"Only a month to-day until we start, and you'll be well enough to travel then, dearest."
"Yes, yes, only a month to-day, and I shall be well enough then, dearest."
Oh, Mary O'Neill! How much longer will you be able to keep it up, dear?
JULY 17. Martin brought the proofs of his new book from London, and to-day in the summer-house (bluebells paling out and hanging their heads, but the air full of the odour of fruit trees) he and Dr. O'Sullivan and I have been correcting "galleys"—the doctor reading aloud, Martin smoking his briar-root pipe, and I (in a crater of cushions) supposed to be sitting as judge and jury.
Such simple, straight, natural writing! There may have been a thousand errors but my ears heard none of them. The breathless bits about the moments when death was near; the humorous bits about patching the tent with the tails of their shirts when an overturned lamp burnt a hole in the canvas—this was all I was conscious of until I was startled by the sound of a sepulchral voice, groaning out "Oh Lord a-massy me!" and by the sight of a Glengarry cap over the top of the fuchsia hedge. Old Tommy was listening from the road.
We sat late over our proofs and then, the dew having begun to fall, Martin said he must carry me indoors lest my feet should get wet—which he did, with the result that, remembering what had happened on our first evening at Castle Raa, I had a pretty fit of hysterics as soon as we reached the house.
"Let's skip, Commanther," was the next thing I heard, and then I was helped upstairs to bed.
JULY 18. What a flirt I am becoming! Having conceived the idea that Dr. O'Sullivan is a little wee bit in love with me too, I have been playing him off against Martin.