"I mind me," he said instantly, "of an Irish tale of Finn McCoul."

Joan did not answer.

"Tell me," she said at last. "Finn and you are always delightful."

Kenny stared at her in marked reproach.

"Joan!" he exclaimed.

"What--what is it, Kenny?"

"That's just the sort of polite nothing you learned in New York!"

"I'm sorry, Kenny. I'm--tired. And just for a minute I wasn't listening. You know how it is. You hear an echo in your mind a long while after and answer in a panic." She brushed her cheek against his sleeve with a remorseful gesture of appeal. His arm went round her.

"There!" he said with a sigh of relief. "That's better. I'm lonesome when we're not in tune."

"And the story?"

Kenny told of a fairy face that Finn had seen in a lake among the heather.

"Leaf-brown eyes had the nymph, I take it, and satin-cream skin with a rose showin' through and allurin' lashes maybe dipped in the ink-pots of the fairies."

"What," said Joan from the shelter of his arm, "is a blarney stone?"

"A subst.i.tute for lips!" said Kenny instantly and kissed her.

"And Finn?"

"Plunged into the waters of the lake, he did, as any son of Erin would--and found the maid."

But Joan's eyes were absently fixed upon the road again and Kenny abandoned his legend with a sigh until he bethought himself to use its climax in reproach.

"And when Finn reappeared, he was an old, old man, as old as a man may feel when his lady's attention wanders."

Joan colored and laughed, her eyes faintly mischievous, wholly apologetic.

"Finn's youth," Kenny gallantly a.s.sured her, "was restored to him by magic and surely there is magic in a woman's smile."

They motored on in a silence that Kenny found depressing. When would Arcady come again, he wondered rebelliously, wistful for the sparkle of that other summer when fairies, silver-shod, had danced upon the moonlit lake. The strain of worry had tired them both.

The wind swept coolly toward them sweet with pine. Wind and pine up here were always mingling. A night--a moon for lovers! The clasp of his arm tightened.

The peace of the night was insistent. After all with worry at an end Arcady might not lie so very far away--it was creeping into his heart, sweet with the music of many trees. Joan too perhaps--he stole a glance at the girl's face, colorless in the moonlight like some soft, exquisite flower--and drew up the emergency brake with a jerk. Her lashes were wet.

"Joan," he exclaimed, "you're not crying!"

She tried to smile and buried her face on his shoulder.

"I think," she said forlornly, "it--it's just because everything has turned out so--so nicely."

He motored homeward, ill at ease, aware after a time that the girl cradled in his arm had fallen asleep. Her tears worried him.

"But I'm quite all right now, Kenny," she protested as they drove up the lane. "It's partly the heat. Why didn't you wake me?"

He swung her lightly to the ground.

"I liked to think I was helping you rest," he said gently. "You need it. Don't wait, dear. It's late."

He climbed back in the car and glided off barnwards, waving his arm.

Joan went slowly up the stairway to her room.

Latticed moonlight lay upon a chair by the window. She dropped into it, weary and inert, grateful for the rushing sound of the river; it soothed her with familiar music. A clock downstairs chimed the hour, then the half--and then another hour. Below in the moonlight a man was climbing up from the river.

"Brian," she called breathlessly, "is it you?"

"Yes."

"Dr. Cole will scold. It's twelve o'clock."

Brian tossed his cigarette away with a sigh.

"He'll never know. I've been sitting down there in the punt. The river's silver. Come down for a while," he implored. "All evening I've been as lonely as a leper. Ever since you motored off with Kenny, Don's been a grouch. Can't you climb down the vine?"

"I--I can't, Brian."

"Please, Joan. I'll tell Kenny myself in the morning."

"No," said Joan. "I--can't. I--I wish I could."

"So do I," said Brian. He walked away.

Shaking and sobbing, Joan flung herself upon the bed.

"Sid writes me you're home," Kenny wrote to Garry in September. "What about the car? Come up for a while and drive it home. We can do some sketching. Brian's full of Irish melancholy and waiting for word from Whitaker. He may go any time. Joan's tired and busy with clothes.

Don's cranky and I'm rather at a loose end, hunting things to do."

Puzzled, Garry went.

"I can't make out what's wrong," he wrote to Sid, "Kenny's rational enough, but Brian's strung to the breaking point. I suspect it's just as it always has been--they're miserable apart and hopeless together.

But the year has been a sobering one, and what used to flash, they bottle up. In my opinion the sooner Brian gets away the better. He's not himself."

CHAPTER x.x.xIX

THE TENSION SNAPS