Lord Dungory's advice to Mrs. Barton was to take a house, and he warned her against spending the whole season in an hotel, but apparently without avail, for when the train stopped a laughing voice was heard: 'Milord, vous n'etes qu'un vilain misanthrope; we shall be very comfortable at the Shelbourne; we shall meet all the people in Dublin there, and we can have private rooms to give dinner-parties.'

Hearing this, Alice congratulated herself, for in an hotel she would be freer than she would be in a house let for the season. She would hear something, and see a little over the horizon of her family in an hotel. She had spent a week in the Shelbourne on her way home from school, and remembered the little winter-garden on the first landing, and the fountain splashing amid ferns and stone frogs. The ladies' drawing-room she knew was on the right, and when she had taken off her hat and jacket, leaving her mother and sister talking of Mrs. Symond and Lord Kilcarney, she went there hoping to find some of the people whom she had met there before.

The usually skirt-filled ottoman stood vacantly gaping, the little chairs seemed lonely about the hearthrug, even the sofa where the invalid ladies sat was unoccupied, and the perforated blinds gave the crowds that passed up and down the street a shadow-like appearance. The prospect was not inspiriting, but not knowing what else to do, Alice sat down by the fire, and fell to thinking who the man might be that sat reading on the other side of the fireplace. He didn't seem as if he knew much about horses, and as he read intently, she could watch him unobserved. At last their eyes met, and when Alice turned away her face she felt that he was looking at her, and, perhaps getting nervous under his examination, she made a movement to stir the fire.

'Will you allow me?' he said, rising from his chair. 'I beg your pardon, but, if you will allow me, I will arrange the fire.'

Alice let him have the poker, and when he had knocked in the coal-crust and put on some fresh fuel, he said:

'If it weren't for me I don't know what would become of this fire. I believe the old porter goes to sleep and forgets all about it. Now and again he wakes up and makes a deal of fuss with a shovel and a broom.'

'I really can't say, we only came up from Galway to-day.'

'Then you don't know the famous Shelbourne Hotel! All the events of life are accomplished here. People live here, and die here, and flirt here, and, I was going to say, marry here—but hitherto the Shelbourne marriages have resulted in break-offs—and we quarrel here; the friends of to-day are enemies to-morrow, and then they sit at different ends of the room. Life in the Shelbourne is a thing in itself, and a thing to be studied.'

Alice laughed again, and again she continued her conversation.

'I really know nothing of the Shelbourne. I was only here once before, and then only for a few days last summer, when I came home from school.'

'And now you are here for the Drawing-Room?'

'Yes; but how did you guess that?'

'The natural course of events: a young lady leaves school, she spends four or five months at home, and then she is taken to the Lord-Lieutenant's Drawing-Room.'

She liked him none the better for what he had said, and began to wonder how she might bring the conversation to a close. But when he spoke again she forgot her intentions, and allowed his voice to charm her.

'I think you told me,' he said, 'that you came up from Galway to-day; may I ask you from what side of the county?'

Another piece of impertinence. Why should he question her? And yet she answered him.

'We live near Gort—do you know Gort?'

'Oh yes, I have been travelling for the last two months in Ireland. I spent nearly a fortnight in Galway. Lord Dungory lives near Gort. Do you know him?'

'Very well indeed. He is our nearest neighbour; we see him nearly every day. Do you know him?'

'Yes, a little. I have met him in London. If I had not been so pressed for time I should have called upon him when I was in Galway. I passed his place going to a land meeting—oh, you need not be alarmed, I am not a Land League organizer, or else I should not have thought of calling at Dungory Castle. What a pretty drive it is to Gort.'

'Then, do you know a place on the left-hand side of the road, about a mile and a half from Dungory Castle?'

'You mean Brookfield?'

'Yes; that is our place.'

'Then you are Miss Barton?'

'Yes, I am Miss Barton; do you know father or mother?'

'No, no; but I have heard the name in Galway. I was spending a few days with one of your neighbours.'

'Oh, really!' said Alice, a little embarrassed; for she knew it must have been with the Lawlers that he had been staying. At the end of a long silence she said:

'I am afraid you have chosen a rather unfortunate time for visiting Ireland. All these terrible outrages, murders, refusals to pay rent; I wonder you have not been frightened away.'

'As I do not possess a foot of land—I believe I should say "not land enough to sod a lark"—my claim to collect rent would rest on even a slighter basis than that of the landlords; and as, with the charming inconsistency of your race, you have taken to killing each other instead of slaughtering the hated Saxon, I really feel safer in Ireland than elsewhere. I suppose,' he said, 'you do a great deal of novel-reading in the country?'

'Oh yes,' she answered, with almost an accent of voluptuousness in her voice; 'I spent the winter reading.'

'Because there was no hunting?' replied Harding, with a smile full of cynical weariness.

'No, I assure you, no; I do not think I should have gone out hunting even if it hadn't been stopped,' said Alice hastily; for it vexed her not a little to see that she was considered incapable of loving a book for its own sake.

