Page:The Valley of Fear.pdf/181

Rh For the law, too, and all who were connected with it, he exhibited a bitter contempt which delighted some and alarmed others of his fellow boarders.

From the first he made it evident, by his open admiration, that the daughter of the house had won his heart from the instant that he had set eyes upon her beauty and her grace. He was no backward suitor. On the second day he told her that he loved her, and from then onward he repeated the same story with an absolute disregard of what she might say to discourage him.

“Someone else?” he would cry. “Well, the worse luck for someone else! Let him look out for himself! Am I to lose my life’s chance and all my heart’s desire for someone else? You can keep on saying no, Ettie: the day will come when you will say yes, and I’m young enough to wait.”

He was a dangerous suitor, with his glib Irish tongue, and his pretty, coaxing ways. There was about him also that glamour of experience and of mystery which attracts a woman’s interest, and finally her love. He could talk of the sweet valleys of County Monaghan from which he [179]