Muslin

XIX

                                           'DUNGORY CASTLE, GORT,
                                                     'Co. GALWAY.

'MY DEAREST ALICE, 'I was so delighted to hear from you; it was very good of you to write to me. I was deeply interested in your description of the Dublin festivities, and must try and tell you all the news.

'Everybody here is talking of Olive and Lord Kilcarney. It is said that he proposed to her at the Drawing-Room. Is this true? I hope so, for she seems to have set her heart on the match. But she is a great deal too nice for him. They say that when he is in London he does nothing but go about from bar-room to bar-room drinking brandies and sodas. It is also said that he used to spend much of his time with actresses. I hope these stories are false, but I cannot help thinking. . . . Well, we have often talked over these things, and you know what my opinions of men are. I hope I am not doing wrong in speaking like this; but a piece of news has reached me that forces my thoughts back into the old ways—ways that I know you have often reproved me for letting my mind wander in. In a word, darling Alice, I hear that you are very much taken up with a Mr. Harding, a writer, or painter, or something of that sort. Now, will you promise to write and tell me if this be true? I would sooner know the worst at once—hear that you love him madly, passionately, as I believe some women love men. But you, who are so nice, so good, so beautiful, you could not love a man thus. I cannot think you could—I will not think you do. I have been crying all the morning, crying bitterly; horrible thoughts have forced themselves on my mind. I have seen (but it was not true though it seemed so clear; visions are not always true) this man kissing you! Oh! Alice, let me warn you, let me beg of you to think well before you abandon yourself to a man's power, to a man's love.

'But you, Alice; you who are so noble, so pure, so lofty-minded, you would not soil yourself by giving way to such a sentiment. Write! you will write, and tell me that what I saw in vision was a lie, an abominable lie! Nay, you do not love Mr. Harding. You will not marry him; surely you will not. Oh! to be left here alone, never to see you again—I could not bear it, I should die. You will not leave me to die, Alice dear, you will not; write and tell me you will not. And what grieves me doubly is that it must seem to you, dear, that I am only thinking of myself. I am not; I think of you, I wish to save you from what must be a life of misery and, worse still, of degradation; for every man is a degradation when he approaches a woman. I know you couldn't bear up against this; you are too refined, too pure—I can sympathize with you. I know, poor little cripple though I be, the horrors of married life. I know what men are—you smile your own kind, sweet smile; I see it as I write; but you are wrong: I know nothing of men in particular, but I know what the sex is—I know nothing of individuals, but I know what life is. The very fact of being forced to live apart has helped me to realize how horrible life is, and how the passions of men make it vile and abominable. All their tender little words and attentions are but lust in disguise. I hate them! I could whip, I could beat, I would torture them; and when I had done my worst I should not have done enough to punish them for the wrongs they have done to my sex.

'I know, Alice dear, I am writing violently, that I am letting my temper get the better of me, and this is very wrong; you have often told me it is very wrong; but I cannot help it, my darling, when I think of the danger you are in. I cannot tell you how, but I do know you are in danger; something, some instinct has put me in communication with you: there are moments when I see you, yes, see you sitting by that man—I see you now:—the scene is a long blue drawing-room all aglow with gold mirrors and wax candles—he is sitting by you, I see you smiling upon him—my blood boils, Alice—I fear I am going mad; my head drops on the table, and I strive to shut out the odious sight, but I cannot, I cannot, I cannot. . . .

'I am calmer now: you will forgive me, Alice dear? I know I am wrong to write to you in this way, but there are moments when I realize things with such horrible vividness that I am, as it were, maddened with pain. Sometimes I awake in the night, and then I see life in all its hideous nakedness, revealed, as it were, by a sudden flash of lightning. Oh, it is terrible to think we are thus. Good-bye, dear, I know you will forgive me, and I hope you will write at once, and will not leave me in suspense: that is the worst torture. With love to our friends Olive, May, and Violet, believe me, darling Alice, 'Yours affectionately, 'CECILIA CULLEN.'

She read steadily, word by word, and then let the letter fall.

Her vision was not precise, but there were flashes of sun in it, and her thoughts loomed and floated away. She thought of herself, of Harding, of their first meeting. The first time she had seen him he was sitting in the same place and in the same chair as she was sitting in now. She remembered the first words that had been spoken: the scene was as clear to her as if it were etched upon her brain; and as she mused she thought of the importance of that event. Harding was to her what a mountain is to the level plain. From him she now looked forward and back. 'So people say that I am in love with him! well, supposing I were, I do not know that I should feel ashamed of myself.'

The reflection was an agreeable one, and in it her thoughts floated away like red-sailed barges into the white mists that veil with dreamy enchantment the wharves and the walls of an ancient town. What did she know of him? Nothing! He was to her as much, but no more, than the author of a book in which she was deeply interested: with this difference:—she could hear him reply to her questions; but his answers were only like other books, and revealed nothing of his personality. She would have liked to have known the individual man surrounded with his individual hopes and sufferings, but of these she knew nothing. They had talked of all things, but it seemed to her that of the real man she had never had a glimpse. Never did he unbend, never did he lift the mask he wore. He was interesting, but very unhuman, and he paraded his ideas and his sneers as the lay figures did the mail-armour on the castle stairway. She did not know if he were a good or a bad man; she fancied he was not very good, and then she grew angry with herself for suspecting him. But honest or dishonest, she was sure he could love no one; and she strove to recall his face. She could remember nothing but the cold merciless eyes—eyes that were like the palest blue porcelain: 'But how ungrateful I am,' thought the girl, and she checked the bitter flow of reproaches that rose in her mind.

Two old ladies sat on the sofa under the window, their white hair and white caps coming out very white upon the grey Irish day; and around the ottoman the young ladies, Gladys and Zoe Brennan, one of the Miss Duffys, and the girl in red, yawned over circulating novels, longing that a man might come in—not with hope that he would interest them, but because they were accustomed to think of all time as wasted that was not spent in talking to a man.

Nor were they awakened from their languid hopes until Olive came rushing into the room with a large envelope in her hand.

'Oh, I see,' she said, 'you have got a letter from Cecilia. What does
she say? I got one this morning from Barnes;' and, bending her head,
Olive whispered in Alice's ear: 'She says that everyone is talking in
Galway of when I shall be a marchioness!'

'Is that the letter?' asked Alice innocently.

'No, you silly, this is a Castle invitation.'

The Brennans and the girl in red looked up.

'Ah, is it for to-night or to-morrow?' said the latter.

'For to-morrow.'

'Now, I wonder if there will be one for me. Is it to dinner or to the dance?'

'To dinner.'

'Ah, really . . . yes, very lucky.' Her eyes fell, and her look was expressive of her deep disappointment. A dance—yes, but a dinner and a dance! Then she continued: 'Ah, the Castle treats us all very badly. I am glad sometimes when I hear the Land League abusing it. We come up here, and spend all our money on dresses, and we get nothing for it except two State balls, and it is no compliment to ask us to them—they are obliged to. But what do you think of my little coat? It is this that keeps me warm,' and Miss O'Reilly held out her sealskin for the company to feel the texture. For the last three weeks she had not failed, on all occasions, to call attention to this garment—'Signor Parisina had said it was lovely.' Here she sighed—Signor Parisina had left the hotel. 'And I have a new dress coming home—it is all red—a cardinal silk—you know nothing but red suits me!'

