'It nearly came to a quarrel, I know,' said Madge, frankly. 'I thought it just a bit too cool. At all events, he ought to pretend to care a little for me.'
'Oh, Madge, how can you say such things? Care for you—and he has asked you to be his wife? Could he care for you more than that?'
'He has never even thanked me for not going to the Kenyons' ball,' said
Madge, who appeared to imagine that Nan was responsible for everything
Captain King did or did not do.
'Surely he would take it for granted you would not go!' remonstrated the elder sister.
'But he takes everything for granted. And he scarcely ever thinks it worth while to speak to me. And I know it will be a regular bore when we go to Kingscourt, with the old people still there, and me not mistress at all; and what am I to do?'
She poured out this string of wild complaints rapidly and angrily.
'Good-night, Madge,' said Nan; 'I am rather tired to-night.'
'Good-night. But I can tell you if he hadn't given up Ireland, there would have been a row.'
It was altogether a strange condition of affairs; and next day it was apparently made worse. There had been a stiffish gale blowing all night from the south; and in the morning, though the sky was cloudless, there was a heavy sea running, so that from the windows they saw white masses of foam springing into the air—hurled back by the sea-wall at the end of Medina Terrace. When Captain King came along Mr. Tom at once proposed they should all of them take a stroll as far as the Terrace; for now the tide was full up and the foam was springing into the blue sky to a most unusual height. And, indeed, when they arrived they found a pretty big crowd collected; a good many of whom had obviously been caught unawares by the shifting and swirling masses of spray. It was a curious sight. First the great wave came rolling on with but little beyond an ominous hissing noise; then there was a heavy shock that made the earth tremble, and at the same moment a roar as of thunder; then into the clear sky rose a huge wall of gray, illuminated by the sunlight, and showing clearly and blackly the big stones and smaller shingle that had been caught and whirled up in the seething mass. Occasionally a plank of drift timber was similarly whirled up—some thirty or forty feet; disappearing altogether again as it fell crashing into the roar of the retreating wave. It was a spectacle, moreover, that changed every few seconds, as the heavy volumes of the sea hit the breakwater at different angles. The air was thick with the salt spray; and hot with the sunlight—even on this March morning.
Then it became time for Mr. Tom and Captain Frank to go and witness a challenge game of rackets that had been much talked of; and the girls walked back with them as far as Brunswick Terrace, Madge being with Frank King.