When he and Mason were ready to go, Kerrigan said:
“I am glad that Nolan and Ferguson came out of their matter all right. I know Cullen, one of the doctors at St. Mary’s, and he told me that Mart Kelly’s condition, while painful, is not necessarily serious.”
“O’Connor an’ Gartenheim talked to McQuirk,” said Larry; “and McQuirk squared it all right at the front office. They had to give bail but the case’ll never come to trial, because Jim Kelly won’t push it; he knows what Mart was done up for, and he dasn’t.”
“McGonagle tells me that things are all O. K. in his matter,” remarked Kerrigan, as they stood upon the steps, Larry in the doorway. “I’ll be on hand promptly at noon to attend to my end of it.”
Larry closed the door after they had departed and returned to the sitting room. He was glad that matters political had turned out as they did—but only because it would prevent the loss of Owen Dwyer’s savings, and thereby please Maggie—outside of that he seemed to have lost all zest of the battle, all exultation in the victory.
Maggie was in his thoughts, Maggie and Maggie only. Since his talk with her the morning before, she seemed to have grown nearer to him. He did not dream that this was caused by a lessening of his sense of inferiority—by a gradual growth of faith in himself, which had its conception in the hardly realized fact that he had been the dominant spirit in a matching of wits which, in result, meant not a little to her.
He only thought of her kind manner, her smile and invitation to call again; he only remembered Kerrigan’s half-jesting remark after they had left the house. And then there were McGonagle’s words; Goose was a friend of his and would not deceive him. He had said that Maggie was not indifferent! Could this be so? Had he been so blind, so full of self-pride as to not see it? Could it be that the aloofness with which he had long secretly charged her had all been of his own doing? It is not often that a man wishes himself in the wrong; but that, at this moment, was Larry’s most earnest desire.
“I’ll settle it to-night,” he said to himself. “I’ll brace up and give her a chance to flag me.”
Half past eleven saw Larry hurrying toward Clancy’s. Two of O’Connor’s hacks were drawn up at the curb before the grocery, from one of which McGonagle and Larkin were assisting Rosie, Annie and Maggie. Clancy and O’Hara were alighting from the second, which they had shared with the two bridegrooms; a flock of marvelling children were gathered upon the sidewalk; and the heads of their elders were popping out of windows and doorways full of wonder and surprise.
Larry raised his hat and took the hand which Maggie offered him.