'Is the hall-porter distributing the invitations?' asked Gladys Brennan.
'Did he give you yours?'

'No, ours was, of course, directed to mamma; I found it in her room.'

'Then perhaps—' Zoe did not finish the sentence, and both sisters rolled up their worsted-work preparatory to going upstairs.

In Dublin, during six weeks of the year, the arrival of these large official envelopes is watched with eagerness. These envelopes are the balm of Gilead; and the Land League and the hopelessness of matchmaking are merged and lost for a moment in an exquisite thrill of triumph or despair. An invitation to the Castle means much. The greyheaded official who takes you down to dinner may bore you, and, at the dance, you may find yourself without a partner; but the delight of asking your friends if you may expect to meet them on such a night, of telling them afterwards of your successes, are the joys of Dublin. And, armed with their invitation, the Bartons scored heavily over the Scullys and the Goulds, who were only asked to the dance.

'And what will the dinner be like, mamma?' asked Olive.

'It will be very grand. Lord Cowper does things in very good style indeed; and our names will be given in the papers. But I don't think it will amuse you, dear. All the officials have to be asked—judges, police-officers, etc. You will probably go down with some old fellow of sixty: but that can't be helped. At the dance, after, we'll see the Marquis.'

'I told you, mamma, didn't I, that Barnes wrote that everybody in Galway said he was in love with me, and had proposed?'

'You did, dear; and it does no harm for the report to have got about, for if a thing gets very much spoken of, it forces a man to come to the point. You will wear your red tulle. I don't know that you look better in anything else.'

Whatever Mrs. Barton's faults may have been, she did her duty, as she conceived it, by her daughter; and during the long dinner, through the leaves of the flowering-plants, she watched her Olive anxiously. A hundred and twenty people were present. Mothers and eligible daughters, judges, lords, police-officers, earls, poor-law inspectors, countesses, and Castle officials. Around the great white-painted, gold-listed walls the table, in the form of a horseshoe, was spread. In the soothing light of the shaded lamps the white glitter of the piled-up silver danced over the talking faces, and descended in silvery waves into the bosoms of the women. Salmon and purple-coloured liveries passed quickly; and in the fragrance of soup and the flavours of sherry, in the lascivious pleasing of the waltz tunes that Liddell's band poured from a top gallery, the goodly company of time-servers, panders, and others forgot their fears of the Land League and the doom that was now waxing to fulness.

To the girls the dinner seemed interminable, but at the 'private dance' afterwards those who were known in official circles, or were fortunate enough to meet their friends, amused themselves. It took place in the Throne-Room. As the guests arrived they scanned each other narrowly. People who had known each other from childhood upwards, as they met on the landing, affected a look of surprise: 'Oh, so you are here? I wonder how you got your invitation? Well, I suppose you are better than I took you to be!' Acquaintances saluted each other more cordially than was their wont: he or she who had dined at the Castle took his or her place at once among the élite; he or she who had come to dance was henceforth considered worthy of a bow in Grafton Street. For Dublin is a city without a conviction, without an opinion. Things are right and wrong according to the dictum of the nearest official. If it be not absolutely ill-bred to say you think this, or are inclined to take such or such a view, it is certainly more advisable to say that the Attorney-General thinks so, or that on one occasion you heard the State Steward, the Chamberlain, or any other equally distinguished underling, express this or that opinion. Castle tape is worn in time of mourning and in the time of feasting. Every gig-man in the Kildare Street wears it in his buttonhole, and the ladies of Merrion Square are found to be gartered with it.

Mrs. Barton's first thought was to get Olive partners. Milord and Lord Rosshill were sent hither and thither, and with such good result that the whole evening the beauty was beset with A.D.C.'s. But the Marquis had danced three times with Violet Scully, and Mrs. Barton vented her anger on poor Alice. The girl knew no one, nor was there time to introduce her to men. She was consequently sent off with Milord to see where the Marquis was hiding; and she was commissioned to tell her sister to answer thus when Lord Kilcarney asked for another dance: 'I am engaged, cher marquis, but for you, of course, I shall have to throw some poor fellow over.' Mrs. Barton did not know how to play a waiting game. Her tactics were always to grapple with the enemy. She was a Hannibal: she risked all to gain all. Mrs. Scully, on the contrary, watched the combat from afar—as Moltke did the German lines when they advanced upon Paris.

The Bartons were not invited to the next private dance, which was annoying, and after long conjecturing as to the enemy that had served them this trick, they resigned themselves to the inevitable, and began to look forward to the State ball given on the following Monday.

As they mounted the stairway Mrs. Barton said:

'You know we turn to the left this time and enter Patrick's Hall by this end; the other entrance is blocked up by the daïs—only the three and four season girls stand about the pillars. There they are drawn up in battle array.'

'I declare Olive Barton is here!' whispered the redoubtable Bertha; 'this doesn't look as if the beaux were coming forward in their hundreds. It is said that Lord Kilcarney has given her up for Violet Scully.'

'I'm not a bit surprised,' said the girl in red; 'and, now I think of it, all the beauties come to the same end. I'll just give her a couple more Castle seasons. It is that that will pull the fine feathers out of her.'

St. Patrick's Hall was now a huge democratic crush. All the little sharp glances of the 'private dances,' 'What, you here!' were dispensed with as useless, for all were within their rights in being at the ball. They pushed, laughed, danced. They met as they would have met in Rotten Row, and they took their amusement with the impartiality of pleasure-seekers jigging and drinking in a marketplace on fair-day. On either side of the Hall there were ascending benches; these were filled with chaperons and débutantes, and over their heads the white-painted, gold-listed walls were hung with garlands of evergreen oak interwoven with the celebrated silver shields, the property of the Cowper family, and in front of the curtains hanging about the daïs, the maroon legs of His Excellency, and the teeth and diamonds of Her Excellency, were seen passing to and fro, and up and down to the music of oblivion that Liddell dispensed with a flowing arm.

'Now aren't the Castle balls very nice?' said Bertha; 'and how are you amusing yourself?'

'Oh, very much indeed,' replied the poor débutante who had not even a brother to take her for a walk down the room or to the buffet for an ice.

'And is it true, Bertha,' asks the fierce aunt—'you know all the news—that Mr. Jones has been transferred to another ship and has gone off to the Cape?'

'Yes, yes,' replied the girl; 'a nice end to her beau; and after dinnering him up the whole summer, too.'

Alice shuddered. What were they but snowflakes born to shine for a moment and then to fade, to die, to disappear, to become part of the black, the foul-smelling slough of mud below? The drama in muslin was again unfolded, and she could read each act; and there was a 'curtain' at the end of each. The first was made of young, hopeful faces, the second of arid solicitation, the third of the bitter, malignant tongues of Bertha Duffy and her friend. She had begun to experience the worst horrors of a Castle ball. She was sick of pity for those around her, and her lofty spirit resented the insult that was being offered to her sex.

