“The comfort which poor human beings want in such a world as this is not the comfort of ease, but the comfort of strength.”

C. Kingsley.

Evereld thought the whole plan a most delightful one, and if anything could have consoled her for the parting with Ralph on Monday it would have been the prospect of spending the time of her convalescence with Bride O’Ryan and Mrs. Hereford, and of knowing that Ivy was not to be left out in the cold but was to enjoy just the same hospitality and care.

On the Sunday she was allowed to see Myra Brinton for the first time. Perhaps the events of the week had done more for Myra than for anyone else; she had been so horrified to discover what mischief her sentimental fancy for Ralph, her jealousy of Evereld and her quarrel with Ivy had wrought, that she had taken herself thoroughly in hand, and had learnt a lesson she would never forget. As for the baby, it played no small part in her education, and Bridget was always delighted that she should come in and make much of it.

“I don’t know how to thank you enough,” said Evereld looking up at her gratefully. “They have all told me how good and helpful you were last Monday, when no one had time to think much of Baby Dick.”

“Is he to be called Dick?” said Myra willing to turn the conversation from herself.

“Yes, after my brother who died. Have you seen Ivy yet?”

“Oh, several times,” said Myra. “I wanted just to tell you that everything is quite right between us again. I was very wrong, Evereld, to tell you what I did at Mardentown. It was all a mistake and I little thought what it would lead to. If poor Ivy had not been in a hurry to be out of my way before I came back to the dressing-room, I do believe the accident would never have happened. My horrible gossip might have been the death of both of you. I can never forget that.”

“Don’t let us ever talk of it again,” said Evereld. “We shall all three be closer friends for the rest of our lives just because this has happened. That’s the only thing that matters now. And Myra, I wanted to ask you to be Dick’s Godmother. You had all the trouble of him at first, and so he seems rightly to belong to you. Mr. Macneillie has promised to be one of the Godfathers.”

This was the finishing touch to the reconciliation and a very happy thought on the part of the little mother. Nothing could have pleased Myra more, and she left Bath a much happier and a much better woman.

Evereld made herself as happy as she could with her baby and with old Bridget as companions, but her convalescence was tedious, and she was unspeakably glad when at length the day arrived for her removal to the Hereford’s house in Lansdowne Crescent.

The beautiful view of the Somersetshire hills and of the grey city in the valley below, which she gained from her window, the cheerful sense of family life going on all about her, the companionship of Bride O’Ryan, and the comfort of having Mrs. Hereford always at hand to advise her about Dick and to share all her anxieties, seemed exactly what she needed.

Her voice recovered its tone, her cheeks regained their fresh bright colour, and she became once more just a girl again, ready to enjoy life in her own quiet fashion.

“I could almost fancy we were back at school,” said Bride cheerfully.

“When, as at present I’m in the shade with the light behind me,” quoted Evereld merrily. “My hands are about the worst part of me now, they are so horribly white, otherwise you must own that I am quite presentable. How strange it seems though to think of the life at Southbourne. It was so happy while it lasted, but the thought of going back to it is dreadful.”

“Instead you spend half the day in playing with Dick,” said Bride teasingly. “The amount of time you waste on that child is appalling.”

“I’m not going to be one of those horrid modern mothers who never have time to see their own babies,” said Evereld. “It would have been wrong to have had him at all if I didn’t mean to be his best friend from the very beginning right through his life.”

“Do you mean him to be an actor?” asked Bride, looking at the funny little face nestled close to Evereld and wondering what it would develop into.

“I should like it if he has all that is needed to make one,” said Evereld, “but who can prophesy whether he has any special gift, or whether he has patience for all the drudgery it involves?”

“Tell me what you really think of the life, now that you have had some experience of it,” said Bride. “Quite candidly, don’t you find it very monotonous?”

“No, I have found it very interesting,” said Evereld. “I can fancy though that it must be trying to do nothing but one play for many hundreds of nights. In a company like ours you see we get plenty of variety.”

“And you don’t mind the moving about week by week?”

“Oh, sometimes it is tiresome, but there are many advantages. Mr. Macneillie knows a host of interesting people, all over the country, and they are generally very hospitable to us; besides I like getting to know fresh places, and as a rule the journeys are not very long or tiring. Sometimes I used to get a little bored by the incessant talk about things connected with the stage. But that would be just the same in any other profession. Don’t you remember how at the chateau we used to get so weary of the talk between Mr. Magnay and his two artist friends? They say it is exactly the same among authors, when two or three of them are together they can’t help talking shop. And as to clergymen, why they are proverbial! I suppose Kingsley was the only one who ever did entirely banish ‘clerical shop’ from his home talk.”

