His rigid lips broke into the ghost of a smile, and a great tenderness came into his eyes. “Sit where I can see you, mavourneen; it is all the healing I need.” Paddy pulled up a footstool, and sat beside him, and quietly began to run her fingers with a light touch up and down his uninjured arm. She had seen his mother do it, and knew he found it soothing. Thus for some time neither spoke, and gradually the drawn, blue look left his face. At last, from gazing into the fire, she looked up suddenly into his face, and found he was watching her intently. “Mavourneen,” he said very quietly, “I suspected that you were beginning to care at Christmas. I know it now. What are you going to do about it?” She hid her face against his hand, and did not reply. “What is your own idea, anyway?” he asked, in a winsome, humorous voice. “Oh, if you could only run away with me by force,” she murmured intensely. “If only I needn’t decide at all. I’m just a lump of obstinacy, and I don’t want to climb down and meekly give in; don’t you see how I hate that part of it? You could always say ‘I told you so,’” and she smiled a little. “Bravo, Patricia! I like that spirit in you. Curse it all, a few hundred years ago, I’d just have brought along my men-at-arms and captured you. What good old days they must have been. And here we are hemmed in all round by barriers, and I haven’t even got a couple of good arms to drag you onto my horse. But anyhow, the gods are evidently relenting, so I’ll take heart and think out a plan.” He saw her glance at the clock. “Must you go now? Are the beastly medicine bottles squirming on the shelf? Well, I won’t keep you. It isn’t good enough with a crocked-up arm. In fact, it isn’t good at all; it’s merely maddening. You see, I want to kiss you, Paddy, and I dare say if I asked very appealingly and pathetically, you would lean over and give me a sort of benevolent, motherly salute.” He gave a low laugh with a note of masterfulness in it. “But I’ll have none of it. To dream as I have dreamed, and then begin with a mild caress! _Never_. I forbid you to come near me again until I’m on my feet with, at any rate, one strong arm. Then I’ll show you. I had always a weakness for the best.” She stood up, a little non-plussed and uncertain, but he only smiled into her eyes with something of the old mocking light. “Good-by, mavourneen, I’ll let you know when you must come again. I’ve had enough healing for a little—and I’m sure the bottles are clamouring.” “Good-by,” she answered, and went slowly out of the room. But as she trundled back to Shepherd’s Bush on a motor ’bus, she saw no greyness and shabbiness and desolation any more—saw nothing at all—only knew that in her heart there was a sort of shy, fierce, bewildering gladness. CHAPTER XLVI The Solution.