'Have you been long here, Miss Barton?' She looked up. Harding was by her! 'I have been looking out for you, but the crowd is so great that it is hard to find anyone.'

'I think we arrived about a quarter to eleven,' Alice answered.

Then, after a pause, Harding said: 'Will you give me this waltz?' She assented, and, as they made their way through the dancers, he added: 'But I believe you do not care about dancing. If you'd prefer it, we might go for a walk down the room. Perhaps you'd like an ice? This is the way to the buffet.'

But Alice and Harding did not stop long there; they were glad to leave the heat of gas, the odour of sauces, the effervescence of the wine, the detonations of champagne, the tumult of laughter, the racing of plates, the heaving of bosoms, the glittering of bodices, for the peace and the pale blue refinement of the long blue drawing-room. How much of our sentiments and thoughts do we gather from our surroundings; and the shining blue of the turquoise-coloured curtains, the pale dead-blue of the Louis XV. furniture, and the exquisite fragility of the glass chandeliers, the gold mirrors rutilant with the light of some hundreds of tall wax candles, were illustrative of the light dreams and delicate lassitude that filled the souls of the women as they lay back whispering to their partners, the crinolettes lifting the skirts over the edges of the sofas. Here the conversation seems serious, there it is smiling, and broken by the passing and repassing of a fan.

'Only four days more of Dublin,' said Harding; 'I have settled, or rather the fates have settled, that I am to leave next Saturday.'

'And where are you going? to London?'

'Yes, to London. I am sorry I am leaving so soon; but it can't be helped. I have met many nice people here—some of whom I shall not be able to forget.'

'You speak as if it were necessary to forget them—it is surely always better to remember.'

'I shall remember you.'

'Do you think you will?'

At this moment only one thing in the world seemed to be of much real importance—that the man now sitting by her side should not be taken away from her. To know that he existed, though far from her, would be almost enough—a sort of beacon-light—a light she might never reach to, but which would guide her . . . whither?

In no century have men been loved so implicitly by women as in the nineteenth; nor could this be otherwise, for putting aside the fact that the natural wants of love have become a nervous erethism in the struggle that a surplus population of more than two million women has created, there are psychological reasons that to-day more than ever impel women to shrink from the intellectual monotony of their sex, and to view with increasing admiration the male mind; for as the gates of the harem are being broken down, and the gloom of the female mind clears, it becomes certain that woman brings a loftier reverence to the shrine of man than she has done in any past age, seeing, as she now does, in him the incarnation of the freedom of which she is vaguely conscious and which she is perceptibly acquiring. So sets the main current that is bearing civilization along; but beneath the great feminine tide there is an undercurrent of hatred and revolt. This is particularly observable in the leaders of the movement; women who in the tumult of their aspirations, and their passionate yearnings towards the new ideal, and the memory of the abasement their sex have been in the past, and are still being in the present, subjected to, forget the laws of life, and with virulent virtue and protest condemn love—that is to say, love in the sense of sexual intercourse—and proclaim a higher mission for woman than to be the mother of men: and an adjuvant, unless corrected by sanative qualities of a high order, is, of course, found in any physical defect. But as the corporeal and incorporeal hereditaments of Alice Barton and Lady Cecilia Cullen were examined fully in the beginning of this chapter, it is only necessary to here indicate the order of ideas—the moral atmosphere of the time—to understand the efflorescence of the two minds, and to realize how curiously representative they are of this last quarter of the nineteenth century.

And it was necessary to make that survey of psychical cause and effect to appreciate the sentiments that actuated Alice in her relationship with Harding. She loved him, but more through the imagination than the heart. She knew he was deceiving her, but to her he meant so much that she had not the force of will to cast him off, and abandoned herself to the intellectual sensualism of his society. It was this, and nothing more. What her love might have been it is not necessary to analyze; in the present circumstances, it was completely merged in the knowledge that he was to her, light, freedom, and instruction, and that when he left, darkness and ignorance would again close in upon her. They had not spoken for some moments. With a cruelty that was peculiar to him, he waited for her to break the silence.

'I am sorry you are going away; I am afraid we shall never meet again.'

'Oh yes, we shall,' he replied: 'you'll get married one of these days and come to live in London.'

'Why should I go to live in London?'

'There are Frenchmen born in England, Englishmen born in France. Heine was a Frenchman born in Germany—and you are a Kensingtonian. I see nothing Irish in you. Oh, you are very Kensington, and therefore you will—I do not know when or how, but assuredly as a stream goes to the river and the river to the sea, you will drift to your native place—Kensington. But do you know that I have left the hotel? There were too many people about to do much work, so I took rooms in Molesworth Street—there I can write and read undisturbed. You might come and see me.'

'I should like to very much, but I don't think I could ask mother to come with me; she is so very busy just now.'

'Well, don't ask your mother to come; you won't be afraid to come alone?'

'I am afraid I could not do that.'

'Why not? No one will ever know anything about it.'

'Very possibly, but I don't think it would be a proper thing to do—I don't think it would be a right thing to do.'

'Right! I thought we had ceased to believe in heaven and hell.'

'Yes; but does that change anything? There are surely duties that we owe to our people, to our families. The present ordering of things may be unjust, but, as long as it exists, had we not better live in accordance with it?'

'A very sensible answer, and I suppose you are right.'

Alice looked at him in astonishment, but she was shaken too intensely in all her feelings to see that he was perfectly sincere, that his answer was that of a man who saw and felt through his intelligence, and not his conscience.

The conversation had come to a pause, and the silence was broken suddenly by whispered words, and the abundant laughter that was seemingly used to hide the emotions that oppressed the speakers. Finally they sat down quite close to, but hidden from, Alice and Harding by a screen, and through the paper even their breathing was audible. All the dancers were gone; there was scarcely a white skirt or black coat in the pale blueness of the room. Evidently the lovers thought they were well out of reach of eavesdroppers. Alice felt this, but before she could rise to go Fred Scully had said—

'Now, May, I hope you won't refuse to let me come and see you in your room to-night. It would be too cruel if you did. I'll steal along the passage; no one will hear, no one will ever know, and I'll be so very good. I promise you I will.'

'Oh, Fred, I'm afraid I can't trust you; it would be so very wicked.'

'Nothing is wicked when we really love; besides, I only want to talk to you.'

'You can talk to me here.'

'Yes, but it isn't the same thing; anyone can talk to you here. I want to show you a little poem I cut out of a newspaper to-day for you. I'll steal along the passage—no one will ever know.'

'You'll promise to be very good, and you won't stop more than five minutes.'

The words were spoken in low, soft tones, exquisitely expressive of the overthrow of reason and the merging of all the senses in the sweet abandonment of passion.

Alice sat unable to move, till at last, awakening with a pained look in her grey eyes, she touched Harding's hand with hers, and, laying her finger on her lips, she arose. Their footfalls made no sound on the deep, soft carpet.

'This is very terrible,' she murmured, half to herself.

Harding had too much tact to answer; and, taking advantage of the appearance of Violet Scully, who came walking gaily down the room on the Marquis's arm, he said:

'Your friend Miss Scully seems to be in high spirits.'

