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.