Mrs. Weston's man put his shrewd blue-eyed face round the edge of the door and muttered something half aloud.
"Or will Mary Kate folly ye now with an apern full of turf," said his mother, conciliating him, "till we airs that new sthore ye have?"
Mike said "She will not" shortly, merely promising to bring back the flour bags to dry quarters.
"An', Mike, we are out of washin' soda. An' it locked up with him inside."
Mrs. Guinane then announced hotly that she was scalded from the new store, and turned to Gheena.
"Thim Germans has the poor ruined, Miss," she said, as she took the order. "Heapin' pince on everythin'."
Mrs. Weston, yawning profusely, was at home in a tobacco-scented atmosphere. Ends of cigarettes were littered about and feet cased in green silk were hurriedly removed from a comfortable rest on the mantelpiece and thrust into tight shoes. The old Swiss maid hobbled past the visitors out of the oven-hot room, curtsying as she met them.
Gheena only left a message from her mother. She could not have stayed long in the close room. But before she went she whispered one or two things to her friend. Mrs. Weston was not pleased to hear that Gheena had gone alone to the cliffs.
"Even if my shoes were too tight," she said. "And you found nothing?"
"Nothing at all," said Gheena absently, because at the moment she was thinking of the curious cave with the channel running into it, and of some sound which had not struck her at the time, but which came back to her now.
They found George Freyne accumulating chill and bad-humour upon the doorstep, looking out for his step-daughter.
"If you had told me that you actually wanted me to go for a drive," said Gheena patiently; "but you were not sure, Dearest, so I went for a walk and Darby drove us home. I--I wasn't spending money on anything, driving the car or being extravagant."
"Dearest has been quite put out," Mrs. Freyne confided. "Lancelot was driven over, lying back on cushions, Gheena, and looking as if he thought he was ill; he's very stout. And you were not there, and they asked us all back to dinner, which would have meant, Dearest said, no dinner here, so he's put out, Gheena darling, and says he'll sell another horse."
"If--he--dares to sell mine!" said Gheena with a queer little gulp.