'And what do you read?'

The tone of indifference with which the question was put was not lost upon Alice, but she was too much interested in the conversation to pay heed to it. She said:

'I read nearly all Byron, Shelley, Keats, Tennyson, and Browning—I think I like him better than all the poets! Do you know the scene at St. Praxed's?'

'Yes, of course; it is very fine. But I don't know that I ever cared much for Browning. Not only the verse, but the whole mind of the man is uncouth—yes, uncouth is the word I want. He is the Carlyle of Poetry. Have you ever read Carlyle?'

'Oh yes, I have read his French Revolution and his Life of Schiller, but that's all. I only came home from school last summer, and at school we never read anything. I couldn't get many new books down in Galway. There were, of course, Dickens, Thackeray, George Eliot in the library, but that was all. I once got a beautiful book from Dungory Castle. I wonder if you ever read it? It is called Madame Gervaisais. From the descriptions of Rome it almost seems to me that I have been there.'

'I know the book, but I didn't know a Catholic girl could admire it—and you are a Catholic, I presume?'

'I was brought up a Catholic.'

'It is one thing to be brought up a Catholic, and another to avoid doubting.'

'There can surely be no harm in doubting?'

'Not the least; but toward which side are you? Have you fallen into the soft feather-bed of agnosticism, or the thorny ditch of belief?'

'Why do you say "the soft feather-bed of agnosticism"?'

'It must be a relief to be redeemed from belief in hell; and perhaps there is no other redemption.'

'And do you never doubt?' she said.

'No, I can't say I am given much to doubting, nor do I think the subject is any longer worthy of thought. The world's mind, after much anxiety, arrives at a conclusion, and what sages cannot determine in one age, a child is certain about in the next. Thomas Aquinas was harassed with doubts regarding the possibility of old women flying through the air on broomsticks; nowadays were a man thus afflicted he would be surely a fit subject for Hanwell. The world has lived through Christianity, as it has through a score of other things. But I am afraid I shock you?'

'No, I don't think you do; only I never heard anyone speak in that way before—that is all.'

Here the conversation came to a pause, and soon after the presence of some ladies rendered its revival impossible. Their evening gowns suggested the dinner-hour, and reminded Alice that she had to prepare herself for the meal.

All the Galway people, excepting the Honourable Misses Gore and the Scullys—who had taken houses in town for the season—dined at table d'hote. The Miss Duffys were, with the famous Bertha, the terror of the debutantes. The Brennans and the Goulds sat at the same table. May, thinking of Fred, who had promised to come during the evening, leaned back in her chair, looking unutterably bored. Under a window Sir Richard and Sir Charles were immersed in wine and discussion. In earnest tones the latter deprecated the folly of indulging in country love; the former, his hand on the champagne bottle, hiccoughed, 'Mu—ch better come up—up Dub—lin, yer know, my boy. But look, look here; I know such a nice'—a glance round, to make sure that no lady was within earshot; and the conversation lapsed into a still more confidential whisper.

Mr. Ryan and Mr. Lynch ate their dinner in sullen silence, and at the other end of the long table Mr. Adair—whom it was now confidently stated Mr. Gladstone could not possibly get on without—talked to Mr. Harding; and when the few dried oranges and tough grapes that constituted dessert had been tasted, the ladies got up, and in twos and threes retired to the ladies' sitting-room. They were followed by Lord Dungory, Mr. Adair, and Mr. Harding: the other gentlemen—the baronets and Messrs. Ryan and Lynch—preferring smoke and drink to chatter and oblique glances in the direction of ankle-concealing skirts, went up to the billiardroom. And the skirts, what an importance they took in the great sitting-room full of easy-chairs and Swiss scenery: chalets, lakes, cascades, and chamois, painted on the light-coloured walls. The big ottoman was swollen with bustled skirts; the little low seats around the fire disappeared under skirts; skirts were tucked away to hide the slippered feet, skirts were laid out along the sofas to show the elegance of the cut. Then woolwork and circulating novels were produced, and the conversation turned on marriage. Bertha being the only Dublin girl present, all were anxious to hear her speak; after a few introductory remarks, she began:

'Oh! so you have all come up to the Castle and are going to be presented. Well, you'll find the rooms very grand, and the suppers very good, and if you know a lot of people—particularly the officers quartered here—you will find the Castle balls very amusing. The best way is to come to town a month before the Drawing-Room, and give a ball; and in that way you get to know all the men. If you haven't done that, I am afraid you won't get many partners. Even if you do get introduced, they'll only ask you to dance, and you'll never see them again. Dublin is like a racecourse, men come and speak to you and pass on. 'Tis pleasant enough if you know people, but as for marriages, there aren't any. I assure you I know lots of girls—and very pretty girls, too—who have been going out these six or seven seasons, and who have not been able to pull it off.'

'And the worst of it is,' said a girl, 'every year we are growing more and more numerous, and the men seem to be getting fewer. Nowadays a man won't look at you unless you have at least two thousand a year.'

