And the mere idea only stimulated her love. Pained she inevitably was, but the offered up her pain at the shrine of Love, and went deeper into the maze.
If Lawrence dimly perceived this, he blinded himself to it. To him love-making was a very different process to this calm interchange of ideas, and he certainly refrained from much that he would not have thought twice about with any other pretty girl who interested and pleased him. Could any more be expected? No one could ever say he made love to Eileen. He did not make love to her, but he sought her companionship beyond all other, and looked his admiration of her quiet loveliness, regardless that to such as she these delicate attentions were almost a declaration. For the rest, a man must have something to amuse him, and her naïvété really was rather refreshing, and of course it wouldn’t hurt her to learn a little more about the world generally from a less narrowed horizon. So he sought her day by day, and made no further allusion to that projected Eastern tour, till Eileen forgot all about it, and waited in a dreaming ecstasy for her joy to take actual shape.
The only two who seemed at first to scent danger were the harum-scarums, Paddy and Jack. Such glorious days could not, of course, be wasted in a piffling little sail on the Loch or mooning on the beach, but there was time occasionally for a passing thought of the two who sailed and mooned so contentedly.
“I can’t think why Eileen doesn’t pack him off,” Paddy said once. “He makes me want to stamp, with his calm superiority. Fancy spending hours listening to the drivel he talks when she might be ratting with us,”—which somewhat remarkable comparison would no doubt have rather astonished the Oxford B.A.
As a matter of fact, he was enlightened with it the following day, for while leaving The Ghan House to go home, he was suddenly knocked nearly silly by a flying, furious apparition, who charged into him round a sharp corner, carrying a blackthorn in one hand and a ferret in the other.
For one second Paddy regarded him with unmistakable disgust for staying her progress, then her face suddenly grew excited again, as she exclaimed: “There! there, see, there it goes. Come on—we’ll have him yet,” and dragging the astonished Lawrence after her, charged on down the hill. “Here! you take the ferret,” she gasped, “but mind how you hold him. He bites like old Nick,” and she thrust the offensive little beast into his hand. Lawrence took it with as good a grace as he could! command, and when they ran the rat to earth exhibited a momentary enthusiasm nearly equal to hers.
“There!” said Paddy, holding up the slaughtered vermin, with shining eyes. “Wasn’t that a good catch?”
“Very. What shall I do with this!” and Lawrence held up the ferret, with which he had again been unceremoniously saddled, with a comical air of martyrdom.
“Put it in your pocket for the present,” promptly “or are you afraid of spoiling the shape of your coat?” with a scornful inflection, as he looked vaguely disgusted.
“You can put it so, if you like,” he retorted, “though. I have many other coats.”