ointedly than she had feared, "You too!
Mrs. Comerford said we must wait. I don't want to wait. I want to
shout out to the whole world that Stella is mine, but, of course, I
know. Father would rather have had Eileen. I have known Eileen since
I was eight years old. Love does not come that way."

He was repeating her own words, her own thought. She was relieved that
he was so amenable.

"After all," she said roguishly, "there have been moments when you
seemed on the edge of falling in love with Eileen. Last June we
thought it was all but settled, your father and I."

"Oh," he said shamelessly, "when the true gods come the half-gods go."

Sir Shawn came into the room. He was pale and tired and the shadows
crept in the hollows of his cheeks. She was glad he was not to be
disturbed by Terry's love-story to-night. She wondered if he would
notice the shining radiance of the boy's face. Joy--the triumphant joy
of the accepted lover--dazzled there to her eyes. She was relieved
when the boy went away and left them alone. When Shawn was tired he
was irresistible to her tenderness. For the moment even Terry was out
of it.

CHAPTER XIV

STELLA GOES VISITING

Lady O'Gara had met Stella, had drawn her to her and kissed her warmly
and softly.

"Your Granny will not have it just yet, Stella," she said, "so we need
not announce it, need we? As though all the world will not read it in
Terry's eyes!"

It made it easier that Mrs. Comerford was somewhat unreasonable about
the engagement. There was too short an acquaintance, she said. Three
months,--what was three months? And they had not had three weeks of
each other's society. Too slender a foundation on which to build a
life's happiness. And Terry had been obviously in love, or what such
children called love, with Eileen, when they came. He must be sure of
himself before she gave him Stella.

She had drawn back in some curious way, Lady O'Gara felt, for she had
seemed pleased when Terry openly displayed his infatuation. The most
candid creature alive, although for the moment she held a secret, Lady
O'Gara was puzzled by something in Grace Comerford. Once she said that
she was sorry she had yielded to the ridiculous Irish passion for
return: and when Mary O'Gara had looked at her with a certain pain in
her expression she had railed upon the wet Irish climate. But the
weather was not what she had meant. Had she not said that in Italy and
Egypt sh