Mrs. Barton, who did not wish her daughters to be discouraged from the first, settled her skirts with a movement of disdain. Mrs. Gould pathetically declared she did not believe love to be dead in the world yet, and maintained her opinion that a nice girl could always marry. But Bertha was not easily silenced, and, being perfectly conversant with her subject, she disposed of Dublin's claims as a marriage-mart, and she continued to comment on the disappointments of girls until the appearance of Lord Dungory and Mr. Harding brought the conversation to a sudden close.

'Une causerie de femme! que dites-vous?—je le suis—l'amour n'existe plus, et l'ame de l'homme est plus pres des sens que l'ame de la femme,' said Milord. Everyone laughed; and, with a charming movement of her skirts, Mrs. Barton made room for him to sit beside her.

Harding withdrew to the other end of the room to resume his reading, and Alice did not dare to hope that he would lay aside his book and come to talk to her. If he did, her mother would ask her to introduce him to her, and she would have to enter into explanations that he and she had merely exchanged a few words before dinner.

She withstood the conversation of the charmed circle as long as she could, and then boldly crossed the room for a newspaper. Harding rose to help her to find one, and they talked together till Milord took him away to the billiard-room.

May, who had been vainly expecting Fred the whole evening, said:

'Well, Alice, I hope you have had a nice flirtation?'

'And did you notice, May, how she left us to look for a newspaper. Our Alice is fond of reading, but it was not of reading she was thinking this evening. She kept him all to herself at the other end of the room.' Mrs. Barton laughed merrily, and Alice began to understand that her mother was approving her flirtation. That is the name that her mother would give her talk with Mr. Harding.



XVI

During the Dublin Season it is found convenient to give teas: the young ladies have to be introduced to the men they will meet after at the Castle. These gatherings take place at five o'clock in the afternoon; and as Mrs. Barton started from the Shelbourne Hotel for Lady Georgina Stapleton's, she fell to thinking that a woman is never really vulnerable until she is bringing out her daughters. Till then the usual shafts directed against her virtue fall harmlessly on either side, but now they glance from the marriage buckler and strike the daughter in full heart. In the ball-room, as in the forest, the female is most easily assailed when guarding her young, and nowhere in the whole animal kingdom is this fact so well exemplified as in Dublin Castle.

Lady Georgina lived in Harcourt Street, and it was on her way thither that something like a regret rose up in Mrs. Barton that she had (she was forced to confess it) aroused the enmity of women, and persistently.

Lady Georgina Stapleton was Lord Dungory's eldest sister. She, too, hated Mrs. Barton; but, being poor (Milord used to call himself the milch-cow), she found herself, like the Ladies Cullen, occasionally obliged to smile upon and extend a welcoming hand to the family enemy; and when Mrs. Barton came to Dublin for the Castle Season, a little pressure was put upon Lady Georgina to obtain invitations from the Chamberlain; the ladies exchanged visits, and there the matter ended, as Mrs. Barton and her daughter passed through Stephen's Green, and she remembered that she had never taken the trouble to conceal her dislike of the house in Harcourt Street, and some of the hard things she had said when standing on the box-seat of a drag at Punchestown Races had travelled back and had found a lasting resting-place in Lady Georgina's wrathful memory.

'This is considered to be the most artistic house in Dublin,' said Mrs. Barton, as the servant showed them upstairs.

'How lovely the camellias look,' said Olive.

'And now, Alice, mind, none of your Liberalism in this house, or you will ruin your sister's chances.'

Lady Georgina wore a wig, or her hair was arranged so as to look like one. Fifty years had rubbed away much of her youthful ugliness; and, in the delicate twilight of her rooms, her aristocratic bearing might be mistaken for good looks.

Lady Georgina was a celebrated needlewoman, and she was now begging Lord Kilcarney to assist her at a charity bazaar. Few people had yet arrived; and when Harding was announced, Mrs. Barton whispered:

'Here's your friend, Alice; don't miss your chance.'

Then every moment bevies of girls came in and were accommodated with seats, and if possible with young men. Teacups were sent down to be washed, and the young men were passed from group to group. The young ladies smiled and looked delightful, and spoke of dancing and tennis until, replying to an imperative glance from their chaperons, from time to time they rose to leave; but, obeying a look of supplication from their hostess, the young men remained.

Lord Kilcarney had been hunted desperately around screens and over every ottoman in the room; and Lady Georgina had proved her goodwill in proportion to the amount of assistance she had lent to her friends in the chase. Long ago he had been forced away from Olive. Mrs. Barton endured with stoical indifference the scowls of her hostess; but at length, compelled to recognize that none of the accidents attendant on the handing of teacups or the moving of chairs would bring him back, she rose to take her leave. The little Marquis was on his feet in a moment, and, shaking hands with her effusively, he promised to call to see them at the Shelbourne. A glance went round; and of Mrs. Barton's triumph there could be no doubt.

