“And how do you get on with Basil?” they asked again.
“Well, I don’t get on at all,” and Paddy looked amused. “I don’t think we’re on speaking terms just now—we are not as a rule. Before I had been there a month I told him he was not fitted for anything but a dressed-up mummy in a tailor’s window, and a few other similar things, and for a time our relations were very strained. We indulge in home truths concerning each other so often that I find it difficult to remember when we are on speaking terms and when not. He is rather fond of making sarcastic reflections upon Irish dressmakers and countrified style, and of course I have to hit back from the shoulder for the sake of the old country.”
They could not help laughing, but her mother quickly grew grave and looked a little anxious.
“I hope you don’t carry it too far, my dear,” she said. “I would not like to hurt your uncle’s and aunt’s feelings after all their kindness.”
“Don’t you be afraid, mother,” cheerfully. “Uncle enjoys it, and aunt doesn’t understand half we say. She generally misses the point, you see, and thinks I am paying Basil compliments. Uncle, on the other hand, sees that it is only his welfare I have at heart.”
She then went on to tell them about Ted Masterman—all except the incident of the coin—and the doctor at the classes, and her friends the ’bus drivers, chattering away like her old self again for very happiness at having them all round her. They sat in a semicircle over the fire until late into the night, and finally went to bed too tired after their long day, and too pleased at being together again, to have time to be miserable.
Only when they were alone Paddy asked Eileen if she had heard from Lawrence, and with a faint blush Eileen acknowledged that she had. After a moment’s hesitation she produced the letter and gave it to Paddy to read.
“It is a nice one,” was all Paddy said, as she folded it up afterward. “He could always be nice if it happened to please him.”
Eileen made no reply. It was not a subject she could discuss, and she knew, moreover, that it was one upon which she and Paddy could never agree. For she had not forgotten Lawrence at all, and still, deep down in her heart, lived a hope that she could not extinguish. When we desire a thing with a great and terrible longing, it is very hard to honestly and squarely face the fact that it can never be ours. If there is any possible chance of fitting in a “perhaps,” that “perhaps” is pretty sure to be there. Eileen had managed to find more than one chance, and the really nice letter that Lawrence had written her directly he heard of the General’s death, and while the news still had a softening effect upon him, had only more firmly entrenched them.
It was unfortunate, but it was the way of the world. The fine-strung nervous system that holds the deepest capacity for suffering is oftenest jarred upon and hurt by rough, careless hands and cold, selfish hearts. And always, too, are these the sufferers who hope and remember the longest in spite of all.