“If you think I’m detestable, what do you suppose I think of you?” he asked.
“Oh, no one thinks at all when it’s me,” with a funny little pursing up of her lips, and a sweeping disregard of grammar. “You see, I can’t be judged after any ordinary standard, as I’m not ordinary. I’m not a girl, and I’m not a boy—I’m Paddy—‘Paddy-the-next-best-thing.’”
He laughed again. “Oh no! you’re not ordinary,” he agreed, “and I’m rather sorry there are not some more Paddys—I like the breed.”
“Jack doesn’t,” calmly going on with her tinkering. “He started helping me to do this job, and then he got wild, and when I suggested he took the slates off the good part to mend the bad, he went off in a huff. He implied that he could do with me when I was funny, but not when I was silly,” and she chuckled to herself with a remembering relish.
“He has very bad taste. He should like you in any mood.”
“His taste is apparently much the same as yours.” Paddy looked up with a queer expression in her eyes, before which he glanced away. He knew she was alluding to Eileen. “Unfortunately for him,” she finished calmly.
Lawrence glanced at her again, and when he did so he blew that she had spoken with intent. She had given him either a hint or a warning; he could not quite say which; but he understood at once, that in her eyes he was already her sister’s recognised suitor. He touched up his horse to ride on. “Well, good-by,” lightly. “May I bring you a birthday present this evening?”
“No,” she laughed back, “bring a few thunder-clouds to entertain me.”
It was not until the evening began, that he discovered what kind of a party he had accepted an invitation for.
Paddy enlightened him.