'But to-day's success is often a prelude to to-morrow's defeat,' was Lady Georgina's comment, and Mrs. Barton and her daughters were discussed as they walked across the green to their hotel. Nor was Lady Georgina altogether a false prophet, for next day Mrs. Barton found the Marquis's cards on her table. 'I'm sorry we missed him,' she said, 'but we haven't a minute;' and, calling on her daughters to follow, she dashed again into the whirl of a day that would not end for many hours, though it had begun twelve hours ago—a day of haste and anticipation it had been, filled with cries of 'Mamma,' telegrams, letters, and injunctions not to forget this and that—a day whose skirts trailed in sneers and criticisms, a hypocritical and deceitful day, a day of intrigue, a day in which the post-box was the chief factor—a great day withal.

But above this day, and above all other days, was the day that took them spellbound to the foot of a narrow staircase, a humble flight seemingly, but leading to a temple of tightly-stretched floorcloth, tall wardrobes, and groups and lines of lay figures in eternally ladylike attitudes.

'Oh! how do you do, Mrs. Barton? We have been expecting you for the last two or three days. I will run upstairs and tell Mrs. Symond that you are here; she will be so glad to see you.'

'That is Miss Cooper!' explained Mrs. Barton. 'Everyone knows her; she has been with Mrs. Symond many years. And, as for dear Mrs. Symond, there is no one like her. She knows the truth about everybody. Here she comes,' and Mrs. Barton rushed forward and embraced a thin woman with long features.

'And how do you do, dear Mrs. Barton, and how well you are looking, and the young ladies? I see Miss Olive has improved since she was in Dublin.' (In an audible whisper.) 'Everyone is talking about her. There is no doubt but that she'll be the belle of the season.' (In a still audible, but lower tone of voice.) 'But tell me, is it true that—'

'Now, now, now!' said Mrs. Barton, drowning her words in cascades of silvery laughter, 'I know nothing of what you're saying; ha! ha! ha! no, no—I assure you. I will not—'

Then, as soon as the ladies had recovered their composure, a few questions were asked about her Excellency, the prospects of the Castle season, and the fashions of the year.

'And now tell me,' said Mrs. Barton, 'what pretty things have you that would make up nicely for trains?'

'Trains, Mrs. Barton? We have some sweet things that would make up beautifully for trains. Miss Cooper, will you kindly fetch over that case of silks that we had over yesterday from Paris?'

'The young ladies must be, of course, in white; for Miss Olive I should like, I think, snowdrops; for you, Mrs. Barton, I am uncertain which of two designs I shall recommend. Now, this is a perfectly regal material.'

With words of compliment and solicitation, the black-dressed assistant displayed the armouries of Venus—armouries filled with the deep blue of midnight, with the faint tints of dawn, with strange flowers and birds, with moths, and moons, and stars. Lengths of white silk clear as the notes of violins playing in a minor key; white poplin falling into folds statuesque as the bass of a fugue by Bach; yards of ruby velvet, rich as an air from Verdi played on the piano; tender green velvet, pastoral as hautboys heard beneath trees in a fair Arcadian vale; blue turquoise faille fanciful as the tinkling of a guitar twanged by a Watteau shepherd; gold brocade, sumptuous as organ tones swelling through the jewelled twilight of a nave; scarves and trains of midnight-blue profound as the harmonic snoring of a bassoon; golden daffodils violent as the sound of a cornet; bouquets of pink roses and daisies, charmful and pure as the notes of a flute; white faille, soft draperies of tulle, garlands of white lilac, sprays of white heather, delicate and resonant as the treble voices of children singing carols in dewy English woods; berthas, flounces, plumes, stomachers, lappets, veils, frivolous as the strains of a German waltz played on Liddell's band.

An hour passed, but the difficulty of deciding if Olive's dress should be composed of silk or Irish poplin was very great, for, determined that all should be humiliated, Mrs. Barton laid her plans amid designs for night and morning; birds fluttering through leafy trees, birds drowsing on bending boughs, and butterflies folding their wings. At a critical moment, however, an assistant announced that Mrs. Scully was waiting. The ladies started; desperate effort was made; rosy clouds and veils of silver tissue were spoken of; but nothing could be settled, and on the staircase the ladies had to squeeze into a corner to allow Violet and Mrs. Scully to pass.

'How do you do, Olive? How do you do, Alice? and you, Mrs. Barton, how do you do? And what are you going to wear? Have you decided on your dress?'

'Oh! That is a secret that could be told to no one; oh, not for worlds!' said Mrs. Barton.

'I'm sure it will be very beautiful,' replied Mrs. Scully, with just a reminiscence of the politeness of the Galway grocery business in her voice.

'I hear you have taken a house in Fitzwilliam Square for the season?' said Mrs. Barton.

'Yes, we are very comfortable; you must come and see us. You are at the Shelbourne, I believe?'

'Come to tea with us,' cried Violet. 'We are always at home about five.'

'We shall be delighted,' returned Mrs. Barton.

