay?"
She said nothing, but her big grey eyes were fixed on him in a passionof inquiry.
"A real party," he repeated. "Let the people get their own mail andpackages until your father returns. Nobody's going to sneak in,anyway. Or, if that won't do, I'll call up Grogan's and tell yourfather to come back because you are going to dine in my studio withme. Do you know the telephone number? Very well; get Grogan's for me.I'll speak to your father."
Dulcie's hand trembled on the receiver as she called up Grogan's;Barres bent over the transmitter:
"Soane, Dulcie is going to take dinner in my studio with me. You'llhave to come back on duty, when you've eaten." He hung up, looked atDulcie and laughed.
"I wanted company as much as you did," he confessed. "Now, go and puton your prettiest frock, and we'll be very grand and magnificent. Andafterward we'll talk and look at books and pretty things--and maybewe'll turn on the Victrola and I'll teach you to dance--" He hadalready begun to ascend the stairs:
"In half an hour, Dulcie!" he called back; "--and you may bring theProphet if you like.... Shall I ask Mr. Westmore to join us?"
"I'd rather be all alone with you," she said shyly.
He laughed and ran on up the stairs.
* * * * *
In half an hour the electric bell rang very timidly. Aristocrates,having been instructed and rehearsed, and, loftily condescending tohis role in a kindly comedy to be played seriously, announced: "MissSoane!" in his most courtly manner.
Barres threw aside the evening paper and came forward, taking bothhands of the white and slightly frightened child.
"Aristocrates ought to have announced the Prophet, too," he saidgaily, breaking the ice and swinging Dulcie around to face the opendoor again.
The Prophet entered, perfectly at ease, his eyes of living jadeshining, his tail urbanely hoisted.
Dulcie ventured to smile; Barres laughed outright; Aristocratessurveyed the Prophet with toleration mingled with a certain respect.For a black cat is never without occult significance to a gentleman ofcolour.
With Dulcie's hand still in his, Barres led her into the living-room,where, presently, Aristocrates brought a silver tray upon which wasa glass of iced orange juice for Dulcie, and a "Bronnix," asAristocrates called it, for the master.
"To your health and good fortune in life, Dulcie," he said politely.
The child gazed mutely at him over her glass, then, blushing, venturedto taste her orange juice.
When she finished, Barres drew her frail arm through his and took herout, seating her. Ceremonies began in silence, and the master of theplace was not quite sure whether the flush on Dulcie's face indicatedunhappy embarrassment or pleasure.
He need not have worried: the child adored it all. The Prophet came inand gravely seated himself on a neighbouring chair, whence he couldsurvey the table and seriously inspect each course.
"Dulcie," he said, "how grown-up you look with your bobbed hair putup, and your fluffy gown."
She lifted her enchanted eyes to him:
"It is my first communion dress.... I've had to make it longer for agraduation dress."
"Oh, that's so; you're graduating this summer!"
"Yes."
"And what then?"
"Nothing." She sighed unconsciously and sat very still with foldedhands, while Aristocrates refilled her glass of water.
She no longer felt embarrassed; her gravity matched Aristocrates's;she seriously accepted whatever was offered or set before her, butBarres noticed that she ate it all, merely leaving on her plate, withinculcated and mathematical precision, a small portion as concessionto good manners.
They had, toward the banquet's end, water ices, bon-bons, Frenchpastry, and ice cream. And presently a slight and blissful sigh ofrepletion escaped the child's red lips. The symptoms were satisfactorybut unmistakable; Dulcie was perfectly feminine; her capacity hadproven it.
The Prophet's stately self-control in the fragrant vicinity ofnourishment was now to be rewarded: Barres conducted Dulcie to thestudio and installed her among cushions upon a huge sofa. Then,lighting a cigarette, he dropped down beside her and crossed one kneeover the other.
"Dulcie," he said in his lazy, humorous way, "it's a funny old worldany way you view it."
"Do you think it is always funny?" inquired the child, her deep, greyeyes on his face.
He smiled:
"Yes, I do; but sometimes the joke in on one's self. And then,although it is still a funny world, from the world's point of view,you, of course, fail to see the humour of it.... I don't suppose youunderstand."