Violet exchanged smiles with Alice as she passed. The smile was one of triumph. She had waltzed three times with the Marquis, and was now going to sit out a set of quadrilles.

'What a beautiful waltz the Blue Danube is!' she said, leading her admirer to where the blue fans were numerous. Upon the glistening piano stood a pot filled with white azaleas; and, in the pauses of the conversation, one heard the glass of the chandeliers tinkling gently to the vibration of the music.

'It is a beautiful waltz when I am dancing it with you.'

'I am sure you say that to every girl you dance with.'

'No, I shouldn't know how to say so to anyone but you,' said the little man humbly; and so instinct were the words with truth that the girl, in the violence of her emotion, fancied her heart had ceased to beat.

'But you haven't known me a fortnight,' she answered involuntarily.

'But that doesn't matter; the moment I saw you, I—I—liked you. It is so easy to know the people we—like; we know it at once—at least I do.'

She was more self-possessed than he, but the words 'Am I—am I going to be a marchioness?' throbbed like a burning bullet sunk into the very centre of her forehead. And to maintain her mental equipoise she was forced, though by doing so she felt she was jeopardizing her chances, to coquette with him. After a long silence she said:

'Oh, do you think we know at first sight the people we like? Do you believe in first impressions?'

'My first and last impressions of you are always the same. All I know is that when you are present all things are bright, beautiful, and cheering, and when you are away I don't much care what happens. Now, these Castle balls used to bore me to death last year; I used to go into a back room and fall asleep. But this year I am as lively as a kitten—I think I could go on for ever, and the Castle seems to me the most glorious place on earth. I used to hate it; I was as bad as Parnell, but not for the same reasons, of course. Now I am only afraid he will have his way, and they'll shut the whole place up. Anyhow, even if they do, I shall always look back upon this season as a very happy time.'

'But you do not really think that Parnell will be allowed to have his way?' said Violet inadvertently.

'I don't know; I don't take much interest in politics, but I believe things are going to the bad. Dublin, they say, is undermined with secret societies, and the murder that was committed the other day in Sackville Street was the punishment they inflict on those whom they suspect of being informers, even remotely.'

'But don't you think the Government will soon be obliged to step in and put an end to all this kind of thing?'

'I don't know; I'm afraid they'll do nothing until we landlords are all ruined.'

Violet's thin face contracted. She had introduced a subject that might prevent him from ever proposing to her. She knew how heavily the Kilcarney estates were mortgaged; and, even now, as she rightly conjectured, the poor little man was inwardly trembling at the folly it had been on his lips to speak. Three of his immediate ancestors had married penniless girls, and it was well known that another love-match would precipitate the property over that precipice known to every Irish landowner—the Encumbered Estates Court. But those dainty temples, so finely shaded with light brown tresses, that delicately moulded head—delicate as an Indian carven ivory, dispelled all thoughts of his property, and he forgot his duty to marry an heiress. Violet meanwhile, prompted by her instinct, said the right words:

'But things never turn out as well or as badly as we expect them to.'

This facile philosophy went like wine to the little Marquis's head, and he longed to throw himself at the feet of his goddess and thank her for the balm she had poured upon him. The gloom of approaching ruin disappeared, and he saw nothing in the world but a white tulle skirt, a thin foot, a thin bosom, and a pair of bright grey eyes. Vaguely he sought for equivalent words, but loud-talking dancers passed into the room, and, abashed by their stares, the Marquis broke off a flowering branch and said, stammering the while incoherently:

'Will you keep this in memory of this evening?'

Violet thrust the flowers into her bosom, and was about to thank him, when an A.D.C. came up and claimed her for the dance. She told him he was mistaken, that she was engaged; and, taking Lord Kilcarney's arm, they made their way in silence back to the ball-room. Violet was satisfied; she felt now very sure of her Marquis, and, as they approached Mrs. Scully, a quick glance said that things were going as satisfactorily as could be desired. Not daring to trust herself to the gossip of the chaperons, this excellent lady sat apart, maintaining the solitary dignity to which the Galway counter had accustomed her. She received the Marquis with the same smile as she used to bestow on her best customers, and they talked for a few minutes of the different aspects of the ball-room, of their friends, of things that did not interest them. Then Violet said winsomely, affecting an accent of command that enchanted him:

'Now I want you to go and dance with someone else; let me see—what do you say to Olive Barton? If you don't, I shall be in her mother's black books for the rest of my life. Now go. We shall be at home to-morrow; you might come in for tea;' and, suffocated with secret joy, Lord Kilcarney made his way across the room to Mrs. Barton, who foolishly cancelled a couple of Olive's engagements, and sent her off to dance with him, whereas wise Violet sat by her mother, refusing all her partners; but, when God Save the Queen was played, she accepted Lord Kilcarney's arm, and they pressed forward to see the Lord-Lieutenant and Her Excellency pass down the room.

Violet's eyes feasted on the bowing black coats and light toilettes, and, leaning on her escutcheon, she dreamed vividly of the following year when she would take her place amid all these noble people, and, as high as they, stand a peeress on the daïs.

XX

'So you couldn't manage to keep him after all, my lady? When did he leave the hotel?'

'Mr. Harding left Dublin last Monday week.'

Alice wondered if her mother hated her; if she didn't, it was difficult to account for her cruel words. And this was the girl's grief, and she feared that hatred would beget hatred, and that she would learn to hate her mother. But Mrs. Barton was a loving and affectionate mother, who would sacrifice herself for one child almost as readily for the other. In each of us there are traits that the chances of life have never revealed; and though she would have sat by the bedside, even if Alice were stricken with typhoid fever, Mrs. Barton recoiled spitefully like a cat before the stern rectitudes of a nature so dissimilar from her own. She had fashioned Olive, who was now but a pale copy of her mother according to her guise: all the affectations had been faithfully reproduced, but the charm of the original had evaporated like a perfume. It would be rash to say that Mrs. Barton did not see that the weapons which had proved so deadly in her hands were ineffectual in her daughter's; but twenty years of elegant harlotry had blunted her finer perceptions, and now the grossest means of pushing Olive and the Marquis morally and physically into each other's arms seemed to her the best. Alice was to her but a plain girl, whose misfortune was that she had ever been born. This idea had grown up with Mrs. Barton, and fifteen years ago she had seen in the child's face the spinster of fifty. But since the appearance of Harding, and the manifest interest he had shown in her daughter, Mrs. Barton's convictions that Alice would never be able to find a husband had been somewhat shaken, and she had almost concluded that it would be as well—for there was no knowing what men's tastes were—to give her a chance. Nor was the dawning fancy dispelled by the fact that Harding had not proposed, and the cutting words she had addressed to the girl were the result of the nervous irritation caused by the marked attention the Marquis was paying Violet Scully.