Mrs. Scully's acquaintance with Mrs. Symond was of the slightest; but, knowing that claims to fashion in Dublin are judged by the intimacy you affect with the dressmaker, she shook her warmly by the hand, and addressed her as dear Mrs. Symond. To the Christian name of Helen none less than a Countess dare to aspire.

'And how well you are looking, dear Mrs. Symond; and when are you going to take your daughters to the Castle?'

'Oh, not for some time yet; my eldest is only sixteen.'

Mrs. Symonds had three daughters to bring out, and she hoped when her feet were set on the redoubtable ways of Cork Hill, her fashionable customers would extend to her a cordial helping hand. Mrs. Symonds' was one of the myriad little schemes with which Dublin is honeycombed, and although she received Mrs. Scully's familiarities somewhat coldly, she kept her eyes fixed upon Violet. The insidious thinness of the girl's figure, and her gay, winsome look interested her, and, as if speaking to herself, she said:

'You will want something very sweet; something quite pure and lovely for Miss Scully?'

Mother and daughter were instantly all attention, and Mrs. Symond continued:

'Let me see, I have some Surat silk that would make up sweetly. Miss Cooper, will you have the kindness to fetch those rolls of Surat silk we received yesterday from Paris?'

Then, beautiful as a flower harvesting, the hues and harmonies of earth, ocean, and sky fell before the ravished eyes. The white Surat silk, chaste, beautiful, delicious as that presentiment of shared happiness which fills a young girl's mind when her fancy awakens in the soft spring sunlight; the white faille with tulle and garlands of white lilac, delicate and only as sensuous as the first meetings of sweethearts, when the may is white in the air and the lilac is in bloom on the lawn; trains of blue sapphire broche looped with blue ostrich feathers, seductive and artificial as a boudoir plunged in a dream of Ess. bouquet; dove-coloured velvet trains adorned with tulips and tied with bows of brown and pink—temperate as the love that endures when the fiery day of passion has gone down; bodices and trains of daffodil silk, embroidered with shaded maple-leaves, impure as lamp-lit and patchouli-scented couches; trains of white velouture festooned with tulle; trails of snowdrops, icy as lips that have been bought, and cold as a life that lives in a name.

The beautiful silks hissed as they came through the hands of the assistants, cat-like the velvet footfalls of the velvet fell; it was a witches' Sabbath, and out of this terrible caldron each was to draw her share of the world's gifts. Smiling and genial, Mrs. Symond stirred the ingredients with a yard measure; the girls came trembling, doubting, hesitating; and the anxious mothers saw what remained of their jeopardized fortunes sliding in a thin golden stream into the flaming furnace that the demon of Cork Hill blew with unintermittent breath.

Secrets, what secrets were held on the subject of the presentation dresses! The obscure Hill was bound with a white frill of anticipation. Olive's fame had gone forth. She was admitted to be the new Venus, and Lord Kilcarney was spoken of as likely to yield to her the coveted coronet. Would he marry her without so much as looking at another girl? was the question on every lip, and in the jealousy thus created the appraisers of Violet's beauty grew bolder. Her thinness was condoned, and her refinement insisted upon. Nor were May Gould and her chances overlooked by the gossips of Merrion Square. Her flirtation with Fred Scully was already a topic of conversation.

Alice knew she was spoken of pityingly, but she hungered little after the praise of the Dubliners, and preferred to stay at home and talk to Harding in the ladies' drawing-room rather than follow her mother and sister in their wild hunt after Lord Kilcarney. Through the afternoon teas of Merrion Square and Stephen's Green the chase went merrily.



XVII

On the night of the Drawing-Room, February 20, 1882, the rain rushed along the streets; wind, too, had risen, and, threatening to tear every window from its sash, it careered in great gusts. Sky there was none, nor sight of anything save when the lightning revealed the outline of the housetops. The rattling and the crashing of the thunder was fearsome, and often, behind their closely drawn curtains, the girls trembled, and, covering their faces with their hands, forgot the article of clothing they were in search of. In their rooms all was warm and snug, and gay with firelight and silk; the chaperons had whispered that warm baths were advisable, and along the passages the ladies'-maids passed hurriedly, carrying cans of hot water, sponges, and drying-sheets.

Alice and Olive slept in two rooms on the third floor, on either side of their mother; May and Mrs. Gould were on the fourth, and next to May was Fred Scully, who, under the pretext of the impossibility of his agreeing with his mother concerning the use of a latch-key, had lately moved into the hotel. May was deeply concerned in Fred's grievance, and, discussing it, or the new Shelbourne scandal—the loves of the large lady and the little man at the other end of the corridor—they lingered about each other's bedroom-doors. Alice could now hear them talking as they descended the staircase together; then a burst of smothered laughter, and May came in to see her.

'Oh, how nice you look!'

