CHAPTER XXX

It was a beautiful, clear, winter night when I walked home. Over the low wall I looked out at the dark, smooth sea, stretching away, almost black, save where the moonlight touched it. I trailed my right hand on the wall as I walked, heedless of the cold, though it was freezing keenly. The tide was in, and the chill, listless splash of the small waves, running through my thoughts, seemed to increase their sadness. On the verge of the distant golf-links a ruddy light from the big hotel shone out into the night.

As I turned up the Bryansford Road, I saw, in the moonlight, my father standing leaning over the garden gate, and behind him the house door was open. Unconsciously I slackened my pace. He was looking for me, perhaps. He must have already heard me, for the sound of my footsteps rang out sharply on the hard road.

“Where have you been all this time?” he asked abruptly, as I came up.

There was a hardness in his voice that, in my present mood, I shrank from more than I should have from physical violence. I knew he knew where I had been, and I thought he might have let the matter pass. “I didn’t intend to stay so late,” I said, apologetically, “but Mrs. Carroll had gone up to town and left a message for me, asking me to wait. After dinner she wanted me to tell her all I had been doing since I left home.”

“I hope you were more communicative than you were to me. You hadn’t time, I suppose, to come back and say you were staying. I waited tea for you for nearly an hour.”

“I didn’t think it mattered,” I mumbled. “I’m very sorry. I thought you would understand.”

I had already climbed half a dozen stairs on my way to bed, when my father called me back.

“Why are you rushing off like that, now?”

I hastily returned. “I was going to bed: I didn’t know you wanted to sit up.” I went on into the parlour, where there was a smoky fire in the grate, just large enough to make you realize how cold it was, and on the table some bread and butter, a jug of milk and a tumbler. I sat down beside the fire.

“I’m not going to sit up; but I don’t want you to treat your home as if it were an hotel, a place where you come merely to sleep. I’ve no doubt things are more to your taste at Derryaghy, but while this _is_ your home, you must try to make the best of it.”

I looked at my father helplessly, but I said nothing. I had an uncomfortable vision of his sitting here all evening by himself. If he would only make friends with somebody! I wondered if he had been happy before mamma went away.

“Seeing that it was your first day at home,” he went on, putting down my silence to sulkiness, “you might at least have been content to be out all the afternoon. Now that we are on the subject, I had better let you know that Mrs. Carroll asked me to allow you to spend part of your holidays at Derryaghy, but I told her you must decide that for yourself.” He paused, with the intention of letting me say I didn’t want to go.

“She told me to-night,” I murmured.

“Well?”

“I think I’d like to go.”

There was a silence, and I wondered how long we were going to sit shivering here.

“I had a letter to-night from your Aunt Margaret. She says you have made friends with some people called Gill, and have been to a party at their house.”

“Yes: it was last night.”

“Why do you never tell me of any of these things yourself? One would think I was a total stranger to you!”

“I didn’t know it would interest you.”

All at once I remembered my visits to the opera, and I couldn’t understand how my father had not heard of them. He had not mentioned my laxity in regard to church either, and both these omissions puzzled me greatly, seeing Aunt Margaret had made such a fuss about them at the time.