"No, no,—cut the Sob Sister stuff,—just the pattern of it all, the mosaic——"
"Yes,—done objectively!"
"Right! Gad,—that sounds like a corking idea! When can we start? Have you the text or—Good Lord—my eats!" He dashed to the noisy chafing-dish, a faint color creeping up into the unpleasant whiteness of his skin. "Everything's done! Where will you sit, Miss Vail? Give her this tray, will you, Daragh—and the napkin, man! Can she reach the sandwiches? Oh, I'm forgetting my perfectly good salad! Well, how is it? I'm not much of a cheffonier, but——"
"It's melt-in-the-mouth," said Miss Vail, warmly. "I'm going to have twice of everything!" She drew him out; she led him on; she kept the color in his face and his fingers quiet. By every pretty means in her power she made it clear that she was having an uncommonly good time, that he was distinctly her sort of person.
Michael Daragh sat back with deep wonder in his eyes. In all her exquisite plumage she had alighted in this dull place, filling it with freshness. And an onlooker would have gathered that the young artist and the beautiful lady who wrote were the best of merry chums, the silent man in the background a civilly tolerated outsider.
After a while something of this seemed to strike young Randal. "Look here, Daragh, you haven't to start uptown yet! Why don't you contribute something to the gayety of nations? Haven't you any parlor tricks?" Then he caught up his own work and his grin faded. "Tricks ... yes, that's what he can do, Miss Vail. Conjuring tricks. He can turn a skulking alley rat into something faintly resembling a man—but"—his courage and brightness fell from him like a masker's domino on the stroke of twelve and the fingers rose to his face, picking and plucking—"he can't keep it from turning back again."
"I can, indeed, lad," said the Irishman, stoutly.
"I don't know, Daragh ... I don't know." He leaned back on the couch, spineless with nervous exhaustion, and Jane felt a sick distaste and horror enveloping her.
"'Tis a true word, laddie," said Michael. "You don't know; none of us know—and we don't have to know, praises be, beyond the next hour, beyond the next step on the path." He rose and crossed slowly to the young man and pushed him gently down until he was resting at full length on the couch. "Easy, now! Let you lie there at your ease. Miss Vail knows how you haven't the whole of your strength in you yet, and you painting and drawing the day long!"
Young Randal muttered something brokenly and tried to rise, but the big Irishman held him firmly. "Easy, I'm telling you!" The boy relaxed, stretching out to his lank length, one arm crooked childishly over his eyes, and Michael Daragh sat down beside him, his long legs folded under him, on the floor. "'Tis the true word, surely," he said. "We don't know, indeed. And—glory be—there's many the time that the thing you've braced yourself so fine and strong to stand doesn't happen at all, and you never have to stand it. That was the way of it with Maggie Kinsella at home," he said.