For, like Alice, Mrs. Barton never lived long in a fool's paradise, and she now saw that the battle was going against her, and would most assuredly be lost unless a determined effort was made. So she delayed not a moment in owning to herself that she had committed a mistake in going to the Shelbourne Hotel. Had she taken a house in Mount Street or Fitzwilliam Place, she could have had all the best men from the barracks continually at her house. But at the hotel she was helpless; there were too many people about, too many beasts of women criticizing her conduct. Mrs. Barton had given two dinner-parties in a private room hired for the occasion; but these dinners could scarcely be called successful. On one occasion they had seven men to dinner, and as some half-dozen more turned in in the evening, it became necessary to send down to the ladies' drawing-room for partners. Bertha Duffy and the girl in red of course responded to the call, but they had rendered everything odious by continuous vulgarity and brogue. Then other mistakes had been made. A charity costume ball had been advertised. It was to be held in the Rotunda. An imposing list of names headed the prospectus, and it was confidently stated that all the lady patronesses would attend. Mrs. Barton fell into the trap, and, to her dismay, found herself and her girls in the company of the rag, tag, and bobtail of Catholic Dublin: Bohemian girls fabricated out of bed-curtains, negro minstrels that an application of grease and burnt cork had brought into a filthy existence. And from the single gallery that encircled this tomb-like building the small tradespeople looked down upon the multicoloured crowd that strove to dance through the mud that a late Land League meeting had left upon the floor; and all the while grey dust fell steadily into the dancers' eyes and into the sloppy tea distributed at counters placed here and there like coffee-stands in the public street.

'I never felt so low in my life,' said the lady who always brought back an A.D.C. from the Castle, and the phrase was cited afterwards as being admirably descriptive of the festival.

When it became known that the Bartons had been present at this ball, that the beauty had been seen dancing with the young Catholic nobodies, their names were struck off the lists, and they were asked to no more private dances at the Castle. Lord Dungory was sent to interview the Chamberlain, but that official could promise nothing. Mrs. Barton's hand was therefore forced. It was obligatory upon her to have some place where she could entertain officers; the Shelbourne did not lend itself to that purpose. She hired a house in Mount Street, and one that possessed a polished floor admirably suited to dancing.

Then she threw off the mask, and pirate-like, regardless of the laws of chaperons, resolved to carry on the war as she thought proper. She'd have done once and for ever with those beasts of women who abused and criticized her. Henceforth she would shut her door against them all, and it would only be open to men—young men for her daughters, elderly men for herself. At four o'clock in the afternoon the entertainment began. Light refreshments, consisting of tea, claret, biscuits, and cigarettes, were laid out in the dining-room. Having partaken, the company, consisting of three colonels and some half-dozen subalterns, went upstairs to the drawing-room. And in recognition of her flirtation with Harding, a young man replaced Alice at the piano, and for half-a-crown an hour supplied the necessary music.

Round and round the girls went, passing in turn out of the arms of an old into those of a young man, and back again. If they stayed their feet for a moment, Mrs. Barton glided across the floor, and, with insinuating gestures and intonations of voice, would beg of them to continue. She declared that it was la grâce et la beauté, etc. The merriment did not cease until half-past six. Some of the company then left, and some few were detained for dinner. A new pianist and fresh officers arrived about nine o'clock, and dancing was continued until one or two in the morning. To yawning subalterns the house in Mount Street seemed at first like a little paradise. The incessant dancing was considered fatiguing, but there were interludes in which claret was drunk, cigarettes smoked, and loose conversation permitted in the dining-room.

Then the dinners! Mrs. Barton's dinners are worthy of special study. Her circle of acquaintances being limited, the same guests were generally found at her table. Lord Dungory always sat next to her. He displayed his old-fashioned shirt-front, his cravat, his studs, his urbanity, his French epigram. Lord Rosshill sat opposite him; he was thin, melancholy, aristocratic, silent, and boring. There was a captain who, since he had left the army, had grown to the image of a butler, and an ashen-tinted young man who wore his arm in a sling; and an old man, who looked like a dirty and worn-out broom, and who put his arm round the backs of the chairs. These and three A.D.C.'s made up the party. There was very little talking, and what there was was generally confined to asking the young ladies if they had been to the Castle, and if they liked dancing.

The Marquis was a constant, although an unwilling guest at all these entertainments. He would fain have refused Mrs. Barton's hospitalities, but so pressing was she that this seemed impossible. There were times when he started at the postman's knock as at the sound of a Land Leaguer's rifle. Too frequently his worst fears were realized. 'Mon cher Marquis, it will give us much pleasure if you will dine with us to-morrow night at half-past seven.' 'Dear Mrs. Barton, I regret extremely that I am engaged for to-morrow night.' An hour later, 'Mon cher Marquis, I am very sorry you cannot come to-morrow night, but Thursday will suit us equally well.' What was to be done? A second excuse would result only in a proposal to fix a day next week; better accept and get it over. He must do this or send a rude message to the effect that he was engaged for every day he intended to dine out that season, and he lacked the moral courage to write such a letter. Mrs. Barton's formula for receiving the Marquis never varied. If he arrived early he found Olive waiting to receive him in the drawing-room. She was always prepared with a buttonhole, which she insisted on arranging and pinning into his coat. Then allusion was made to the forget-me-nots that the bouquet was sure to contain; and laughing vacantly—for laughter with Olive took the place of conversation—she fled through the rooms, encouraging him to pursue her. During dinner attempts were made to exchange a few words, but without much success. Nor was it until Olive pelted him with flowers, and he replied by destroying another bouquet and applying it to the same purpose, that much progress was made towards intimacy. But this little scene was exceptional, and on all other occasions Lord Kilcarney maintained an attitude of reserve.

Mrs. Barton was at her wits' end. Three days ago she had met him walking in Grafton Street with Violet; yesterday she had caught sight of him driving towards Fitzwilliam Place in a four-wheeler. She had fortunately a visit to pay in that neighbourhood, and was rewarded by seeing the Marquis's cab draw up before the Scullys' door. The mere fact that he should use a cab instead of an outside car was a point to consider, but when she noticed that one of the blinds was partially drawn down, her heart sank. Nor did the secret of this suspicious visit long remain her exclusive property. As if revealed by those mysteriously subtle oral and visual faculties observed in savage tribes, by which they divine the approach of their enemies or their prey, two days had not elapsed before the tongue of every chaperon was tipped with the story of the four-wheeler and the half-drawn blind, but it was a distinctly latter-day instinct that had led these ladies to speak of there having been luggage piled upon the roof of this celebrated cab. Henceforth eye, ear, and nostril were open, and in the quivering ardour of the chase they scattered through the covers of Cork Hill and Merrion Square, passing from one to the other, by means of sharp yelps and barkings, every indication of the trail that came across their way. Sometimes hearkening to a voice they had confidence in, they rallied at a single point, and then an old bitch, her nose in the air, her capstrings hanging lugubriously on either side of her weatherbeaten cheeks, would utter a deep and prolonged baying; a little farther on the scent was recovered, and, with sterns wagging and bristles erect, they hunted the quarry vigorously. Every moment he was expected to break—fear was even expressed that he might end by being chopped.

