“It’s always of a hopeful disposition ye were, Ernest. There’s too much cross-grained selfishness in the world for that day to come soon, I’m thinkin’.”
“I did not say, soon,” replied Ernest Clare quietly. “I do not know when it will come, or how; and there are times when one gets discouraged; but I believe it will come, Bryan. However, I am not ready to talk yet about my own beliefs, hopes, or plans. Is this my door?” for they had now reached the lodging department, where rooms were rented singly or in suites, to individuals or families.
“Sure ye’re pretty high up, but, with an elevator, that’s just as convenient as the ground floor. And there’s a fire-escape just beyond, and mighty handy, in case of need; though, for myself, I’d rather burn up alive like a Christian, than break me neck down one of them things,” said the priest as he applied his key to the door.
CHAPTER II.
NEO-SOCIALISM.
Much to the surprise of Father McClosky, the key declined to enter the key-hole, for excellent Communistic reasons: there was a key already there. Moreover, voices, one very loud, the other very tearful, sounded on the other side of the door.
The priest drew back, with a sorrowful gesture. “It’s Mrs. Kellar,” he said. “She is what we call our Matron, for want of a better name; die Hausfrau, the Germans call her. She sees to the rooms, gives out the bed-linen and so on, and is an invaluable person, so clean and conscientious. But—well, one must have les défauts de ses qualités, as the French say; and though she is a born ruler and manager, she has got a tongue and a temper. Of course, she has a pass-key to every room, and I suppose something has gone wrong in here, and she is scolding the unfortunate perpetrator.”
“Then we had better go in; I dare say it is nothing of any consequence that has happened,” said Ernest Clare, much amused by his friend’s correct English, which betrayed an inward perturbation very flattering to Frau Kellar’s powers of eloquence.
“I suppose we had,” said the little man hesitatingly; but with the touch of the door-knob his courage seemed to return. “Sure, she’s a well-meaning woman,” he said with a smile; “and as for temper, it’s not an Irishman that can cast a stone at her, from Malachi with the Collar of Gold, to the blessed St. Kevin himself.”
“Here he opened wide the door;” but there was a great deal more than darkness within. It was a neatly but plainly furnished sitting-room, with a brown-painted pine table, covered with a red cloth, four cane-seated chairs, and one large rocking-chair, a few empty pine bookshelves lining one side, an engraving or so, and a cheerful-looking carpet, on which—alas!—a hod of coals had been overturned. A small, pale, nervous-looking girl, with weak blue eyes and reddish hair, was on her knees beside the coals, picking them up in a weakly ineffective manner, that seemed to add fuel to the flame of Frau Kellar’s righteous anger, to the outpouring of which the victim returned no answer save the tears which dropped fast over the bridge of her nose, and, being brushed aside by a grimy hand, by no means added to her beauty.
The entrance of the two clergymen seemed to put the last stroke to her misery, for she immediately fell over on her face upon the coals, and lay there, making no sound, but shaking from head to foot with hysterical passion.