"Good-bye, my pretty," he said in the doorway. "And someday, when y'r my wife, Deirdre, you'll kiss me good-bye."
He went out with a chattering clatter of laughter.
Steve came back to the kitchen.
"Have you been able to manage him, Deirdre?" he asked, feverishly. "What have you said to him? To go back there—"
His face worked pitifully; his hands twisted over each other.
"You don't know what it is like. I'd kill myself rather than go back, Deirdre. And your father! What'll he do? It'll be worse for him than for me. He's got you to think of. What did McNab say? Will he do anything for you, Deirdre? He said he would do anything in the world for you. And you'd want him to help us, wouldn't you? You wouldn't let Dan and y'r old Uncle Stevie, go over there again?"
"It'll be all right," she said, looking past him. "You mustn't think of it any more, Stevie. It was just to worry you, he said that."
"Oh, it's a wonderful girl you are!" He clung to her hand, fondling it, tears streaming down his cheeks. "Nobody here to save us, your father and me, but you, Deirdre! And you to deal with McNab—send him away with a smile—pleased with himself."
No idea of the terms McNab was likely to have made with her occurred to him.
"If only there'd been someone here to help us," she cried passionately. "If only father, or Davey, or even Conal, had been here! But to have had to meet it alone."