"If you cannot, there will be the devil to pay!"
"What particular devil?" enquired his lady love.
"Well, your father might kick up a row."
Dominga laughed with infinite mockery.
"Or our old man—who is supposed to keep me under lock and key? You must square it, won't you, darling?"
"Of course, I will do whatever you like, Jim. I always do."
And Verona was fully as uncomfortable as the lovers. She crept guiltily into bed, and once there her heart beat so fast she could not sleep. So this was Dom's secret—Jimmy Fielder! How well she had kept it! and yet how reckless to choose an open spot, not far from the house, for entrancing her lover with song and dance!
They must have met frequently—this was no unusual occasion. Verona, unable to sleep or close her eyes, beheld again, with inward vision, the scene: the background of flowering shrubs, the white floating figure with waving arms and gliding grace—Jimmy, sitting with his elbows on his knees, his hat on the back of his head, cigarette in mouth, gazing and glowering like a masher in a music hall—where no doubt, for the moment, he believed himself to be!
And Dominga was her own sister—what should she do? What must she do?
At this moment a stealthy footfall entered the room—it was Dom come to answer that question in person.