By this, which is a pretty fair specimen of my thoughts, it will be plainly seen that I was in a very agitated frame of mind, and still clung as fondly and as frantically as ever to my one idea of the Lady of the Ice.
One thing came amid my thoughts like a flash of light into darkness, and that was that Jack, at least, was not crossing my path, nor was he a dog in my manger; Miss O'Halloran might be his, but she was nothing to me. Who Miss O'Halloran was, I now fully understood. It was Marion— Marion with the sombre, sad face, and the piercing, lustrous eyes.
Well, be she who she might, she was no longer standing between Jack and me. I could regain my lost friend at any rate, I could explain every thing to him. I could easily anticipate the wild shrieks of laughter with which he would greet my mistake, but that mattered not. I was determined to hunt him up. All my late bitter feeling against him vanished, and I began to feel a kind of longing for his great broad brow, his boyish carelessness, his never-ending blunders. So at an early hour I rose, and informed O'Halloran that I had an engagement at eleven o'clock, and would have to start.
"It's sorry I am," said he, "but I won't deteen ye."
CHAPTER XXVI.
A FEW PARTING WORDS WITH O'HALLORAN.—HIS TOUCHING PARENTAL TENDERNESS, HIGH CHIVALRIC SENTIMENT, AND LOFTY SENSE OF HONOR.—PISTOLS FOR TWO.— PLEASANT AND HARMONIOUS ARRANGEMENT.—"ME BOY, YE'RE AN HONOR TO YER SEX!"
"It's sorry I am," said O'Halloran, "but I won't deteen ye, for I always rispict an engeegemint."
He stopped and looked at me with a benevolent smile. I had risen from my chair, and was standing before him.
"Sit down a momint," said he. "There's a subjict I wish to mintion, the considhereetion of which I've postponed till now."
I resumed my seat in some surprise.