The Moonlit Way Part 53

"Come on in," coaxed Westmore, linking his arm in Barres', and counting on the latter to give him countenance.

The arm of Barres remained rigid and unresponsive, but his legs were reluctantly obliging and carried him along with Westmore to what had been his own room before Thessalie had installed herself there.

And there she was on her knees, amid a riot of lingerie and feminine effects, while Dulcie lovingly smoothed out and folded object after object which Selinda placed between layers of pale blue tissue paper in the trunks.

"How are things going, Thessa?" inquired Westmore, in the hearty, cheerful voice of the intruder who hopes to be made welcome. But her att.i.tude was discouraging.

"You know you are only in the way," she said. "Drive him out, Dulcie!"

Dulcie laughed and looked at them both with shyly friendly eyes:

"Is my trousseau not beautiful?" she asked. "If you'll step outside I'll put on a hat and gown for you----"

"Oh, Dulcie!" protested Thessalie, "I want you to dawn upon them, and a dress rehearsal would spoil it all!"

Westmore tiptoed around amid lovely, frail mounds of fabrics, until ordered to an empty chair and forbidden further motion. It was all the same to him, so long as his fascinated gaze could rest on Thessalie.

Which further annoyed Barres, and he backed out and walked to the studio, considerably disturbed in his mind.

"That man," he thought, "is making an a.s.s of himself, hanging around Thessa like a half-witted child. She can't help noticing it, but she doesn't seem to do anything about it. I don't know why she doesn't squelch him--unless she likes it----" But the idea was so unpleasant to Barres that he instantly abandoned that train of thought and prepared for himself a comfortable nest on the lounge, a pipe, and an uncut volume of flimsy summer fiction.

In the middle of these somewhat sullen preparations, there came a ring at his studio door. Only the superintendent or strangers rang that bell as a rule, and Barres went to his desk, slipped his loaded pistol into his coat pocket, then walked to the door and opened it.

Soane stood there, his face a shiny-red from drink, his legs steady enough. As usual when drunk, he was inclined to be garrulous.

"What's the matter?" inquired Barres in a low voice.

"Wisha, Misther Barres, sorr, av ye're not too busy f'r to----"

"S-h-h! Don't bellow at the top of your voice. Wait a moment!"

He picked up his hat and came out into the corridor, closing the studio door behind him so that Dulcie, if she appeared on the scene, should not be humiliated before the others.

Soane began again, but the other cut him short:

"Don't start talking here," he said. "Come down to your own quarters if you're going to yell your head off!" And he led the way, impatiently, down the stairs, past the desk where Miss Kurtz sat stolid and mottled-faced as a lump of uncooked sausage, and into Soane's quarters.

"Now, you listen to me first!" he said when Soane had entered and he had closed the door behind them. "You keep out of my apartment and out of Dulcie's way, too, when you're drunk! You're not going to last very long on this job; I can see that plainly----"

"Faith, sorr, you're right! I'm fired out entirely this blessed minute!"

"You've been discharged?"

"I have that, sorr!"

"What for? Drunkenness?"

"Th' divil do I know phwat for! Wisha, then, Misther Barres, is there anny harrm av a man----"

"Yes, there is! I told you Grogan's would do the trick for you. Now you're discharged without a reference, I suppose."

Soane smiled airily:

"Misther Barres, dear, don't lave that worrit ye! I want no riference from anny landlord. Sure, landlords is tyrants, too! An' phwat the divil should I be wantin'----"

"What are you going to do then?"

Soane hooked both thumbs into the armholes of his vest, and swaggered about the room:

"G.o.d bless yer kind heart, sorr, I've a-plenty to do and more for good measure!" He came up to confront Barres, and laid a mysterious finger alongside his over-red nose and began to brag:

"There's thim in high places as looks afther the likes o' me, sorr.

There's thim that thrusts me, thim that depinds on me----"

"Have you another job?"

Soane's scorn was superb:

"A job is ut? Misther Barres, dear, I was injuced f'r to accept a _position_ of grave importance!"

"Here in town?"

"Somewhere around tin thousand miles away or thereabouts," remarked Soane airily.

"Do you mean to take Dulcie with you?"

"Musha, then, Misther Barres, 'tis why I come to ye above f'r to ax ye will ye look afther Dulcie av I go away on me thravels?"

"Yes, I will!... Where are you going? What is all this stuff you're talking, anyway----"

"Shtuff? G.o.d be good to you, it's no shtuff I talk, Misther Barres!

Sure, can't a decent man thravel f'r to see the wurruld as G.o.d made it an' no harrm in----"

"Be careful what company you travel in," said Barres, looking at him intently. "You have been travelling around New York in very suspicious company, Soane. I know more about it than you think I do. And it wouldn't surprise me if you have a run-in with the police some day."

"The po-lice, sorr! Arrah, then, me fut in me hand an' me tongue in me cheek to the likes o' thim! An' lave them go hoppin' afther me av they like. The po-lice is ut! Open y'r two ears, asth.o.r.e, an' listen here!--there'll be nary po-lice, no nor constabulary, nor excise, nor landlords the day that Ireland flies her flag on Dublin Castle! Sure, that will be the grand sight, with all the rats a-runnin', an' all the hurryin' and scurryin' an' the futther and mutther----"

"_What_ are you gabbling about, Soane? What's all this boasting about?"

"Gabble is ut? Is it boastin' I am? Sorra the day! An' there do be grand gintlemen and gay ladies to-day that shall look for a roof an' a sup o' tay this day three weeks, when th' fut o' the tyrant is lifted from the neck of Ireland an' the landlords is runnin' for their lives----"

"I thought so!" exclaimed Barres, disgusted.

"An' phwat was ye thinkin', sorr?"

"That your German friends at Grogan's are stirring up trouble among the Irish. What's all this nonsense, anyway? Are they trying to persuade you to follow the old Fenian tactics and raid Canada? Or is it an armed expedition to the Irish coast? You'd better be careful; they'll only lock you up here, but it's a hanging matter over there!"