'If you don't "mash" Mr. Harding to-night, he'll be a tough one indeed. Did I tell you I was talking to him yesterday in the ladies' drawing-room? He is very enticing, but I can't quite make him out: I think he despises us all; all but you; about you he said all kinds of nice things—that you were so clever, and nice, and amusing. And tell me, dear,' said May, in her warm, affectionate way, 'do you really like him—you know what I mean?'

May's eyes and voice were so full of significance that to pretend to misunderstand was impossible.

'I like Mr. Harding well enough. It is very pleasant to have him to talk to. I am sure I don't want to run down my own sex—there are plenty only too anxious to do that—but I am afraid that there is not a girl in Dublin who thinks of anything except how she is to get married.'

'I don't know about that,' said May, a little offended. 'I suppose if you think of a man at all, you think of how he likes you.'

The defiant tone in which these words were spoken was surprising; and, for a moment, Alice stood staring blankly at this superb cream-fleshed girl, superb in her dress of cream faille, her sensual beauty poetized by the long veils which hung like gossamer-webs from the coils of her copper-gleaming hair.

'I am afraid, May,' she said, 'that you think a great deal too much of such things. I don't say anything against Mr. Scully, but I think it right to tell you that he is considered a very dangerous young man; and I am sure it does a girl no good to be seen with him. It was he who . . .'

'Now I'll not hear you abuse Fred,' cried May. 'We are great friends; I like you better than any other girl, and if you value our friendship, you'll not speak to me again like this. I wouldn't put up with it, no, not from my own mother.'

The girl moved towards the door hastily, but Alice laid her hand on her arm, saying:

'You mustn't be angry, May; perhaps you're right; I shouldn't meddle in things that don't concern me; but then we have been so long friends that I couldn't help—'

'I know, I know,' the girl answered, overcome as it were by an atmosphere. 'You were speaking only for my good; but if you're friends with a person, you can't stand by and hear them abused. I know people speak badly of Fred; but then people are so jealous—and they are all jealous of Fred.'

The girls examined each other's dresses, and at the end of a long silence May said:

'What an extraordinary thing this Drawing-Room is when one comes to think of it. Just fancy going to all this expense to be kissed by the Lord-Lieutenant—a man one never saw before. Will you feel ashamed when he kisses you?'

'Well, I don't know that I have thought much about it,' said Alice, laughing. 'I suppose it doesn't matter, it is only a ceremony, not a real kiss.'

At this moment Mrs. Barton's voice was heard calling: 'Now, Alice, Alice, where are you? We are waiting for you! Make haste, for goodness' sake; we are very late as it is.'

The trail of a sachet-scented petticoat could be detected on this length of Brussels carpet, the acrid vulgarity of eau de Cologne hung like a curtain before an open door, a vision of white silk gleamed for a moment as it fled from room to room: men in a strange garb—black velvet and steel buttons—hurried away, tripping over their swords, furtively ashamed of their stockinged calves. On the first landing, about the winter-garden, a crowd of German waiters, housemaids, billiard-players with cigars in their teeth and cues in their hands, had collected; underneath, in the hall, the barmaids, and old ladies, wrapped up in rugs and shawls to save them from the draughts, were criticizing the dresses. Olive's name was on every lip, and to see her all were breathless with expectation; her matrimonial prospects were discussed, and Lord Kilcarney was openly spoken of. 'Ah! here she is! there she is!' was whispered. The head-porter, wild with excitement, shouted for Mrs. Barton's carriage; three under-porters distended huge umbrellas; the door was opened, an immense wind tore through the hall, sending the old ladies flying back to their sitting-room, and the Bartons, holding their hair and their trains, rushed across the wet pavement and took refuge in the brougham.

'Did one ever see such weather?' said Mrs. Barton. 'I hope your hair isn't ruffled, Olive?'

'No, mamma, I think it is all right.'

Reassured, Mrs. Barton continued: 'I don't think there ever was a country so hateful as Ireland. What with rain and Land League. I wonder why we live here! Did you notice the time, Alice, as we left the hotel?'

'Yes, mamma; it was twenty-five minutes to ten.'

'Oh! we are very late; we shan't be there before ten. The thing to do is to get there about half-past nine; the Drawing-Room doesn't begin before eleven; but if you can get into the first lot you can stand at the entrance of Patrick's Hall. I see, Alice, your friend Harding is going to the Drawing-Room. Now, if you do what I tell you, you won't miss him; for it does look so bad to see a girl alone, just as if she was unable to get a man.'

While Mrs. Barton continued to advise her girls, the carriage rolled rapidly along Stephen's Green. It had now turned into Grafton Street; and on the steep, rain-flooded asphalte, they narrowly escaped an accident. The coachman, however, steadied his horses, and soon the long colonnades of the Bank of Ireland were seen on the left. From this point they were no longer alone, and except when a crash of thunder drowned every other sound, the rattling of wheels was heard behind and in front of them. Carriages came from every side: the night was alive with flashing lamps; a glimpse of white fur or silk, the red breast of a uniform, the gold of an epaulette, were seen, and thinking of the block that would take place on the quays, the coachmen whipped up their horses; but soon the ordering voices of the mantled and mounted policemen were heard, and the carriages came to a full stop.