The Shelbourne Hotel was a favourite meet, and in the ladies' drawing-room each fresh piece of news was torn with avidity. The consumption of notepaper was extraordinary. Two, three, four, and even five sheets of paper were often filled with what these scavengeresses could rake out of the gutters of gossip. 'Ah! me arm aches, and the sleeve of me little coat is wore; I am so eager to write it all off to me ant, that I am too impatient to wait to take it off,' was the verbal form in which the girl in red explained her feelings on the subject. Bertha Duffy declared she would write no more; that she was ruining herself in stamps. Nor were the pens of the Brennans silent; and looking over their shoulders, on which the mantles of spinsterhood were fast descending, one read: 'I hear they danced at the Castle three times together last night . . . a friend of mine saw them sitting in Merrion Square the whole of one afternoon. . . . They say that if he marries her, that he'll be ruined. . . . The estates are terribly encumbered . . . his family are in despair about it. . . . Violet is a very nice girl, but we all know her mother sold bacon behind a counter in Galway. . . . He never looks at Olive Barton now; this is a sad end to her beau, and after feeding him up the whole season. . . . He dined there three times a week: Mrs. Barton took the house on purpose to entertain him. . . . It is said that she offered him twenty thousand pounds if he'd marry her daughter. . . . The money that woman spends is immense, and no one knows whence it comes.'

In these matrimonial excitements the amatories of the lady who brought the A.D.C. home from the Castle passed unheeded. The critical gaze of her friends was sorely distracted, and even the night porter forgot to report the visits of her young gentlemen. May, too, profited largely by the present ferment of curiosity; and, unobserved, she kept her trysts with Fred Scully at the corners of this and that street, and in the hotel they passed furtively down this passage and up that pair of stairs; when disturbed they hid behind the doors.

Mrs. Gould lived in ignorance of all this chambering folly, spending her time either writing letters or gossiping about Lord Kilcarney in the drawing-room. And when she picked up a fragment of fresh news she lost not a moment, but put on her bonnet and carried it over to Mount Street. So assiduous was she in this self-imposed duty, that Mrs. Barton was obliged at last to close her door against this obtrusive visitor.

But one day, after a moment of intense reflection, Mrs. Barton concluded that she was losing the battle—that now, in the eleventh hour, it could only be snatched out of defeat by a bold and determined effort. She sat down and penned one of her admirable invitations to dinner. An hour later a note feebly pleaded a 'previous engagement.' Undaunted, she sat down again and wrote: 'Tomorrow will suit us equally well.' The Marquis yielded; and Lord Dungory was ordered, when he found himself alone with him in the dining-room, to lose no opportunity of insisting upon the imminent ruin of all Irish landlords. He was especially enjoined to say that, whatever chance of escape there was for the owners of unencumbered properties, the doom of those who had mortgages to pay had been sounded. Milord executed his task with consummate ability; and when the grand parti entered the drawing-room, his thoughts were racked with horrible forebodings. The domain woods, the pride of centuries, he saw plundered and cut down; lawns, pleasure-grounds, and gardens distributed among peasants, and he, a miserable outcast, starving in a Belgian boarding-house. Mrs. Barton's eyes brightened at the distressed expression of his face. Olive brought in the buttonhole and went to the piano; Milord engaged Alice's attention; and the Marquis was led into the adjoining room.

'The season is now drawing to its close,' Mrs. Barton said; 'we shall be soon returning to Galway. We shall be separating. I know Olive likes you, but if there is no—if it is not to be, I should like to tell her not to think about it any more.'

The Marquis felt the earth gliding. What could have tempted the woman to speak like this to him? What answer was he to make her? He struggled with words and thoughts that gave way, as he strove to formulate a sentence, like water beneath the arms of one drowning.

'Oh, really, Mrs. Barton,' he said, stammering, speaking like one in a dream, 'you take me by surprise. I did not expect this; you certainly are too kind. In proposing this marriage to me, you do me an honour I did not anticipate, but you know it is difficult offhand, for I am bound to say . . . at least I am not prepared to say that I am in love with your daughter. . . . She is, of course, very beautiful, and no one admires her more than I, but—'

'Olive will have twenty thousand pounds paid down on her wedding-day; not promised, you know, but paid down; and in the present times I think this is more than most girls can say. Most Irish properties are embarrassed, mortgaged,' she continued, risking everything to gain everything, 'and twenty thousand pounds would be a material help to most men. At my death she will have more; I—'

'Oh, Mrs. Barton, do not let us speak of that!' cried the little man.

'And why not? Does it prove that because we are practical, we do not care for a person? I quite understand that it would be impossible for you to marry without money, and that Olive will have twenty thousand paid down on her wedding-day will not prevent you from being very fond of her. On the contrary, I should think—'

'Twenty thousand pounds is, of course, a great deal of money,' said the little man, shrinking, terror-stricken, from a suddenly protruding glimpse of the future with which Milord had previously poisoned his mind.

'Yes, indeed it is, and in these times,' urged Mrs. Barton.

The weak grey eyes were cast down, abashed by the daring determination of the brown.

'Of course Olive is a beautiful girl,' he said.

'And she is so fond of you, and so full of affection. . . .'

The situation was now tense with fear, anxiety, apprehension; and with resolute fingers Mrs. Barton tightened the chord until the required note vibrated within the moral consciousness. The poor Marquis felt his strength ebbing away; he was powerless as one lying in the hot chamber of a Turkish bath. Would no one come to help him? The implacable melody of Dream Faces, which Olive hammered out on the piano, agonized him. If she would stop for one moment he would find the words to tell her mother that he loved Violet Scully and would marry none other. But bang, bang, bang the left hand pounded the bass into his stunned ears, and the eyes that he feared were fixed upon him. He gasped for words, he felt like a drunkard who clutches the air as he reels over a precipice, and the shades of his ancestors seemed to crowd menacingly around him. He strove against his fears until a thin face with luminous eyes shone through the drifting wrack like a stars.

'But we have seen so little of each other,' he said at last; 'Miss Barton is a great beauty, I know, and nobody appreciates her beauty more than I, but I am not what you call in love with her.'

He deplored the feebleness of his words, and Mrs. Barton swooped upon him again.

'You do not love her because, as you say, you have seen very little of each other. We are going down to Brookfield to-morrow. We shall be very glad if you will come with us, and in the country you will have an opportunity of judging, of knowing her: and she is such an affectionate little thing.'

Affrighted, the Marquis sought again for words, and he glanced at his torturer timidly, like the hare on the ever-nearing hounds. Why did she pursue him, he asked, in this terrible way? Had she gone mad? What was he to say? He had not the courage to answer no to her face. Besides, if Violet would not have him, he might as well save the family estates. If Violet refused him! Then he didn't care what became of him! He sought, and he struggled for words, for words that would save him; and, in this hour of deep tribulation, words came and they saved him.

'I have a great deal of business to attend to to-morrow. I am—that is to say, my solicitor is, raising for me a large sum of money at four per cent. On one large mortgage I am paying six per cent., therefore if I can get the money at four I shall be by some hundreds of pounds a richer man than I am at present. At the end of the week this matter will be settled. I will write to you and say when I shall be able to accept your invitation.'

