His keen eyes noted instantly that the charm and brightness, which made her so popular abroad, were just as freely lavished upon her own circle, and that if she were beloved by her outside friends, she was yet more beloved and idolised there.
Then, when he found her perfectly indifferent to his attentions, the spirit of conquest was roused within him tenfold, and he loved her yet more for her airy independence.
He half guessed her feeling for Jack O’Hara; but Jack’s devotion to Eileen had recently become so plaint to all except Eileen herself, that he did not let it trouble him. In this he was wrong, for Paddy was, before all thing, staunch, and having given her affections, she would not easily change.
“I’m not getting sentimental at all,” he replied. “I know better, for I don’t want to have my head bitten off my last evening.”
Paddy smiled, and was mollified.
“It’s awfully silly, isn’t it?” she said. “I hate anything sentimental. I like people who call a spade a spade.”
“And I wonder what you like them to call love?” he suggested.
“Oh, ‘love,’ I suppose, only they needn’t look like sick sheep over it, and prefix half a dozen idiotic adjectives.”
“I thought perhaps the mere word was too sentimental,” with a little smile, “and you would prefer to invent some term of your own.”
“Very likely I shall, when the time comes for it. At present I have a great deal too much on my hands to have time to think of anything of the kind.”