THE LUCK OF THE IRISH
Later, when Ruth came up, she saw nothing amiss. She put her usual questions perfunctorily. Had he slept well? Did the pain bother him during the night? For all that the cut had healed quickly and healthily, William was subjected occasionally to splitting headaches, a sign indicative that he had come out of that affair in Cairo by a very narrow margin.
"So Mr. Camden has really left us?" she said, lying back lazily, grateful for the shade of the deck canopy. "He was rather amusing at times."
"Ye-ah." A growl.
"He was well informed about this part of the world."
"Ye-ah." A little louder.
"He left a dozen books for me. Maeterlinck—think of it! Very nice of him, wasn't it?"
"Ye-ah!" A real bark.
"What's the matter?"
"Matter?"
"Ye-ah," she mimicked. "Can't you say 'uh-huh' for a change?"
William did not want to laugh. At the mention of Camden all the early fury returned. He knew his Irish temperament; if he laughed his anger would go by the board; and his mood now was one which found a melancholy pleasure in fanning the coals of hate to keep them alive against the day when he and Camden met again. But there was this that worried him: his gray-eyed school-teacher could see like a cat in the dark; and if once she sensed anything wrong, her questions might
220
