e young people."

"I'm a Dutchman if we will, ma'am!" shouted the General. "As for the
dogs, did you intend to exclude them, too, from the fine new house?
You'd never teach them not to sit in chairs at this time of their
lives."

This outbreak was followed by the usual fit of repentance, in which the
General reproached himself for his hastiness. To be sure, he had been
annoyed that the wedding should have been put off for so long. In his
haste he had said derogatory things about Robin in his heart, which was
unreasonable. The fellow was a Member of Parliament and had to stick to
his post, to stick to his post like a soldier. Yet, there would be all
those weeks of June and July when bad news might come any day about
Langrishe: and Nell would be in London and would hear of it.

So, although the thing had come about which he desired, the General was
not happy.

CHAPTER XX

JEALOUSY, CRUEL AS THE GRAVE

It was the latter end of April when Sir Robin Drummond presented himself
again in the big bare room where Mary Gray transacted the business of
her Bureau. The windows were wide open now, and the dull roar of the
distant street traffic came in. It had been a showery day, and he had
noticed as he came up the stairs the many marks of muddy feet which
showed that business at the Bureau was brisk. The women were coming at
last to be organised, to learn a spirit of _camaraderie_, to see that
their good was the common good, to have hope for a future which would
not be always starvation and deprivation, sufferings in cold and heats,
intolerable miseries crowding upon each other.

He came up the stairs, looking sadder and sterner than was his wont. He
remembered how all last winter he had run up those stairs like a
school-boy, being so glad at last to get to the hour he had desired all
day. As he passed up the staircase now he looked at the walls,
distempered a dirty pink. Outside Mary's door they were adorned by the
effusions of amateur artists, the children of the working women,
messenger boys, casual urchins, with the desire of their kind for
scribbling. It was all quite unlovely, yet it had made him happy to come
there. It was a happiness that he had had no right to and now it must be
relinquished. This was the last time he should come after this intimate
fashion.

He turned the handle of the door and went in, rather dreading to find
Mary engaged with other visitors; but she was alone. She turned round
from her