“Well, I think you are very wonderful people to be able to travel about for so long without losing your tempers or quarrelling like the Kilkenny cats,” said Bride. “There’s nothing on earth so trying to the temper as going about with people. I suppose that’s why they always make an unfortunate married couple travel on the continent. They learn in that way what sort of life is in store for them.”

Evereld laughed. “You know we do now and then quarrel a little, but as a rule we are all very friendly. There is only one thing I cannot stand, and I hope we shall never have such an infliction again.”

“What is that?” said Bride smiling at her friend’s vehemence.

“A wealthy amateur who thinks he can act but can’t,” said Evereld. “Oh, if you knew what we have endured all the autumn from an empty-headed fellow, who thought himself a genius!”

“What did he do?” said Bride.

“What did he not do! He was insufferably rude to Mr. Macneillie, he hated Ralph because he wanted the Juvenile Lead himself, he treated all the other men as though they were beneath contempt, he persecuted all the ladies of the company with tiresome attentions, and he was always dragging into the conversation the names of titled people of his acquaintance, or dropping coroneted envelopes in a casual way. Somehow he contrived to set us all at sixes and sevens, and there was joy throughout the company when at last something offended him and he suddenly brought his engagement to an end.”

Bride laughed heartily as she heard of the stratagem by which the Manager had contrived to bring about this much desired event.

“Who would ever think that Mr. Macneillie had so much fun in him as you describe,” she said. “His face is grave almost to sternness.”

“Yes, but when it does light up he hardly looks like the same man,” said Evereld. “I don’t think he would ever have stood the wear and tear of his life if it hadn’t been for his strong vein of humour.”

And with that she fell to musing on the strange fact which most people discover sooner or later, that it is not the prosperous and happy people who as a rule are blessed with this divine gift of a sense of the humourous, but the people whose lives are clouded with care and anxiety, or those who have to go about the world with an aching heart, or to bear the consequences of another’s sin. To such as these often enough, by some mysterious law of compensation, there comes a power, not only of feeling the pathos of life more acutely, but of perceiving in everything—even in matters connected with their own sorrows—the subtle touches of humour which keep life healthy and pure.

She noticed it very much in Dermot O’Ryan, who young as he was had passed through a hard apprenticeship of ill health, misfortune, political imprisonment, and misunderstanding that to one of his temperament was excessively hard to bear.

He was the only one of the O’Ryans who had any literary tastes, and now being cut off by his recent illness from active political life he was busy with a Memoir of his father, a well-known man in the Fenian rising of ‘65, who had died from the effects of his subsequent imprisonment.

Dermot was a thorough Kelt, and Evereld thought his sweet-tempered, philosophic patience, made him a most delightful companion. They had liked each other at Southbourne, and had become firm friends during Evereld’s stay at Auvergne, so that they quickly fell into very easy terms of intimacy. They were sitting together in the large sunny drawing-room and Bride was reading a page of the Memoir upon which Dermot wanted a special criticism, when Mrs. Hereford returned from the hospital bringing Ivy with her. Dermot looked up rather curiously to see the girl of whom he had heard so much, but instead of a beautiful and striking face which he could either have admired or criticised, he saw a little childish creature, with startled blue-grey eyes and a wistful face which was not exactly pretty but was somehow more fascinating than if it had possessed more regular features.

At sight of Evereld, Ivy forgot everything and ran across the room to greet her; she was so small and graceful and light that it seemed almost as if, like the birds, she had special air cells in her bones, for her movements had in them something altogether unusual so that merely to watch her limbs was keen delight.

She had, too, an eager quick way of talking, and by the time she had been introduced to Dermot he felt that the scrap of a hand put into his had carried away his heart.

“I have heard of you from Mrs. Denmead,” she said. “You were one of the imprisoned patriots.”

“Oh, most of us have a turn at that sort of thing,” he said smiling. “It’s part of an Irishman’s training.” Bride made some remark about the manuscript, and the talk became general, Ivy entering this new world with a sense of keen interest, and quite in the humour to study Irish history with Dermot as schoolmaster.

