I kept it from him a little while; but when he rejoined me at the dinner table later on, the first person he clapped his eyes upon was little Joan Fordibras, sitting with a very formidable-looking chaperone three tables from our own. The expression upon his face at this passed all simile. I feared that every waiter in the room would overhear his truly Celtic outburst.
“Mother of me ancestors!” he cried; “but ’tis the little shepherdess herself. Ean Fabos, have shame to admit it. ’Twas neither the stars of the celestial heavens nor the beauty of the firmament that carried ye to this shore. And me that was naming it the wit and the beauty of me native counthry. Oh, Timothy McShanus, how are the mighty fallen! No longer——”
I hustled him to his seat and showed my displeasure very plainly. As for little Joan Fordibras, while she did not hear his words, his manner set her laughing, and in this she was imitated by French and English women round about. Indeed, I defy the greatest of professors to withstand this volatile Irishman, or to be other than amused by his amazing eccentricities.
“We’ll drink champagne to her, Fabos, me bhoy,” he whispered as the soup was served. “Sure, matrimony is very like that same wine—a good thing at the beginning, but not so good when you take overmuch of it. ’Twould be married I had been meself to the Lady Clara Lovenlow of Kildare, but for the blood of Saxons in her veins. Ay, and a poor divil of a man I would be this same time, if I had done it. Sure, think of Timothy McShanus with his feet in the family slippers and his daughters singing ‘The Lost Chord’ to him. Him that is the light of the Goldsmith Club. Who goeth home even with the milk! Contemplate it, me bhoy, and say what a narrow escape from that designing wench he has had.”
He rattled on, and I did not interrupt him. To be plain, I was glad of his company. Had it appeared to Joan Fordibras that I was quite alone in the hotel, that I knew no friends in Dieppe, and had no possible object in visiting the town but to renew acquaintance with her during her father’s absence—had this been so, then the difficulties of our intercourse were manifest. Now, however, I might shelter my intentions behind this burly Irishman. Indeed, I was delighted at the encounter.
“McShanus,” I said, “don’t be a fool. Or if you must be one, don’t include me in the family relationship. Do I look like a man whose daughters will be permitted to sing the ‘Lost Chord’ to him?”
“Ye can never judge by looks, Docthor. Me friend Luke O’Brien, him that wrote ‘The Philosophy of Loneliness’ in the newspapers, he’s seven children in County Cork and runs a gramophone store. ‘Luke,’ says I, ‘’tis a fine solitude ye have entirely.’ ‘Be d——d to that,’ says he—and we haven’t spoken since.”
“Scarcely delicate to mention it, McShanus. Let me relieve your feelings by telling you that my yacht, White Wings, will be here to-morrow night to fetch me.”
“Glory be to God, ye’ll be safe on the sea. I mistrust the colleen entirely. Look at the eyes of it. D’ye see the little foot peepin’ in and out—‘like mice beneath the petticoat,’ says the poet. She’s anxious to show ye she’s a small foot and won’t cost ye much in shoe leather. Turn your head away when she laughs, Ean, me bhoy. ’Tis a wicked bit of a laugh, and to a man’s destruction.”
“I must remember this, McShanus. Do you think you could entertain the old lady while I talk to her?”