When tea is at an end, he rises gracefully, and expresses his desire to smoke one more cigar and have a last look at the weather.
"You will be able to put us up?" says he.
"Oh yes, sir, sure."
He smiles beautifully, and with a benevolent request to Joyce to take care of herself in his absence, leaves the room.
"He's a dale o' talk," says Mrs. Connolly, the moment his back is turned. She is now sure that Joyce has some private grudge against him, or at all events is not what she herself would call "partial to him."
"Yes," says Joyce. "He is very conversational. How it rains, still."
"Yes, it does," says Mrs. Connolly, comfortably. She is not at all put out by the girl's reserved manner, having lived among the "ginthry" for many years, and being well up to their "quare ways." A thought, however, that had been formulating in her mind for a long time past—ever since, indeed, she found her young lady could not return home until morning—now compels her to give the conversation a fresh turn.
"I've got to apologize to ye, Miss, but since ye must stay the night wid me, I'm bound to tell ye I have no room for ye but a little one leadin' out o' me own."
"Are you so very full, then, Mrs. Connolly? I'm glad to hear that for your sake."
"Full to the chin, me dear. Thim commercials always dhrop down upon one just whin laste wanted."