“If she speaks to the Lord-Lieutenant,” said Doyle, “after the fashion she was speaking to me, it’s likely that she’ll not get the chance of making herself agreeable to him a second time. Devil such a temper I ever saw any woman in, and I’ve seen some in my day.”
“I know she’d be a bit savage. I hoped you wouldn’t have met her.”
“I did meet her. Wasn’t she turning in at the gate at the same time that I was myself? ‘There’s a letter here, ma’am,’ says I, ‘that the doctor told me I was to give to you,’ ‘I suppose it was half an hour ago,’ said she, ‘that he told you that,’ Well, I pulled the letter out of my pocket, and I gave it a rub along the side of my pants the same as you told me. ‘I suppose you’re doing that,’ said she, ‘to put some dirt on it, to make it look,’ said she, ‘as if it had been in your pocket a week.’”
“You wouldn’t think to look at her that she was so cute,” said Dr. O’Grady. “What did you say?”
“I said nothing either good or bad,” said Doyle, “only that it was to get the dirt off the letter, and not to be putting it on that I was giving it a bit of a rub. Well, she took the letter and she opened it. Then she looked me straight in the face. ‘When did you get this letter from the doctor?’ says she. So I told her it was last Friday you give it to me, and that I hadn’t seen you since, and didn’t care a great deal if I never seen you again. ‘You impudent blackguard,’ says she, ‘the letter’s not an hour written. The ink’s not more than just dry on it yet,’ ‘I’m surprised,’ said I, ‘that it’s that much itself. It’s dripping wet I’d expect it to be with the sweat I’m in this minute on account of the way I’ve run to give it to you.’”
“Good,” said Dr. O’Grady. “If there was a drop of whisky in the house I’d give it to you. I’ll look in a minute. There might be some left in the bottom of the bottle. A man who can tell a lie like that on the spur of the moment——”
“It was true enough about the sweat,” said Doyle. “You could have wrung my shirt into a bucket, though it wasn’t running did it, for I didn’t run. It was the way she was looking at me. I’m not overly fond of Mr. Ford, and never was; but I don’t know did ever I feel as sorry for any man as I did for him when she was looking at me.”
The doctor rose and took a bottle of whisky from the cupboard in the corner of the room. There was enough in it to give Doyle a satisfactory drink and still to leave some for the doctor himself. He got another tumbler and two bottles of soda water.
“You needn’t be opening one of them for me,” said Doyle, “I have as much water drunk already as would drown all the whisky you have in the bottle. What I take now I’ll take plain.”
“She may be a bit sceptical about the letter,” said Dr. O’Grady, “but I expect when she’s talked it over with Ford she’ll see the sense of presenting the illuminated address.”