“Are you sure that you understand me?” he said wistfully. “Yes,” she said, her sweet eyes smiling into his. “I have summered and wintered you a great many times, as Bridget would say, and I very well know Ralph that you would much prefer it if my father had left me three hundred instead of three thousand a year. I think it is a little foolish of you, for as long as we share it what does it matter which side it comes from?” A church clock striking four warned them that they must hasten back, and when they rejoined the others they were chatting together so naturally that no one dreamt what an important scene in their drama had been played at the other end of the beach. Ralph found himself speedily made to feel at home in the delightful atmosphere of the Irish household, with its mirth and good humour, its cheerful babel of voices. It delighted him to think that Evereld who had known nothing of real family life should have found such friends, and he went back to his rooms later on in the highest spirits. The Herefords had guessed nothing of his story and the O’Ryans had been too much taken up with their own merry discussions to be very observant, but Macneillie saw at a glance the change that had come over his pupil. “Well?” he said in his genial voice. “What good fortune has befallen you?” “I have found Evereld,” said Ralph blithely. “She is staying on the Parade with the Max Herefords. Here’s a note for you, by the bye. They want us to breakfast with them to-morrow at half past nine, it was the only free time, for they lunch at one, as he has to go up to town, and I knew rehearsal wouldn’t be over by then.” “No,” said Macneillie lighting a cigarette, “in your present mood you’re about as likely to give your mind to Shakspere as that lover and his lass,” glancing at a very demonstrative couple on the other side of the road. “We shall have a long and wearing rehearsal to-morrow.” “I don’t understand you, Governor,” said Ralph, using the old stage word for the Manager as he generally did now to Macneillie, and somehow conveying by it just the reverence and affection which he felt for the Scotsman. “I have an unfair advantage over you,” said Macneillie smiling. “I have heard a great deal about Miss Evereld Ewart and know that she is likely to distract you from your labours.” “You have heard of her? From whom?” “From you yourself, to be sure, in the feverish nights you had at Callander. I have long been wishing for the opportunity of quoting Mrs. Siddons to you, ‘Study, study, study, and don’t marry until you are thirty.’ “Well we can’t even be engaged yet,” said Ralph; “but we understand each other and that is something. Tomorrow you must see her.” “I will devote myself to her entirely,” said Macneillie with a mirthful twinkle in his grey eyes. “And you in the meantime can be profitably improving your Irish accent with Mrs. Hereford with a view to Sir Lucius O’Trigger. Your brogue doesn’t quite satisfy me yet.” CHAPTER XXI