"Does Miss Thornton concoct plays, as well as her gifted parent?" he inquired, with the smile that was so exquisitely gracious, yet not without the faintest hint of mockery.
"The jade has twice her father's genius," said Thornton, who had risen from the sofa and laid his pipe upon the hob of the wide iron grate, where a jug of wall-flowers filled the place of a winter fire. "Or, perhaps I should say, twice her father's memory, for she has a repertory of Spanish and Italian plays to choose from when her Pegasus halts."
"Nay, father, I am not a thief," protested Tonia.
Kilrush glanced at the hack-scribbler, remembering that awkward adventure with the farmer's cash-box which had brought so worthy a gentleman to the treadmill, and which might have acquainted him with Jack Ketch. He glanced from father to daughter, and decided that Antonia was unacquainted with that scandalous episode in her parent's clerical career.
After that one startled blush and conscious smile, the cause whereof he knew not, she was as unconcerned in his lordship's company to-day as she had been at Mrs. Mandalay's. She gave him no minauderies, no downcast eyelids or shy glances; but sat looking at him with a pleased interest while he talked of the day's news with her father, and answered him frankly and brightly when he discussed her own literary work.
"You are very young to write plays," he said.
"I wrote plays when I was five years younger," she answered, laughing, "and gave them to Betty to light the fires."
"And your father warmed his legs before the dramatic pyre, and never knew 'twas the flame of genius?"
"She was a fool to burn her trash," said Thornton. "I might have made a volume of it—'Tragedies and Comedies, by a young lady of fifteen.'"
"I'll warrant Shakespeare burnt a stack of balderdash before he wrote The Two Gentlemen of Verona, poor stuff as it is," said Kilrush.