Mrs. Barton would have preferred to have brought the matter at once to a conclusion, but in the hesitation that ensued, the Marquis, unable to withstand the strain set upon his feelings any longer, moved away from her. And in the next room, to save himself from further persecution, he engaged at once in conversation with Alice. Ten minutes after he said good-night. To get out of the light into the dark, to feel the cool wind upon his cheek, oh! what a relief! 'What could have persuaded that woman to speak to me as she did? She must be mad.' He walked on as if in a dream, the guineas she had promised him chinking dubiously through his brain. Then stopping suddenly, overcome by nerve-excitement, he threw his arms in the air: his features twitched convulsively. The spasm passed; and, unconscious of all save the thoughts that held and tore him—their palpitating prey—he walked onwards. . . . Black ruin on one side, and oh! what sweet white vision of happiness on the other! Why was he thus tortured—why was he thus torn on the rack of such a terrible discussion? He stopped again, and his weak neck swayed plaintively. Then, in the sullen calm that followed, the thought crossed his mind: If he only knew. . . . She might refuse him; if so, he did not care what became of him, and he would accept the other willingly. But would she refuse him? That he must know at once. If she did refuse, he would, at all events, escape the black looks of his relations, and in the cowardice of the thought the weary spirit was healed, assuaged, as tired limbs might be in a bath of cool, clear water. Why lose a moment? It was only half-past ten—an 'outside' would take him in less than two minutes to Fitzwilliam Place. Yes, he would go.

And as the car clattered he feasted on the white thin face and the grey allurements of her eyes. But if she weren't at home.

He was shown upstairs. Mother and daughter were alone, talking over the fire in the drawing-room. Nothing could be more propitious, but his fears returned to him, and when he strove to explain the lateness of his visit his face had again grown suddenly haggard and worn. Violet exchanged glances, and said in looks, if not in words: 'It is clear they have been hunting him pretty closely to-day.'

'I must apologize,' he said, 'for calling on you at such an hour; I really did not think it was so late, but the fact is I was rather anxious to see. . . .'

'But won't you sit down, Lord Kilcarney?' said Violet. 'I assure you we never go to bed before twelve, and sometimes we sit up here until one—don't we, mamma?'

Mrs. Scully smiled jocosely, and the Marquis sat down. In an instant his fate was decided. Overcome by the girl's frail sweetness, by the pellucid gaiety of her grey eyes, he surrendered; and his name and fortune fluttered into her lap, helplessly as a blown leaf. He said:

'I came to see you to-night . . . I took the liberty of calling on you at this late hour, because things had occurred that . . . well, I mean . . . you must have observed that I was attached to you. I don't know if you guessed it, but the fact is that I never cared for anyone as I do for you, and I felt I could bear with uncertainty no longer, and that I must come to-night, and ask you if you will have me.'

Violet raised her eyes.

'Say yes,' murmured the Marquis, and it seemed to him that in the words life had fallen from his lips.

'Yes,' was the answer, and he clasped the thin hand she extended to him.

'Ah, how happy you have made me, I never thought such honours were in store for me,' exclaimed Mrs. Scully. The discipline of years was lost in a moment; and, reverting to her long-buried self, she clasped the Marquis to her agitated bosom. Violet looked annoyed, ashamed; and Mrs. Scully, whom excitement had stripped of all her grand manners, said:

'And now, me dear children, I'll leave you to yerselves.'

The lovers sat side by side. Violet thought of the great love she had inspired, and the Marquis of the long years of happiness that would—that must now be his, of the frail grace that as a bland odour seemed to float about his beloved. And now that she was his, he would have her know that his love of her rose out of his deepest sense of soul; but words were weak: he seemed to be tongue-tied.

'Where did you dine to-night?' she said suddenly.

'With the Bartons.'

He told her everything—of the proposal and the invitation to
Brookfield.

'And are you going down to Galway to stay with them?'

'Of course not. How can you ask such a question?'

'And why not—why shouldn't you go? I wish you would,' she added; and the light in her grey eyes was malign.

'You're joking? You surely don't mean what you say. I thought you said you loved me.'

'Yes, my dear Harry, that is the very reason. We love each other, therefore I know I can trust you.'

He pressed the hand—the silken skin, the palm delicately moist—in recognition of her kind words.

'I wouldn't go for anything in the world. I hate those people. 'Pon my word, I don't think anything would tempt me to spend a week with them in the country.'

'Yes; I could.'

The Marquis laughed. 'Yes, you could—you could tempt me to do anything.
But why should you want me to go and spend a week with them in Galway?'

'Because, dear, they were rude to me; because,' she added, casting down her eyes—'because they tried to buy you from me. That is why I should like to humiliate them.'

The enchantment of the Marquis was completed, and he said:

'What, a whole week away from you! a whole week with Mrs. Barton! I could not endure it.'

'What, not for my sake?'

'Anything for your sake, darling.' He clasped her in his arms, and then they lapsed into silence that to him was even sweeter than the kiss she had given him. Love's deepest delight is the ineffable consciousness of our own weakness. We drink the sweetened cup in its entirety when, having ceased to will, we abandon ourselves with the lethal languors of the swimmer to the vague depths of dreams. And it was past midnight when the Marquis left Fitzwilliam Place. The ladies accompanied him downstairs; their hands helped him to his hat and coat, and then the lock slipped back sharply, and in the gloom, broken in one spot by the low-burning gas, the women wondered.

'Oh, mamma, mamma, mamma! I am so happy!' the girl exclaimed, and, weeping passionately, she threw herself for rest upon Mrs. Scully's arms.

'Yes, my child; you have been very good, you have made me very happy. You'll be a marchioness. Who would have thought I'd have lived to see all this honour when I served in the little shop at Galway!'

At the mention of the shop Violet recovered her composure, and mother and daughter listened to the receding footfalls.

'I wonder if he is happy,' Violet murmured; 'as happy as I am. For I do like him. He is a good sort.'

'Your happiness is a different happiness,' Mrs. Scully answered.

Like a flowering tree, a luxuriant joy bloomed in the Marquis's heart; in its shade and fragrance his thoughts lay supinely; and, a prey to many floating and fanciful imaginings, he walked onwards through the darkness. In the lowering skies he saw the fair face that had led him to the verge on which he now stood.

'Was anybody as happy as he? And what did his happiness mean?' he asked himself.

Shades flitted across yellow window-panes, and he remembered he had received an invitation for this very ball.

Cats slunk through the area railings; policemen moved from their hiding corners; a lover passed on with his dreams.

XXI

Mrs. Barton rarely took anyone into her confidence, and her plan for the capture of the Marquis was locked within her breast. Not to her husband, nor yet to Milord, did she think of going for advice. Her special experience of life had taught her to trust none, to be self-reliant, and never to give up hope. For as she often said, it is the last effort that wins the battle. Mrs. Barton's knowledge of the world, when it came to be analyzed, was only that of the courtesan—skin deep.

Two days after she received a note from the Marquis, saying he would be glad to spend a week with them at Brookfield. She read it quietly, slipped it into the pocket of the black silk that covered the unseen feet, and glided out of the room. Every detail was clear to her. They must leave Dublin to-morrow morning; they need not trouble about calling on a pack of women, but they would have all their men friends to dinner.

