"I think they often look much brighter in the evening," said Ronald, thinking of the night before.

"I am sure something disagreeable has happened to you to-day, Mr.

Surbiton," said Sybil, looking at him. Ronald looked into her eyes as though to see if there were any sympathy there.

"Yes, something disagreeable has happened to me," he answered slowly.

"Something very disagreeable and painful."

"I am sorry," said Sybil simply. But her voice sounded very kind and comforting.

"That is why I say that love stories always end badly in real life," said Ronald. "But I suppose I ought not to complain." It was not until he had thought over this speech, some minutes later, that he realized that in a few words he had told Sybil the main part of his troubles. He never guessed that she was so far in Joe's confidence as to have heard the whole story before. But Sybil was silent and thoughtful.

"Love is such an uncertain thing," she began, after a pause; and it chanced that at that very moment Joe opened the door and entered the room.

She caught the sentence.

"So you are instructing my cousin," she said to Sybil, laughing. "I approve of the way you spend your time, my children!" No one would have believed that, twenty minutes earlier, Joe had been in tears. She was as fresh and as gay as ever, and Ronald said to himself that she most certainly had no heart, but that Sybil had a great deal,--he was sure of it from the tone of her voice.

"What is the news about the election, Sybil?" she asked. "Of course you know all about it at the Wyndhams'."

"My dear, the family politics are in a state of confusion that is simply too delightful," said Sybil.

"You know it is said that Ira C. Calvin has refused to be a candidate, and the Republicans mean to put in Mr. Jobbins in his place, who is such a popular man, and so good and benevolent-quite a philanthropist."

"Does it make very much difference?" asked Joe anxiously. "I wish I understood all about it, but the local names are so hard to learn."

"I thought you had been learning them all the morning in Choate," put in Ronald, who perceived that the conversation was to be about Harrington.

"It does make a difference," said Sybil, not noticing Ronald's remark, "because Jobbins is much more popular than Calvin, and they say he is a friend of Patrick Ballymolloy, who will win the election for either side he favors."

"Who is this Irishman?" inquired Ronald.

"He is the chief Irishman," said Sybil laughing, "and I cannot describe him any better. He has twenty votes with him, and as things stand he always carries whichever point he favors. But Mr. Wyndham says he is glad he is not in the Legislature, because it would drive him out of his mind to decide on which side to vote--though he is a good Republican, you know."

"Of course he could vote for Mr. Harrington in spite of that," said Joe, confidently. "Anybody would, who knows him, I am sure. But when is the election to come off?"

"They say it is to begin to-day," said Sybil.

"We shall never hear anything unless we go to Mrs. Wyndham's," said Joe.

"Aunt Zoe is awfully clever, and that, but she never knows in the least what is going on. She says she does not understand politics."

"If you were a Bostonian, Mr. Surbiton," said Sybil, "you would get into the State House and hear the earliest news."

"I will do anything in the world to oblige you," said Ronald gravely, "if you will only explain a little"--

"Oh no! It is quite impossible. Come with me, both of you, and we will get some lunch at the Wyndhams' and hear all about it by telephone."

"Very well," said Joe. "One moment, while I get my things." She left the room. Ronald and Sybil were again alone together.

"You were saying when my cousin came in, that love was a very uncertain thing," suggested Ronald, rather timidly.

"Was I?" said Sybil, standing before the mirror above the mantelpiece, and touching her hat first on one side and then on the other.

"Yes," answered Ronald, watching her. "Do you know, I have often thought so too."

"Yes?"

"I think it would be something different if it were quite certain. Perhaps it would be something much less interesting, but much better."

"I think you are a little confused, Mr. Surbiton," said Sybil, and as she smiled, Ronald could see her face reflected in the mirror.

"I--yes--that is--I dare say I am," said he, hesitatingly. "But I know exactly what I mean."

"But do you know exactly what you want?" she asked with a laugh.

"Yes indeed," said he confidently. "But I do not believe I shall ever get it."

"Then that is the 'disagreeable and painful thing' you referred to, as having happened this morning, I suppose," remarked Sybil, calmly, as she turned to take up her cloak which lay on the sofa. Ronald blushed scarlet.

"Well--yes," he said, forgetting in his embarra.s.sment to help her.

"It is so heavy," said Sybil. "Thanks. Do you know that you have been making confidences to me, Mr. Surbiton?" she asked, turning and facing him, with a half-amused, half-serious look in her blue eyes.

"I am afraid I have," he answered, after a short pause. "You must think I am very foolish."

"Never mind," she said gravely. "They are safe with me."

"Thanks," said Ronald in a low voice.

Josephine entered the room, clad in many furs, and a few minutes later all three were on their way to Mrs. Wyndham's, the big b.o.o.by sleigh rocking and leaping and ploughing in the heavy dry snow.

CHAPTER XV.

Poc.o.c.k Vancouver was also abroad in the snowstorm. He would not in any case have stayed at home on account of the weather, but on this particular morning he had very urgent business with a gentleman who, like Lamb, rose with the lark, though he did not go to bed with the chickens. There are no larks in Boston, but the scream of the locomotives answers nearly as well.

Vancouver accordingly had himself driven at an early hour to a certain house not situated in the West End, but of stone quite as brown, and having a bay window as prominent as any sixteen-foot-front on Beacon Street; those advantages, however, did not prevent Mr. Vancouver from wearing an expression of fastidious scorn as he mounted the steps and pulled the polished German silver handle of the door-bell. The curl on his lip gave way to a smile of joyous cordiality as he was ushered into the presence of the owner of the house.

"Indeed, I'm glad to see you, Mr. Vancouver," said his host, whose extremely Celtic appearance was not belied by unctuous modulation of his voice, and the pleasant roll of his softly aspirated consonants.

This great man was no other than Mr. Patrick Ballymolloy. He received Vancouver in his study, which was handsomely furnished with bright green wall-paper, a sideboard on which stood a number of decanters and gla.s.ses, several leather easy-chairs, and a green china spittoon.

In personal appearance, Mr. Patrick Ballymolloy was vastly more striking than attractive. He was both corpulent and truculent, and his hands and feet were of a size and thickness calculated to crush a paving-stone at a step, or to fell an ox at a blow. The nails of his fingers were of a hue which is made artificially fashionable in eastern countries, but which excites prejudice in western civilization from an undue display of real estate. A neck which the Minotaur might have justly envied surmounted the thickness and roundness of Mr. Ballymolloy's shoulders, and supported a head more remarkable for the immense cavity of the mouth, and for a quant.i.ty of highly pomaded sandy hair, than for any intellectuality of the brows or high-bred fineness of the nose. Mr. Ballymolloy's nose was nevertheless an astonishing feature, and at a distance called vividly to mind the effect of one of those great gla.s.s bottles of reddened water, behind which apothecaries of all degrees put a lamp at dusk in order that their light may the better shine in the darkness. It was one of the most surprising feats of nature's alchemy that a liquid so brown as that contained in the decanters on Patrick's sideboard should be able to produce and maintain anything so supernaturally red as Patrick's nose.

Mr. Ballymolloy was clad in a beautiful suit of shiny black broadcloth, and the front of his coat was irregularly but richly adorned with a profusion of grease-spots of all sizes. A delicate suggestive mezzotint shaded the edges of his collar and cuffs, and from his heavy gold watch-chain depended a malachite seal of unusual greenness and brilliancy.

Vancouver took the gigantic outstretched hand of his host in his delicate fingers, with an air of cordiality which, if not genuine, was very well a.s.sumed.