"He didn't go so far, after all," said Miss Bennett, somewhat blown, but holding her own, in spite of the satin shoes.
I turned the last corner at a high rate of speed, and saw the dignified Georgian façade of the house, pale and placid in the moonlight; through the open hall door a shaft of yellow light fell on the ground. The car was nowhere to be seen, yet somewhere, close at hand, the engine throbbed and drummed to me,—a cri de coeur, as I felt it, calling to me through the accursed jingle of the piano that proceeded from the open door.
"Where the devil——?" I began.
Even as I spoke I descried the car. It was engaged, apparently, in forcing its way into the shrubbery that screened one end of the house. The bonnet was buried in a holly bush, the engine was working, slowly but industriously. The lamps were not lighted, and there was no one in it.
"Those two imps made good use of their legs, never fear them!" puffed Miss Bennett; "the 'cuteness of them—cutting away to warn the brother!"
"What's this confounded thing?" I said fiercely, snatching at something that was caught in the handle of the brake.
Miss Bennett snatched it in her turn, and held it up in the moonlight, while I stilled the fever of the engine.
"Dublin for ever!" she exclaimed. "What is it but the streamers of Miss Cooney's mandoline! There's the spoils of war for you! And it's all the spoils you'll get—the whole pack of them's hid in the house by now!"
From an unlighted window over the hall door a voice added itself to the conversation.
"God help the house that holds them!" it said, addressing the universe.