CHAPTER XV.
AN AMERICAN GIRL.
“She’s always been kind of off-ish and partic’lar for a gal that’s raised in the woods.”
Luncheon was over. The elders of the party had returned to the drawing-room, where they were seated in a state of contented satiety, discussing their servants, their gardens, and the Church of Ireland Sustentation Fund, according to their age and kind.
In the billiard-room, a four-handed game was going on. Willy and Miss Watson were playing Connie and Mr. Barrett; and, as billiards was not one of my accomplishments, I preferred, notwithstanding polite offers of instruction, to sit in a window-seat and look on.
Nugent at first undertook the office of marker; but as he tried at the same time to explain the intricacies of the game to me, complications in the scoring soon arose, accompanied by violent altercations with the players. Finally, he was expelled with ignominy, it having been proved that he had marked Miss Watson’s most brilliant break to her opponents.
“I thought I should never have come alive out of that,” he said, sitting down in the window beside me; “Miss Watson looked as if she was going to convince me with the butt end of her cue, and I have no ambition to have a row with Willy. I shouldn’t have much of a chance.”
I thought, nevertheless, that he looked well able to take care of himself, as he leaned back against the window-shutter, and began to roll a cigarette, while the sun slanted in upon his light, firm figure and well-shaped head, striking a pleasant dazzle into his blue eyes as he glanced at the players.
“Do you know Mr. Jimmy Barrett?” he asked, in cautious tones, as that youth, his freckled face pink with anxiety, sprawled across the table to play his stroke.
“No, I don’t know him, but I remember seeing him out hunting.”
“He’s a very fine rider, but that’s about all he’s good for. From the appearance of things at present, he will have cut the cloth in the course of the next five minutes. If Connie is going to give lessons in billiards, she ought to keep a private table for her disciples.”