"I do," nodded the child, with the ghost of a smile.
"Really? Well, I was afraid I'd been talking nonsense, but if youunderstand, it's all right."
They both laughed.
"Do you want to look at some books?" he suggested.
"I'd rather listen to you."
He smiled:
"All right. I'll begin at this corner of the room and tell you aboutthe things in it." And for a while he rambled lazily on about oldFrench chairs and Spanish chests, and the panels of Mille Fleurtapestry which hung behind them; the two lovely pre-Raphael panels intheir exquisite ancient frames; the old Venetian velvet coveringtriple choir-stalls in the corner; the ivory-toned marble figure onits wood and compos pedestal, where tendrils and delicate foliationsof water gilt had become slightly irridescent, harmonising with thepatine on the ancient Chinese garniture flanking a mantel clock ofdullest gold.
About these things, their workmanship, the histories of their times,he told her in his easy, unaccented voice, glancing sideways at herfrom time to time to note how she stood it.
But she listen
ed, fascinated, her gaze moving from the objectdiscussed to the man who discussed it; her slim limbs curled underher, her hands clasped around a silken cushion made from the robe ofsome Chinese princess.
Lounging there beside her, amused, humorously flattered by herattention, and perhaps a little touched, he held forth a littlelonger.
"Is it a nice party, so far, Dulcie?" he concluded with a smile.
She flushed, found no words, nodded, and sat with lowered head asthough pondering.
"What would you rather do if you could do what you want to in theworld, Dulcie?"
"I don't know."
"Think a minute."
She thought for a while.
"Live with you," she said seriously.
"Oh, Dulcie! That is no sort of ambition for a growing girl!" helaughed; and she laughed, too, watching his every expression out ofgrey eyes that were her chiefest beauty.
"You're a little too young to know what you want yet," he concluded,still smiling. "By the time that bobbed mop of red hair grows to aproper length, you'll know more about yourself."
"Do you like it up?" she enquired naively.
"It makes you look older."
"I want it to."
"I suppose so," he nodded, noticing the snowy neck which the newcoiffure revealed. It was becoming evident to him that Dulcie had herown vanities--little pathetic vanities which touched him as he glancedat the reconstructed first communion dress and the drooping hyacinthpinned at the waist, and the cheap white slippers on a foot asslenderly constructed as her long and narrow hands.
"Did your mother die long ago, Dulcie?"
"Yes."
"In America?"
"In Ireland."
"You look like her, I fancy--" thinking of Soane.
"I don't know."
Barres had heard Soane hold forth in his cups on one or twooccasions--nothing more than the vague garrulousness of a Celt mademore loquacious by the whiskey of one Grogan--something about hishaving been a gamekeeper in his youth, and that his wife--"God resther!"--might have held up her head with "anny wan o' thim in th' BigHouse."
Recollecting this, he idly wondered what the story might have been--ayoung girl's perverse infatuation for her father's gamekeeper,perhaps--a handsome, common, ignorant youth, reckless and irresponsibleenough to take advantage of her--probably some such story--resemblingsimilar histories of chauffeurs, riding-masters, grooms, andcoachmen at home.
The Prophet came noiselessly into the studio, stopped at sight of hislittle mistress, twitched his tail reflectively, then leaped onto acarved table and calmly began his ablutions.
Barres got up and wound up the Victrola. Then he kicked aside a rug ortwo.
"This is to be a real party, you know," he remarked. "You don't dance,do you?"
"Yes," she said diffidently, "a little."
"Oh! That's fine!" he exclaimed.
Dulcie got off the sofa, shook out her reconstructed gown. When hecame over to where she stood, she laid her hand in his almostsolemnly, so overpowering had become the heavenly sequence of events.For the rite of his hospitality had indeed become a rite to her. Neverbefore had she stood in awe, enthralled before such an altar as thisman's hearthstone. Never had she dreamed that he who so wondrouslyserved it could look at such an offering as hers--herself.
