“You’re awfully good,” she began half hysterically. “I always knew you were good; I wish Roddy was like you! Oh, I wish I was like you! I can’t help it—I can’t help crying; you were always too good to me, and I never was worth it!” She sat down on one of the high stiff chairs, for which her predecessor had worked beaded seats, and hid her eyes in her handkerchief. “Please don’t talk to me; please don’t say anything to me—” She stopped suddenly. “What’s that? Is that anyone riding up?”
“No. It’s your horse coming round from the yard,” said Christopher, taking a step towards the window, and trying to keep up the farce of talking as if nothing had happened.
“My horse!” she exclaimed, starting up. “Oh, yes, I must go and meet Roddy. I mustn’t wait any longer.” She began, as if unconscious of Christopher’s presence, to look for the whip and gloves that she had laid down. He saw them before she did, and handed them to her.
“Good-bye,” he said, taking her cold, trembling hand, “I must go too. You will tell your husband that it’s—it’s all right.”
“Yes. I’ll tell him. I’m going to meet him. I must start now,” she answered, scarcely seeming to notice what he said, and withdrawing her hand from his, she began hurriedly to button on her gloves.
Christopher did not wait for further dismissal, but when his hand was on the door, her old self suddenly woke.
“Look at me letting you go away without telling you a bit how grateful I am to you!” she said, with a lift of her tear-disfigured eyes that was like a changeling of the look he used to know; “but don’t you remember what Mrs. Baker said about me, that ‘you couldn’t expect any manners from a Dublin Jackeen.’?”
She laughed weakly, and Christopher, stammering more than ever in an attempt to say that there was nothing to be grateful for, got himself out of the room.
After he had gone, Francie gave herself no time to think. Everything was reeling round her as she went out on to the steps, and even Michael the groom thought to himself that if he hadn’t the trap to wash, he’d put the saddle on the chestnut and folly the misthress, she had that thrimulous way with her when he put the reins into her hands, and only for it was the mare she was riding he wouldn’t see her go out by herself.
It was the first of June, and the gaiety of the spring was nearly gone. The flowers had fallen from the hawthorn, the bluebells and primroses were vanishing as quietly as they came, the meadows were already swarthy, and the breaths of air that sent pale shimmers across them, were full of the unspeakable fragrance of the ripening grass. Under the trees, near Rosemount, the shadowing greenness had saturated the daylight with its gloom, but out among the open pastures and meadows the large grey sky seemed almost bright, and, in the rich sobriety of tone, the red cattle were brilliant spots of colour.