'We are very late; hundreds will pass before us,' said Mrs. Barton despairingly, as she watched the lines of silk-laden carriages that seemed to be passing them by. But it was difficult to make sure of anything; and fearful of soiling their gloves, they refrained from touching the breath-misted windows.

Despite the weather the streets were lined with vagrants, patriots, waifs, idlers of all sorts and kinds. Plenty of girls of sixteen and eighteen came out to see the 'finery.' Poor little things in battered bonnets and draggled skirts, who would dream upon ten shillings a week; a drunken mother striving to hush a child that cries beneath a dripping shawl; a harlot embittered by feelings of commercial resentment; troops of labourers; hang-dog faces, thin coats, torn shirts; Irish-Americans, sinister faced, and broad-brimmed. Never were poverty and wealth brought into plainer proximity. In the broad glare of the carriage lights the shape of every feature, even the colour of the eyes, every glance, every detail of dress, every stain of misery were revealed to the silken exquisites who, a little frightened, strove to hide themselves within the scented shadows of their broughams; and in like manner the bloom on every aristocratic cheek, the glitter of every diamond, the richness of every plume, were visible to the wondering eyes of those who stood without in the wet and the cold.

'I wish they wouldn't stare so,' said Mrs. Barton; 'one would think they were a lot of hungry children looking into a sweetmeat shop. The police ought really to prevent it.'

'And how wicked those men in the big hats look,' said Olive; 'I'm sure they would rob us if they only dared.'

At last the order came that the carriages were to move on, and they rolled on, now blocked under the black rain-dripping archway of the Castle yard, now delayed as they laboriously made the tour of the quadrangle. Olive doubted if her turn would ever come; but, by slow degrees, each carriage discharged its cargo of silk, and at last Mrs. Barton and her daughters found themselves in the vestibule, taking numbers for their wraps at the cloak-rooms placed on either side of the stairway.

The slender figures ascending to tiny naked shoulders, presented a piquant contrast with the huge, black Assyrian, bull-like policemen, who guarded the passage, and reduced, by contrast, to almost doll-like proportions the white creatures who went up the great stairway. Overhead an artificial plant, some twenty feet wide, spread a decorative greenness; the walls were lined with rifles, and at regular intervals, in lieu of pictures, were set stars made out of swords. There were also three suits of plate armour, and the grinning of the helmets of old-time contrasted with the bearskin-shrouded faces of the red guardsmen. And through all this military display the white ware tripped past powdered and purple-coated footmen, splendid in the splendour of pink calves and salmon-coloured breeches.

As the white mass of silk pushed along the white-painted corridor, the sense of ceremony that had till then oppressed it, evaporated in the fumes of the blazing gas, and something like a battle began in the blue drawing-room. Heat and fatigue soon put an end to all coquetting between the sexes. The beautiful silks were hidden by the crowd; only the shoulders remained, and, to appease their terrible ennui, the men gazed down the backs of the women's dresses. Shoulders were there, of all tints and shapes. Indeed, it was like a vast rosary, alive with white, pink, and cream-coloured flowers; of Marechal Niels, Souvenir de Malmaisons, Mademoiselle Eugene Verdiers, Aimee Vibert Scandens. Sweetly turned, adolescent shoulders, blush-white, smooth and even as the petals of a Marquise Mortemarle; the strong, commonly turned shoulders, abundant and free as the fresh rosy pink of the Anna Alinuff; the drooping white shoulders, full of falling contours as a pale Madame Lacharme; the chlorotic shoulders, deadly white, of the almost greenish shade that is found in a Princess Clementine; the pert, the dainty little shoulders, filled with warm pink shadows, pretty and compact as Countess Cecile de Chabrillant; the large heavy shoulders full of vulgar madder tints, coarse, strawberry-colour, enormous as a Paul Neron; clustering white shoulders, grouped like the blossoms of an Aimee Vibert Scandens, and, just in front of me, under my eyes, the flowery, the voluptuous, the statuesque shoulders of a tall blonde woman of thirty, whose flesh is full of the exquisite peach-like tones of a Mademoiselle Eugene Verdier, blooming in all its pride of summer loveliness.

To make way for this enormous crowd, the Louis XV. sofas and arm-chairs had been pushed against the walls, and an hour passed wearily, in all its natural impudence, in this beautiful drawing-room, the brain aching with dusty odour of poudre de riz, and the many acidities of evaporating perfume; the sugary sweetness of the blondes, the salt flavours of the brunettes, and this allegro movement of odours was interrupted suddenly by the garlicky andante, deep as the pedal notes of an organ, that the perspiring armpits of a fat chaperon exhaled slowly.

