" Meantime, Brian had spoken to the girl, and she had
answered shortly, in words I could not hear, but with a sullen, doubtful
look, like a small trapped creature that snaps at a friendly hand. The
landlord was helping a white-faced waiter to clear a place on the table
for a tray of coffee and liqueurs; and outside the noise of shrapnel
had died in the distance. The air-raid incident was closed. What next?
"You'll both have coffee with us, won't you, Signor di Napoli--or Mr.
O'Farrell? Or should I say Lieutenant or Captain?" Father Beckett was
urging. "You were a friend of our son's, and my wife and I----"
"Plain Mister O'Farrell it is," the other broke in. "Thanks, it would be
a pleasure to stay, but it's best to refuse, I'm sure, for my sister's
sake. You see by her dress what her work has been, and she's on leave
because she's tired out. She faints easily--and what with the air
raid--maybe you'll let us pay our respects before you leave to-morrow?
Then we'll tell you all you want to know. Anyhow, we may be going on for
some time in your direction. I saw by a Paris paper a few days ago you
were making a tour of the Fronts, beginning at the Lorraine end."
His eyes were on me as he spoke, bright with imp-like malice. He looked
so like a mischievous schoolboy that it was hard to take him seriously.
Yet everything warned me to do so, and his allusion to the Paris
newspapers explained much. For the second time a reporter had caught
Father Beckett, and got out of him the statement that "My dead son's
fiancee, Miss Mary O'Malley, who's been nursing in a 'contagious'
hospital near St.
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