"Oh, well then, _talk_! It won't disturb me," said Pixie easily; "I'll just listen or not, according as it's interesting. I'm accustomed to it with Bridgie. If you want to set her tongue going, just sit down and begin to write..."

Stephen, however, had no intention of taking advantage of the permission. He was abundantly content to sit in his comfortable chair, enjoy his novel surroundings (how very cheerful and attractive a _clean_ kitchen could be!) smoke his cigarette, and watch Pixie scribbling at fever pace over innumerable pages of notepaper. There were frequent s.n.a.t.c.hes of conversation, but invariably it was Pixie herself who led the way.

"D'you ill.u.s.trate your letters when you write them?" she asked at one time. "I always do! Realistic, you know, and saves time. At this present moment--" she drew back from the table, s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up one eye, and holding aloft her pen in truly professional fashion--"I'm drawing _You_!"

"May I see?"

"You may. ... It's not _quite_ right about the chair legs, they get so mixed up. Perspective never was my strong point," said Pixie, holding out a sheet and pointing to the masterpiece in question with the end of her pen. "There!"

Stephen looked and beheld a rough drawing of a preternaturally thin man, with preternatural large eyes, holding a cigarette in a hand joined to an arm which had evidently suffered severe dislocation. It was the type of drawing affected by schoolboys and girls, yet it had a distinct cleverness of its own. Despite the cart-wheel eyes and the skeleton frame there _was_ a resemblance--there was more than a resemblance, it was actually _like_, and Stephen acclaimed the fact by a shout of laughter.

"I say! Could I have it? It's uncommonly good!"

Pixie shook her head.

"It's for Bridgie.--Ye notice the mouth? Did you know it twisted when you thought? Aren't they _nice_, narrow boots? I'll do one for you another day. ... Turn over the page! There's another of Pat, as he will look at the supper to-night."

The second drawing was even rougher than the first, but again the faculty for hitting off a likeness was displayed, for Pat, reclining on a bed sloping at a perilous angle towards the floor, gazed at a fragment of mutton-bone with drooping lids and peaking brows, which represented so precisely his expression when injured, that Stephen shouted once again.

"_Succes fou_!" commented Pixie jauntily, as she settled herself once more to her work. "Quite a gift, haven't I? Couldn't do pretties to save my life, but I _can_ caricature! Now, please, _do_ be quiet! I must get on..."

Half an hour later a loud rapping on the wall announced the awakening of the invalid, who was once more discovered in a fractious mood.

"Asleep! Nonsense! For two minutes, perhaps. How d'you suppose _any_ fellow could sleep, with you two shrieking with laughter every two minutes! If you choose to keep your jokes to yourself, all right, it's nothing to me; but it's half-past seven. ... Where's supper?"

Even as he spoke another rap sounded on the front door--a brisk, imperative rap which brooked no delay. Pixie darted forward, imagining a surprise visit from the doctor, and found herself confronted by a man in black, standing sentinel over a hamper.

"Mr O'Shaughnessy's flat, madam? I have instructions from Mr Glynn--"

"All right, Saunders, bring it in, bring it in!" cried Stephen quickly.

He met Pixie's eyes, flushed, and stammered--

"It's ... supper!" he said lamely. "I telephoned. It seemed a good plan, and I thought that, Pat.--Do you _mind_?"

"_Mind_!" repeated Pixie, laughing. "Faith I do! I mind very much; but it's the right way about; it won't be cold mutton, after all! I'll have to draw another picture."

The man carried the hamper into the sitting-room, unpacked it deftly, and laid the contents on the table. Soup, smoking hot from a thermos flask, chicken and salad, a shape of cream, and a fragrant pineapple.

Pat's lips ceased to droop, his eyebrows to peak: his dark eyes lit with enjoyment.

"Good old Glynn!" he cried. "What a great idea! Now let's begin, and eat right through..."

As he took part in the happy meal which followed, Stephen Glynn reflected that generosity in giving went also with generosity in receiving. Pat and his sister would cheerfully give away their last penny to a friend in need. It never occurred to them to show less readiness to accept when it came to their own turn. Never was a surprise more happily planned; never was a surprise more heartily enjoyed.

