o. Eileen had been sweet-tempered and placidly selfish.
There was a change in her of late. It was quite unlike the old Eileen
to go away and leave her sitting alone in the drawing-room with only
two watchful Poms, each with a bright eye upon her from their
respective chairs, and Shot stretched at her feet, to keep her company.

She acquitted herself. Love and generosity ought not to spoil any one:
they ought to lift up, to awake their like. Was Eileen in love with
Terry and resenting his desertion? No; she said emphatically in her
thoughts. She would have known if Eileen cared. If it had been _that_
she could have been very tolerant.

Her thoughts went back to the first beginnings of difficulty with
Eileen, and she fixed them at the date of her return from her visit
home during the preceding summer. The fatted calf had been killed for
the girl's return. Lady O'Gara remembered how she had anticipated it,
and had thought of what Eileen liked, the special food and sweets, and
so on. She had kept Margaret McKeon busy with the new chintz curtains
and cushions for Miss Eileen's room, and when it was all finished had
fussed about doing one little thing and another till the privileged
maid had been moved to protest.

"Hasn't Miss Eileen had everything she wanted from the lucky day for
her that she came here? Don't be robbin' yourself, m'lady."

Lady O'Gara had taken some of her own pretty things, a crystal clock, a
silver and tortoiseshell box for the toilet table--things Eileen
particularly admired--and had added them to the other pretty things,
her gifts, of which the room had many. She had brought an armful of
her dearest books: and she had insisted on pink roses because Eileen
particularly liked pink.

After all Eileen had been cold when she came. It had been like a douch
of cold water. She had not recovered her sweet placidity since that
time. Lady O'Gara had commented on the change to her husband, but he
had not seen it. He was fond of Eileen, in a superficial way. Indeed
his devotion to and absorption in his wife were such that almost all
other affection in him must be superficial by contrast. To two people
his love had been given passionately, to Terence Comerford and to his
wife. He never spoke of the dead friend. It was a well-understood
thing in the circle that Terence Comerford was not to be spoken of
carelessly, when Sir Shawn was within hearing.

Sitting alone in the firelight, except for