For indeed I never went empty-handed to see the child, remembering my own school-days. I had visited Maillard's that afternoon before taking the cars, and had chosen from the dainty confections which so temptingly fill the glass cases and adorn the plate-glass windows. I was told that she always distributed my gifts amongst her companions with a royal generosity, often keeping but little for herself. While I was still in the porch I heard her telling a companion:
"I am going to town on Tuesday. Isn't that splendid!"
"Oh, you lucky girl!" said the other. "I wish I had come from Ireland or some other place: then I might get out oftener."
I went homeward, musing on that happy time of life when a day out of school, a promised holiday, gives a keener delight than anything in after life.
"Why does youth ever pass away, with its glow and glory?" I thought. "And how dull its going leaves this prosaic earth!"
CHAPTER XVIII. AN UNEXPECTED MEETING.
It was a curious coincidence that on the very Sunday evening after I had visited Winifred and arranged for her to spend Tuesday with me at the hotel, I should have gone to supper with a friend of mine who was also a great friend of Roderick O'Byrne. She was an exceptional woman, of rare gifts, of warm heart and of long purse. She had the social talent in its greatest perfection, and gathered at her house a most brilliant and entertaining circle. She lived in a part of the city which is rapidly becoming old-fashioned—in the once desirable Murray Hill region—and her house was what is known to New Yorkers as an English basement-house: that is to say, the dining-room is on a level with the street, while the drawing-room, or suite of drawing-rooms, is reached by mounting the first stairs. A very handsome suite of rooms had my friend, appointed with the utmost elegance, and containing innumerable souvenirs of travel, artistic trifles of all sorts, with exquisite pictures and priceless statuary, arranged to give the best possible effect.
I had a standing invitation for the Sunday evening suppers, which were an institution of the house, and where one was always sure of meeting very agreeable people. The conversation was usually of everything interesting under the sun. As the guests began to assemble that evening, I saw amongst them, with very mingled feelings, the familiar figure of Roderick O'Byrne. It was my first meeting with him since my return from Ireland, and his presence made me conscious of a curious sensation. I had heard so much of his past history, the most hidden pages of his life, that it seemed strange to meet him there in an ordinary drawing-room. When I thought of Niall, of the old castle with its romance and mystery, it was hardly credible that this tall and slender gentleman in the well-fitting evening clothes should be the central figure in such a drama. And all the time I was withholding from him such a secret as the presence in America of his only child.