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.

HE LOVED HER.

For the next week all went well. Pat's improvement, though slow, was so sure that a definite date was named on which he should be allowed to take his first few steps. The doctor grimaced to Pixie as he gave this promise, as if to insinuate that the experiment would not be pleasant, but Pat was prepared--in theory at least--for anything and everything, if thereby he might regain his freedom.

Stephen Glynn paid daily visits to the flat, and, in addition, escorted Pixie to various "sights" of the great city, in which, to tell the honest truth, she showed but little interest. Music was a pa.s.sion with her, but of pictures she had no knowledge, and little appreciation. The antiques in the National Gallery left her cold and bored, though she was full of interest in what seemed to her companion the most uninteresting men and women who were employed in copying the canvases.

When with the frankness of criticism which he had learned from herself he rallied her on this inconsistency, Pixie's answer was characteristic--

"One is dead, and the other's alive. The most uninteresting live person means more to me than a world of pictures. That girl in the grey dress had tears in her eyes. ... Did you see? She looks so poor. Perhaps she wants to sell her copy, and no one will buy! There was a man talking to the fat woman next to her as we pa.s.sed through before. He was writing something in his pocket-book. I believe he was buying the picture, and the poor grey girl felt so sad.--If Esmeralda were here, I'd make her buy her copy, too."

"It's a very _bad_ copy!" Stephen p.r.o.nounced. Then he looked down at the girl, and the transforming smile lit up his face. "All the same-- would I do instead of 'Esmeralda'? I'll buy it at once, if you wish it!"

The grey eyes brightened, beamed, then clouded with uncertainty.

"Really? Ought you? Are you sure? It may cost--"

"That's my affair! Leave that to me. Would you like me to buy it?"

"I would!" came back at once in the deepest tone of the eloquent Irish voice, and at that Stephen strode forward, his limp hardly observable on the wide, smooth floor, and came to a halt by the grey girl's side.

Then followed what was to one spectator at least, a delightful scene.

The surprise on the grey girl's face, the incredulity, the illimitable content, as the tall stranger made known his request, took out his pocket-book and handed her a card. Emotional Pixie had the softness of tears in her own eyes as Stephen rejoined her, and they walked away together down the long room.

"Well," he said smiling, "on your head be it! Now she'll go on painting atrocities, and wasting good time, when she might be sweeping a floor!

It's against my principles to encourage the desecration of art."

"Why did you do it then?" Pixie demanded heartlessly, but next moment she smiled a beautiful smile. "_I know_! Thank you! Never mind about desecration. Art can look after itself, and _she_ can't! And even if that particular picture isn't beautiful, you have given me another that is, the picture of her happy face! I think," she concluded slowly, "it's going to help me.--It will be a contrast to turn, to, when I see--_that other_!" She sighed, as she invariably did, when referring to those moments on the Liverpool landing-stage, but she shook off the depression with a characteristic gesture, a defiant little shake not only of the head, but of the whole body, and cried briskly: "Now let's imagine what she does when she goes home with that cheque!"

At home in the little flat, music made part of every day's programme.

Pixie, seated on the hearthrug, would sing Irish ballads in a voice of crooning sweetness, she and Pat would join in duets, occasionally Stephen was persuaded to join in a trio, and presently, as the performers became "worked up" to their task, they would recall one by one performances of bygone days, and perform them afresh for the delectation of their visitor. Pixie whistled a bird-like accompaniment to Pat's deep drone; Pat, retiring bashfully beneath a sheet, whistled in his turn not only an air, but actually at the same time an accompaniment thereto, a soprano and contralto combination of sounds, so marvellous to hear that he was compelled to repeat the performance unmasked, before Stephen would believe in its authenticity. Fired by the success of their efforts, combs were then produced, and, swathed in paper, turned into wind instruments of wondrous amenability. Surprising effect of a duet upon combs! Again, when towards the end of the week the repertoire gave out, and "What shall we sing next?" to fail of an answer, Pixie revived another old "Knock" accomplishment, which was neither more nor less than impromptu recitatives and choruses. A ba.s.s recitative by Pat, on the theme--"_And she went--to find some mat-ches.

