“He did; her name is Mitty Flood. Lady Donnelly said she was a bold, pushing minx—nothing to what I am myself, at this moment—and I would never dare to say what I have said, only that you cannot see me now, and after this evening will never meet me again.”
“No? I would not be so sure of that! So you are speaking out for what is called my good? Nameless young lady in the dark, it is most awfully kind of you, but I’m past help. How can I go out into the world without a sixpence? without decent clothes, without a single friend? I have no interest, and not much brains; all my pals at school and at Sandhurst are doing their job, and I’ve dropped them; never answered their letters, for I’d be ashamed to let them know I was just slacking about at home, shooting rabbits, breaking in young horses—and eating my heart out—a prisoner to poverty. There now! the dark has opened my lips too—I’ve never said as much to a living soul.”
“But you can easily free yourself,” said the girl with easy confidence. “You have been well educated; you are young, and strong.”
“Young and strong—yes—but I’ve no money to make even a humble start. I had thought of going to Dublin, and getting taken on as a tram conductor, at, say, eighteen shillings a week, but it would barely keep me, and I’m worth that at home, shooting wild duck and rabbits, an outlying Donnelly pheasant, or finding plovers’ eggs, and digging potatoes. As for Mitty Flood—what beastly gossip! I hardly know her, and I don’t want to know her. One day her bicycle broke down, and she asked me to help her, and when she meets me she stops to talk—that’s all.”
(Vera mentally decided that the bicycle was an excuse, that the meetings were not accidental, and that Mitty was a minx!)
“An attraction here,” he continued; “why, the very idea makes me laugh. If you only knew what my life is, you’d laugh, too.”
“I don’t think I would,” she protested. “I know a little about you; you know nothing of me, which is not fair, so I shall tell you who I am. My name is Vera de Lisle; my mother is related to the Donnellys; she is a widow, and I am her only child. We live in Charles Street, Mayfair, and are well off. I am eighteen—I left school last Easter. I have been presented, and to one or two balls—only mother thinks I am too young to racket about—and am to come out in earnest next season.”
“Yes—and what else?”
“I like tennis and dancing, and other girls who are jolly—and dogs—no, not the setters. I am furious with them. Also I enjoy reading, and being alone sometimes, and having a real good long think.”
“As we are being so extraordinarily outspoken, may I ask, do you think of anyone in particular—you know what I mean?”