Katrine. Elinor Macartney Lane
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rides like a trooper, drinks half a glass of whiskey at a gulp, and is the greatest liar I can imagine."
"It's enlightening to discover an adored parent's idea of a heavenly person," Francis said, with an amused smile.
"He sends me flowers and writes me poetry. We exchange," she explained, and there came to her eyes a delightfully critical appreciation of her own doings.
"The heavenly person has—I suppose—a name?" Frank suggested.
"Dermott McDermott."
"Has the heavenly person also a profession?"
"He is"—Mrs. Ravenel hesitated a minute—"he is an international lawyer and a Wall Street man."
"It sounds imposing," Frank returned. "What does it mean?"
"I don't know," his mother answered. "I have enough of the artist in me to be satisfied with the mere sound. His English—"
"His Irish," Frank interrupted.
—"is that of Dublin University, the most beautiful speech in the world. He is here in the interest of the Mainwaring people, he says, who want some information concerning those disputed mines. Added to his other attractions, he can talk in rhyme. Do you understand? Can talk in rhyme," she repeated, with emphasis, "and carries a Tom Moore in his waistcoat-pocket."
There came a sound of singing outside—a man's voice, musical, with an indescribably jaunty clip to the words:
"I was never addicted to work,
'Twas never the way o' the Gradys;
But I'd make a most excellent Turk,
For I'm fond of tobacco and ladies."
And with the song still in the air, the singer came through the shadow of the porch and stood in the doorway—a man tall and well set-up, in black riding-clothes, cap in hand, who saluted the two with his crop, and as he did so a jewel gleamed in the handle, showing him to be something of a dandy.
Standing in the doorway, the lights from the candelabra on his face and the sunset at his back, one noticed on the instant his great freedom of movement as of one good with the foils. His hair was dark, and his eyes, deep-set and luminous as a child's, looked straight at the world through lashes so long they made a mistiness of shadow. He had the pallor of the Spanish Creole found frequently in the south of Ireland folk. His mouth was straight, the upper lip a bit fuller than the under one, as is the case when intellect predominates, and his hair was of a singularly dull and wavy black. But set these and many more things down, and the charm of him has not been written at all, for the words give no hint of his bearing, his impertinent and charming familiarity, the surety of touch, the right word, and the ready concession.
"I thought the evening was beautiful till I saw you, madam," he said, with a sweeping salute. "I kiss your hand—with emotion." There was a slight pause here as he regarded Mrs. Ravenel with open admiration. "And thank you for the beautiful verses, asking that at some soon date you send more of the flowers of your imagination to bind around the gloomy brow of Dermott McDermott."
It was the McDermott way, this. A kiss on the hand and a compliment to Madam Ravenel; a compliment and a kiss on the lips to Peggy of the Poplars; but in his heart it was to the deil with all women—save one—for he regarded them as emotional liars to be sported with and forgotten.
As Mrs. Ravenel presented to each other these two men whose lives were to be interwoven for so many years, they shook hands cordially enough, but there was both criticism and appraisement in the first glance each took of the other.
The contrast between them, as they stood with clasped hands, did not pass unnoted by Mrs. Ravenel. The black hair, olive skin, the bluer than blue eyes of Dermott, as he stood in the light of the doorway; his alert, theatric, dominating personality; his superb self-consciousness; the decision of manner which comes only to those who have achieved, seemed to her prejudiced gaze admirable in themselves, but more admirable as a foil to the warm brown of Frank's hair, to the poetic gray of his eyes, his apparent self-depreciation, his easy acceptances, and his elegant reluctance to obtrude on others either his views or his personality.
Perhaps it was the prescience of coming trouble between them which caused a noticeable pause after the introduction—a pause which Dermott courteously broke.
"So this is the son," he said. "Sure," he went on, comparing them, "ye've a right to be proud of each other! Ye make a fine couple, the two of you. And now"—putting his cap, gloves, and riding-whip on the window-ledge—"I'll have coffee if you'll offer it. Let me"—taking some sugar—"eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow," he laughed—"why, to-morrow I may have talked myself to death!"
Frank rose from his chair and stood by the chimney, regarding the Irishman as one might have viewed a performer in a play, realizing to the full what his mother had meant by the "charm of McDermott," for it was a thing none could deny, for the subtle Celt complimented the ones to whom he spoke by an approving and admiring attention, and conveyed the impression that the roads of his life had but led him to their feet.
"To tell the truth," McDermott continued, noting and by no means displeased by Frank's scrutiny, "I had heard ye were home, Mr. Ravenel, and came early to see you with a purpose—two purposes, I might say. First, I wanted to talk to you concerning Patrick Dulany, the overseer whom I got for your mother last year. Ye've not see him yet?"
"I arrived only last night, Mr. McDermott," Francis answered.
"True, I'd forgotten. It's a strange life Patrick's had, and a sad one. He's of my own college in Dublin, but a good dozen years older than I. 'Twas in India I knew him first. He's one of the Black Dulanys of the North, and we fought side by side at Ramazan. What a time! What a time! In the famous charge up the river, when we turned, I lost my horse, and in that backward plunge my life was not worth taking. While I was lying there half dead and helpless, this Dulany got from his old gray, flung me across his saddle, and carried me nine miles back to the camp. Judge if I love him!"
Mr. McDermott looked from the window with the fixed gaze of one struggling with unshed tears.
"The next month he was ordered home, and soon after fell the bitter business of the marriage in Italy. I stood up with him. She was the most beautiful creature I have ever seen—save one; and a voice—God! I heard her sing in Milan once. The king was there; the opera 'La Favorita.' She was sent for to the royal box. We had the horses out of her carriage and dragged it home ourselves. What a night it was! What a night it was!"
McDermott paused as in an ecstasy of remembrance.
"What was her name?" Francis asked.
"Ah, that"—he threw out his hand with a dramatic gesture—"'tis a thing I swore never to mention. 'Tis a fancy of Dulany's to let it die in silence."
"And she left him?" Mrs. Ravenel's voice was full of sympathy as she spoke.
"For another!" Dermott made a dramatic pause, relishing his climaxes. "And then she died."
"So, for his daughter's sake"—there was a curious hesitancy in his speech just here, but he carried it off jauntily—"his daughter, a primrose girl and the love of my life, I've come to ask that you be a bit lenient with him, Mr. Ravenel, at the times he has taken a drop too much, as your lady mother has been in the year past. I think you'll find him able to manage, for, in spite of his infirmity, black and white fall under his spell alike."
"If Frank has a fault, Mr. McDermott, which I do not think he has, it's over-generosity. You need have no fear for your friend," Mrs. Ravenel said, proudly, putting her hand on Frank's shoulder.
As her son turned to kiss the slender fingers, Dermott McDermott regarded the two curiously.
"You're fortunate in having a son of twenty—" He hesitated.
"Of twenty-five," Francis finished for him.
"—so devoted to you, madam. Ye're twenty-five—coming or going?" he inquired, with a laugh.
"On