And there--were--none... Tum-Tum_!" led the way to the liveliest of choruses, in which, goaded by outstretched fingers and flashing eyes, Stephen was forced to take his part. "_There were none!--there were none_!" piped Pixie in the treble. "_And she went--and she went_!"

rumbled Pat in the ba.s.s. "_Matches! Matches_!" fell from Stephen's lips, on a repeated high tenor note. Through ever-increasing intricacies and elaborations ran the chorus, until at last at a signal from the soprano it approached its close, the three singers proclaimed in unison that "_there--were--none_!" and promptly fell back in their seats in paroxysms of laughter. In the course of the last twenty years, had he laughed as much as he had done within the last wonderful week?

Stephen asked himself the question as he walked home the night after the singing of the "Matches" chorus, and there was little hesitation about the answer.

A week, ten days of unshadowed happiness and companionship, and then a cloud arose. Pat was not _well_; he grew worse; he grew seriously ill.

The knee itself had done all that was expected of it, but the first attempt at walking, to which the poor fellow had looked forward as to a festival, proved in reality a painful and depressing experience. Back in his bed, limp with pain and exhaustion, poor Pat realised his own weakness with a poignancy of disappointment. He had expected to be able to walk at once, though not perhaps for any length of time, and these few stumbling steps had been a bitter revelation. All these weeks of confinement and suffering, and now a long and dragging convalescence!

Pat's heart swelled with bitterness and rebellion. Despite the presence of Pixie and the constant visits of his friend, he was sick, sick to death of the one small room, and the monotonous indoor life, and as a young man successfully started in a young business, he longed with ardour to get back to his work.

The world looked very black to Pat O'Shaughnessy for the rest of that day, and atmospheric conditions did not help to cheer him. It was raining, a slow, relentless rain, and in the air for days past had been a rawness, a chill which crept to the very bone. Pixie drew the curtains over every c.h.i.n.k, and hung a shawl over the end of Pat's bed to still further screen him from draughts, but Pat was not in the mood to be coddled, and had that shawl whisked to the ground before one could say Jack Robinson. He was curt and silent in his manner, and--rare and significant sign!--partook of a fragmentary tea. Nothing was right; everything was wrong; his patience was exhausted, and though he remained studiously polite to his friend, with his sister he unrestrainedly "let himself go."

"Don't wriggle, Pixie! ... Don't shout!--Don't tell us that story all over again. ... Don't lean against my bed. ... Don't sit between me and the fire!" so on it went all through the afternoon, which as a rule was so cheery and peaceful, and if Pixie preserved a placid composure, Stephen Glynn was far from following her example. He relapsed into a frigid silence, which added but another element to the general discomfort.

The final stroke came when Pixie lifted the despised shawl and attempted to wrap it round Pat's shoulders, and was rudely repulsed, and told to mind her own business and not be a fool. Then, with his air of _grand seigneur_, Stephen Glynn rose from his chair and made his adieux. Cold as crystal was his manner as he extended his hand to the invalid on his bed, and Pixie followed him on to the little landing, apologetic and miserable.

"You are going so soon? If you could stay and talk hard it might divert him from himself. He _needs_ diverting!"

"I cannot," Stephen declared. "It's beyond me. After all you have done--after all your care, to speak to you so rudely!--"

He had pa.s.sed through the front door of the flat, and Pixie stood within the threshold, her hand clasping the handle of the door, her face, tired and strained, raised to his own.

"He didn't!" she cried quickly. "Oh, he didn't. It wasn't Pat who spoke--it was the pain, the pain, and the tiredness and the disappointment. They force out the words. Haven't you found that yourself? But his heart doesn't mean them. He's all raw and hurting, and I worried him. ... I shouldn't have done it! You must be angry with me, not with Pat."