During her illness she had had more leisure to think than had ever before been the case. For five weeks there had been nothing to do, but to keep quiet and to recover as steadily as might be. At first she had suffered too much to make any use of the time, but later on, when she was convalescent, there were long hours when she learnt more of the real truth of things than she had hitherto grasped. The mere physical pain seemed afterwards to fit her to understand what had hitherto been a riddle to her, and the strong feeling for Evereld which grew and deepened in her heart did wonders for her. All her nature seemed to have become more tender and sweet; and whereas in time past she would have flirted violently with Dermot and played with him as a cat plays with a mouse, she seemed now to have laid aside all her silly little affectations and coquetries, and to be capable of realising that love is not a game, or a pastime, or a selfish having, but rather the entrance to all that is most sacred, the mutual sacrifice of self, the nearest approach of humanity to the life divine.

Dermot made no secret of his admiration for the little actress, it was quite patent to all observers, but his devotion was so unlike anything she had hitherto come across in life that Ivy herself was never startled by it. She quietly drifted into love with him, waking into an altogether new world as she did so, a world far removed from the reach of men like Mr. Vane-Ffoulkes with their compliments, and their presents, and their so-called love, which she knew all the time to be nothing but thinly-veiled selfishness.

At last one day, when Ivy was out driving with Mrs. Hereford, Dermot seized the opportunity of a confidential talk with Evereld as she sat at work by the fire.

“I want you to give me your advice,” he began, throwing down his pen and drawing a little nearer to her. “Do you think there is any hope at all for me with Miss Grant? I am sure you know without any telling that I fell in love with her the moment she came here. Do you think there is any hope for me?”

“That depends,” said Evereld thoughtfully.

“Depends on what?” he asked eagerly.

“Well, you see Ivy really cares for her profession and is just beginning to succeed in it. I don’t think she would consent to retire.”

“I could never allow my wife to remain on the stage,” said Dermot his face clouding.

“Then I don’t think you have any business to go to the theatre,” said Evereld. “Every woman you see on the stage is somebody’s wife or somebody’s daughter.”

“If one realised that, the disgusting things which amuse some audiences would fail for want of support,” said Dermot musingly. “Not that I imagine for a moment that Miss Grant would ever accept an engagement of which she really disapproved. Doreen would agree with her as to sticking to her profession, and perhaps she is right.”

“Having got on so well while she is young,” said Evereld, “for she won’t be eighteen till May, there seems every prospect of her soon getting to a really good position. And there is a sort of fascination about her—she is always popular.”

“You mean that I shall have a host of rivals.”

“Possibly, but you are early in the field and indeed I think you stand a very good chance.”

“Do you think it would be wrong if I spoke to her now? Would it spoil the rest of this time for her?”

“Well that would depend on the answer she gave you,” said Evereld laughing. “But indeed I think Ivy is just the sort of girl who would be happier if engaged while she is quite young. You see she is much in the position I was in—quite alone in the world with no relations and but few friends.”

So Dermot, who detested waiting and was never at a loss for words, seized an early opportunity of urging his suit, and Max Hereford, coming down from town on the following Saturday, was greeted by his wife with the news that the two were just engaged.

“I told you what the result would be when you hospitably invited that little actress,” he said laughing. “There never was such a matchmaker as you are, mavourneen. I knew something had happened the moment I caught sight of your face.”

“They are so happy,” she said smiling, “and Ivy is so gentle and sweet; Dermot will be exactly the right sort of husband for her I do believe. And she will make him just the capable, brisk, bright little wife that such a dreamy philosopher needs.”

“But I do hope they are not going to marry upon Dermot’s penwork,” said Max Hereford. “He is making a good income now, but of course one can’t tell when he may be laid up, for I fear he will never be strong.”

“Oh, they are quite content to wait for five or six years,” said Mrs. Hereford. “And I am thankful to say Dermot’s Eastern ideas as to wives are being overcome by Ivy’s practical good sense. She won’t hear of giving up her work, and in a talk I had with her the other day she spoke so sensibly of professional life, which she knows pretty thoroughly, that I am sure she is right about it. She has the makings of a very fine character in her, and I shall not be surprised if Dermot’s marriage proves as great a success as Michael’s has done.”

“We shall now not be happy until Mollie and Bride are arranged for,” said Max Hereford teasingly, “and then there are our own children coming on, so you have your work cut out for you, dear. By and bye there will be match-making for the nieces and nephews, and after that no doubt a few grandchildren coming on. So you will be able to keep your hand in.”

“And isn’t it the least I can be doing then, since my own married life has been so happy?” she said laughing. Ivy, who had not yet seen Mr. Hereford, stood rather in awe of him and looked up apprehensively when her future brother-in-law came into the drawing-room where she was helping Dermot with some proofs. However his greeting was so kindly and his congratulations to Dermot sounded so genuine that her fears were soon set at rest; she felt that the family had fully adopted her and that she was no longer one of the waifs of the world.