Of course everyone talked of the war, until Mrs. Freyne suddenly remembered that Mr. Brady ought to tell the General his splendid scheme, even down to the Kaiser's place of imprisonment in Runnymede.
Darby's "Why Runnymede?" held a note of astonishment.
Matilda Freyne said she supposed because it would always remind the dreadful man of Magna Charta and England's might. Well, if it was Spike Island Mr. Brady had suggested, she thought Runnymede was much more suitable, so English all round, and everyone agreed with her gravely.
They played games afterwards, to amuse the Brady and O'Toole children—blind man's buff and general post—in which game Mrs. Freyne could never think of any post save London to Berlin, and as no one would be Berlin, London got tired of hopping up vainly, and allowed poor Paris to be caught when someone called this town.
When Mr. Keefe, the blind man, spun frantically round the room amid a ring of mockers, Gheena took refuge in a window recess, to find General Brownlow smoking there peacefully.
Next minute Stafford was caught and blinded. In the whirl of pulling hands he felt one catch harder than the others, and having secured Lucy Brady, of eleven, wondered if it was chance or design that had placed a goose-quill in his button-hole. The Keefe children had had one to torment their father with, but—— He took it out and put it carefully into his pocket-book.
"If anyone did that on purpose," said Brownlow as Gheena came back to him, "it was a dirty thing to do."
"He won't forget, though," said Gheena carelessly. "And he doesn't care. Miss O'Toole might have done it."
"Don't you ever judge Don't-cares by appearances, young lady," he snapped. "And don't judge that boy, because he's a good sort, or I'm no judge myself."
Mrs. Weston, in flaming pink silk high to the throat, and wearing a becoming feather boa because she had a cold, had disappeared from view with Mr. Keefe. A murmur of voices from the firelit library indicated their retreat.