"I'd rather sell Harrod Place than lose you!" retorted Darragh almost sharply. "I want to go into business with you, Jack — if Eve will permit me——"
She stood looking at Stormont, the heightened colour playing in her cheeks as she began to comprehend the comradeship between these two men.
Slowly she turned to Darragh, offered her hand:
"I'll go to Harrod Place," she said in a low voice.
Darragh's quick smile brightened the sombre gravity of his face.
"Eve," he said, "when I came over here this morning from Harrod Place I was afraid you would refuse to listen to me; I was afraid you would not even see me. And so I brought with me — somebody — to whom I felt certain you would listen. … I brought with me a young girl — a poor refugee from Russia, once wealthy, to-day almost penniless. … Her name is Theodorica. … Once she was Grand Duchess of Esthonia. … But this morning a clergyman from Five Lakes changed her name. … To such friends as you and Jack she is Ricca Darragh now … and she's having a wonderful time on my new snow-shoes——"
He took Eve by one hand and Stormont by the other, and drew them to the kitchen door and kicked it open.
Through the swirling snow, over the lake-slope at the timber edge, a graceful, boyish figure in scarlet and white wool moved swiftly over the drifts with all the naive delight of a child with a brand new toy.
As Darragh strode out into the open the distant figure flung up one arm in salutation and came racing over the drifts, her brilliant scarf flying.
All aglow and a trifle breathless, she met Darragh just beyond the veranda, rested one mitten hand on his shoulder while he knelt and unbuckled her snow-shoes, stepped lightly from them and came forward to Eve with out-stretched hand and sudden winning gravity in her lovely face.