If ever there was a girl who was furious in her own mind it was Matilda Raynes. She had enjoyed her life at Desmondstown. Little did she care for the rough and tumble-down old house, the food was good, the young-old aunts were jolly of the jolly. Malachi and Bruce were great fun. Ah no, however, Malachi was not great fun! She used to think he was, but she found out her mistake. For a man to sleep with one eye open like a cat, for a man deliberately to get her into a hole, for a man deliberately to betray her and force her to tell her horrible mean little story—oh, no, she could not like Malachi any more.
She also dreaded The Desmond inexpressibly, but perhaps of all the happy Irish folks the one she disliked most was that sweet, loving, forgiving la petite Comtesse. How dared she be loving and forgiving? If she had fought her, Tilly would have known what to do, but she did not. She was only gentle and a little sad, in fact very sad; and they all, every one of them, made such a fuss about her and she was no real Comtesse at all. She was nothing but a little stupid shopgirl. How in the wide, wide world was Tilly ever to bear with her again?
Mr. Flannigan sat very still by her side. She wished heartily that she might have travelled alone to Rosslare. She did not wish for Mr. Flannigan, he seemed to have no fun in him and he looked from time to time with a sort of horror at Tilly.
When they first got into the railway carriage it was crowded, but by slow degrees the passengers got out. They were going, some in one direction, some in another, until at last Tilly and Mr. Flannigan found themselves alone. Then Mr. Flannigan turned his decidedly ungainly back upon Tilly, and having secured that day's copy of the Cork Constitution began to read. He would do anything under the sun for the Desmonds, but he disliked this job with regard to Tilly.
At last she could bear his silence and his gravity no longer. She sprang from her seat in the opposite corner and came and sat facing him.
"How soon shall we get to Rosslare?" she asked.
Mr. Flannigan very slowly dropped his newspaper, looked fixedly at Tilly and then said in a solemn, very sombre voice,
"I'm not tellin' ye, for I don't know."
"Oh, Mr. Flannigan," said Tilly, with a choking sound in her throat. "Are you hating me as much as the others?"