But the miracle had happened; altar and priest were accepting her; shelaid her hand, which trembled, in his; gave herself to his guidanceand to the celestial music, scarcely seeing, scarcely hearing hisvoice.
"You dance delightfully," he was saying; "you're a born dancer,Dulcie. I do it fairly well myself, and I ought to know."
He was really very much surprised. He was enjoying it immensely. Whenthe Victrola gave up the ghost he wound it again and came back toresume. Under his suggestions and tutelage, they tried more intricatesteps, devious and ambitious, and Dulcie, unterrified by terpsichoreancomplications, surmounted every one with his whispered coaching andexpert aid.
Now it came to a point where time was not for him. He was toointerested, enjoying it too genuinely.
Sometimes, when they paused to enable him to resurrect the defunctmusic in the Victrola, they laughed at the Prophet, who sat upon theancient carved table, gravely surveying them. Sometimes they restedbecause he thought she ought to--himself a trifle pumped--only tofind, to his amazement, that he need not be solicitous concerningher.
* * * * *
A tall and ancient clock ringing midnight from clear, uncompromisingbells, brought Barres to himself.
"Good Lord!" he exclaimed, "this won't do! Dear child, I'm having awonderful time, but I've got to deliver you to your father!"
He drew her arm through his, laughingly pretending horror and haste;she fled lightly along beside him as he whisked her through the halland down the stairs.
A candle burned on the desk. Soane sat there, asleep, and odorous ofalcohol, his flushed face buried in his arms.
But Soane was what is known as a "sob-souse"; never ugly in his cups,merely inclined to weep over the immemorial wrongs of Ireland.
He woke up when Barres touched his shoulder, rubbed his swollen eyesand black, curly head, gazed tragically at his daughter:
"G'wan to bed, ye little scut!" he said, getting to his feet with aterrific yawn.
Barres took her hand:
"We've had a wonderful party, haven't we, Sweetness?"
"Yes," whispered the child.
The next instant she was gone like a ghost, through the dusky,whitewashed corridor where distorted shadows trembled in thecandlelight.
"Soane," said Barres, "this won't do, you know. They'll sack you ifyou keep on drinking."
The man, not yet forty, a battered, middle-aged by-product of hale andreckless vigour, passed his hands over his temples with the dignityof a Hibernian Hamlet:
"The harp that wanst through Tara's halls--" he began; but memoryfailed; and two tears--by-products, also, of Grogan's whiskey--sparkledin his reproachful eyes.
"I'm merely telling you," remarked Barres. "We all like you, Soane,but the landlord won't stand for it."
"May God forgive him," muttered Soane. "Was there ever a landlord buthe was a tyrant, too?"
Barres blew out the candle; a faint light above the Fu-dog outside,over the street door, illuminated the stone hall.
"You ought to keep sober for your little daughter's sake," insistedBarres in a low voice. "You love her, don't you?"
"I do that!" said Soane--"God bless her and her poor mother, who couldhould up her pretty head with anny wan till she tuk up with th' likeo' me!"
His brogue always increased in his cups; devotion to Ireland and alofty scorn of landlords grew with both.
"You'd better keep away from Grogan's," remarked Barres.
"I had a bite an' a sup at Grogan's. Is there anny harrm in that,sorr?"
"Cut out the 'sup,' Larry. Cut out that gang of bums at Grogan's, too.There are too many Germans hanging out around Grogan's these days. YouSinn Feiners or Clan-na-Gael, or whatever you are, had better manageyour own affairs, anyway. The old-time Feinans stood on their ownsturdy legs, not on German beer-skids."
"Wisha then, sorr, d'ye mind th' ould song they sang in thim days:
"_Then up steps Bonyparty An' takes me by the hand, And how is ould Ireland, And how does she shtand? It's a poor, disthressed country As ever yet was seen, And they're hangin' men and women For the wearing of the green!_
_Oh, the wearing of the_----"
"That'll do," said Barres drily. "Do you want to wake the house? Don'tgo to Grogan's and talk about Ireland to any Germans. I'll tell youwhy: we'll probably be at war with Germany ourselves within a year,and that's a pretty good reason for you Irish to keep clear of allGermans. Go to bed!"