Mr. Barton, when he was informed of these sudden determinations, was in the act of rehearsing a song he was to sing the following day at a concert.

'But, my dear,' he said, tightening one of the strings; 'the public will be awfully disappointed.'

'Yes, my dear, yes; I am very sorry, but I have my reasons—serious reasons; and in this world we must only do what's right.'

'Then in the next world we shall be able to do everything that's wrong,' said Mr. Barton; and he threw back his blond locks with troubadour-like waves of his lymphatic hand. 'I shall like the next world better than this,' he added, and his wife and daughter laughed; for papa was supposed to be very naughty.

'Olive, dear—'

'Oh, mamma, I wish you wouldn't call me Olive. I shall change my name. Captain Talbot was chaffing me about it yesterday. Everybody chaffs me about it.'

'Never mind, my dear; it makes a subject of conversation. But I was going to tell you that we shall have to start for Brookfield to-morrow.'

'Go to Brookfield! I couldn't possibly leave Dublin yet a while; what would all my young men do—they'd die of broken hearts!'

'It won't matter much if they do; there aren't a dozen worth two thousand a year each.'

'No? You are joking, mamma. And the Marquis?'

'That's a secret, dear.'

'Then you don't think he'll propose to me after all; and I gave up
Edward—Captain Hibbert.'

'I thought you had forgotten that horrid man's name. I didn't say, dear, that the Marquis wouldn't propose to you—of course he will. But we must leave Dublin to-morrow—I have serious reasons.'

'Oh, mamma, I didn't think you were so cruel, to go back to that hateful place, where everybody talks of rents, and that odious Land League.'

'Now, I will not allow my darling to cry like that,' exclaimed Mrs. Barton, and she threw her arms round the girl's shoulders. 'I didn't say that there wouldn't be a man within seven miles. On the contrary, there will be one very charming man indeed.'

'What do you mean, mamma?'

'That's a secret—that's a secret.'

Alice was told that she had better come home early that afternoon, so that she might have plenty of time to pack her own things and help her sister with hers; and it seemed to her unbelievable that she was at last leaving that hateful little varnished floor, complimenting old beaux and young A.D.C.'s.

But if to nobody else, she must say good-bye to May. She had hardly seen her since the night of the State ball—the night she had given Fred Scully permission to see her in her room. She found her in the ladies' drawing-room.

'How do you do, May?'

'Oh, how do you do, Alice? I am so glad to see you. What a dreadful day!'

'Yes, isn't it? Don't you find it very depressing?'

'I should think I did. I'm feeling rather out of sorts. Do you ever feel out of sorts? you know, when everything seems as if it were reflected in a darkened glass? There are times when we girls are nervous and weak, and ready to quarrel with anyone. I don't know what I wish for now; I think I should like to go back to the country.'

'We are going back to-morrow morning.'

'You don't say so; and how's that? There are plenty of balls and afternoon dances. What does Olive say to going home?'

'She doesn't mind. You know mamma always said she would return immediately after the Castle balls.'

'And now that it is all over, tell me what you think of the Castle. Did it come up to your expectations?'

'I don't know that I think much about the matter. I am not so fond of dancing as you are.'

'Oh, goodness me, goodness me, how ill I do feel,' said May, as she started and yawned in a way that betokened the nervous lassitude she was suffering from.

'Perhaps you had better see the doctor,' said Alice significantly.

'I'm worried. Fred hasn't been as nice lately as he used to be.'

'What has he done?'

'Last night he promised to meet me in the Square, and he wrote to say he couldn't come, that he was forced to go and see an important customer about some horses.'

'Perhaps he had.'

'I dare say he had, but what of that? It does not make it any less disagreeable for me to be disappointed.'

'How cross you are, May! I came out on purpose to talk to you on this very subject. I hope you won't be angry, but I think it is my duty to tell you that people are beginning to talk about you.'

'And what do they say?'

'Well, they say many unpleasant things; you know how ill-natured people are.'

'Yes, but what do they say?'

'They say you are desperately in love with Fred Scully.'

'Supposing I were; is there any very great harm in that?'

'I only want to put you on your guard, May dear; and since I have come here for the purpose of speaking out, I had better do so, however unpleasant it may be; and I must say that you often forget yourself when he is in the room, and by your whole manner betray your feelings. You look at him—'

'You needn't talk. Now that Harding has left town, these moral reflections come very easy to you!'

Alice blushed a little; she trembled, and pursuing her advantage, May said:

'Oh, yes; I have watched you in the Castle sitting out dances; and when girls like you butter! 'Pon my word, it was painful to look at you.'

'Mr. Harding and I talked merely of books and pictures.'

'If you come here to insinuate that Fred and I are in the habit of indulging in improper conversation. . . . I didn't expect this from you. I shan't stop another moment. I shan't speak to you again.'

Picking up her novel, and deaf to all explanations, May walked haughtily out of the room. Alice would have given much to help; and, her heart filled with gentle disappointment, she returned home. The evening was spent in packing; and next morning at dawn, looking tired, their eyes still heavy with sleep, the Bartons breakfasted for the last time in Mount Street.

At the Broadstone they met Lord Dungory. Then, their feet and knees cosily wrapped up in furs, with copies of the Freeman's Journal lying on the top, they deplored the ineffectiveness of Mr. Forster's Coercion Act. Eight hundred people were in prison, and still the red shadow of murder pointed across the land. Milord read from the newspaper:

'A dastardly outrage was committed last night in the neighbourhood of Mullingar. A woman named Mary —— had some differences with her sister Bridget ——. One day, after some angry words, it appears that she left the house, and seeing a man working in a potato-field, she asked him if he could do anything to help her. He scratched his head, and, after a moment's reflection, he said he was going to meet a "party," and he would see what could be done. On the following day he suggested that Bridget might be removed for the sum of one pound. Mary —— could not, however, procure more than fifteen shillings, and a bargain was struck. On the night arranged for the assassination Mary wished to leave the house, not caring to see her sister shot in her presence, but Pat declared that her absence would excite suspicion. In the words of one of the murderers, the deed was accomplished "nately and without unnecessary fuss."'

'I wonder,' said Mrs. Barton, 'what those wretches will have to do before the Government will consent to suspend the Habeas Corpus Act, and place the country in the hands of the military. Do they never think of how wickedly they are behaving, and of how God will punish them when they die? Do they never think of their immortal souls?'

'L'âme du paysan se vautre dans la boue comme la mienne se plaît dans la soie.'

'Dans la soie! dans la soie! oh, ce Milord, ce Milord!'

'Oui, madame,' he added, lowering his voice, 'dans le blanc paradis de votre corsage.'

Three days after life at Brookfield had resumed its ordinary course. Once breakfast was over, Arthur retired to the consideration of the pectoral muscles of the ancient Briton, Milord drank his glass of sherry at half-past one, and Mrs. Barton devoted herself to the double task of amusing him and encouraging Olive with visions of future fame. Alice was therefore left definitely to herself, and without hindrance or comment was allowed to set up her writing-table, and spend as much time as she pleased in her bedroom.