“What’s Susan’s latest game?”
Mrs. Pollard looked distressed. Again she gave that frightened glance at the door, as though her husband might come in at any moment.
“I’m afraid, Bertram! The child is devoted to the Sinn Fein cause! It’s a passion with her, like Votes for Women used to be. Your father threatens to turn her out of doors if she says another word on the subject. There was a dreadful scene yesterday morning.”
Bertram could imagine it. Susan delighted in dreadful scenes. She was an Irish rose, with many thorns, sharply pointed. No Norman coldness in her blood! None of her mother’s Devonshire softness.
Mrs. Pollard revealed more than an ordinary anxiety.
“I’m afraid Susan will get into trouble. There was a policeman here a few days ago.”
“A policeman? Sounds like melodrama!”
“He wanted Susan to give him the address of a young Irishman named Dennis O’Brien. Susan denied all knowledge of him, but I know she has been corresponding with the boy.”
Bertram said, “My God!” and then begged his mother’s pardon. He hid from her his own reason for alarm. He knew Dennis O’Brien. The boy had been in the machine-gun corps with him, and he had heard news of him from Ireland. It was not news to be talked of lightly. He was up to the neck in Sinn Fein.
“Where’s Susan now?” he asked abruptly.