At last there was a move forwards, and a sigh of relief, a grunt of satisfaction, broke from the oppressed creatures; but a line of guardsmen was pressing from behind, and the women were thrown hither and thither into the arms and on to the backs of soldiers, police officers, county inspectors, and Castle underlings. Now a lady turns pale, and whispers to her husband that she is going to faint; now a young girl's petticoats have become entangled in the moving mass of legs! She cries aloud for help; her brother expostulates with those around. He is scarcely heeded. And the struggle grows still more violent when it becomes evident that the guardsmen are about to bring down the bar; and, begging a florid-faced attorney to unloose his sword, which had become entangled in her dress, Mrs. Barton called on her daughter, and, slipping under the raised arms, they found themselves suddenly in a square, sombre room, full of a rich, brown twilight. In one corner there was a bureau, where an attendant served out blank cards; in another the white plumes nodded against the red glare that came from the throne-room, whence Liddell's band was heard playing waltz tunes, and the stentorian tones of the Chamberlain's voice called the ladies' names.

'Have you got your cards?' said Mrs. Barton.

'I have got mine,' said Olive.

'And I have got mine,' said Alice.

'Well, you know what to do? You give your card to the aide-de-camp, he passes it on and spreads out your train, and you walk right up to His Excellency; he kisses you on both cheeks, you curtsy, and, at the far door, two aides-de-camp pick up your train and place it on your arm.'

The girls continued to advance, experiencing the while the nerve atrophy, the systolic emotion of communicants, who, when the bell rings, approach the altar-rails to receive God within their mouths.

The massive, the low-hanging, the opulently twisted gold candelabra, the smooth lustre of the marble columns are evocative of the persuasive grandeur of a cathedral; and, deep in the darkness of the pen, a vast congregation of peeresses and judges watch the ceremony in devout collectiveness. How symmetrical is the place! A red, a well-trimmed bouquet of guardsmen has been set in the middle of the Turkey carpet; around the throne a semicircle of red coats has been drawn, and above it flow the veils, the tulle, the skirts of the ladies-of-honour—they seem like white clouds dreaming on a bank of scarlet poppies—and the long sad legs, clad in maroon-coloured breeches, is the Lord-Lieutenant, the teeth and the diamonds on his right is Her Excellency. And now a lingering survival of the terrible Droit de Seigneur—diminished and attenuated, but still circulating through our modern years—this ceremony, a pale ghost of its former self, is performed; and, having received a kiss on either cheek, the debutantes are free to seek their bridal beds in Patrick's Hall.

'Miss Olive Barton, presented by Mrs. Barton!' shouted the Chamberlain.

Olive abandoned her train to the aides-de-camp; she saw their bent backs, felt their nimble fingers exhibiting this dress whereon Mrs. Barton and Mrs. Symond had for days been expending all the poetry of their natures. What white wonder, what manifold marvel of art! Dress of snow satin, skirt quite plain in front. Bodice and train of white poplin; the latter wrought with patterns representing night and morning: a morning made of silver leaves with silver birds fluttering through leafy trees, butterflies sporting among them, and over all a sunrise worked in gold and silver thread; then on the left side the same sun sank amid rosy clouds, and there butterflies slept with folded wing, and there birds roosted on bending boughs; veils of silver tissue softened the edges of the train, silver stars gleamed in the corn-coloured hair, the long hands, gloved with white undressed kid, carried a silver fan; she was adorably beautiful and adorably pale, and she floated through the red glare, along the scarlet line, to the weary-looking man in maroon breeches, like some wonderful white bird of downy plumage. He kissed her on both cheeks; and she passed away to the farther door, where her train was caught up and handed to her by two aides-de-camp. He had seemed to salute her with deference and warmth; his kiss was more than ceremonial, and eager looks passed between the ladies-of-honour standing on the estrade; the great bouquet of red-coats placed in the middle of the floor, animated by one desire, turned its sixteen heads to gaze after the wonderful vision of blonde beauty that had come—that had gone. Mrs. Barton experienced an instant thrill of triumph, and advanced into the throne.

In the composition of her dress she had given range to her somewhat florid taste. The front was brocade, laid upon a ground of grey-pink, shot with orange, and the effect was such as is seen when the sun hangs behind a lowering grey cloud, tinged with pink. On this were wonderful soft-coloured flowers, yellow melting into pink, green fading to madder-like tints. The bodice and the train were of gold-brown velvet that matched the gold-brown of the hair. Mrs. Barton was transformed from the usual Romney portrait to one by Sir Peter Lely; and when she made her curtsy, Her Excellency's face contracted, and the ladies-of-honour whispered: 'The harm she does her daughters . . . I wonder . . .'

'Miss Violet Scully, presented by Mrs. Scully,' shouted the Chamberlain.

Now there was an admixture of curiosity in the admiration accorded to Violet. Hers was not the plain appealing of Olive's Greek statue-like beauty; it was rather the hectic erethism of painters and sculptors in a period preceding the apogee of an art. She was a statuette in biscuit after a design by Andrea Mantegna. But the traces of this exquisite atavism were now almost concealed in the supreme modernity of her attire. From the tiny waist trailed yards of white faille, trimmed with tulle ruchings, frecked as a meadow with faintly-tinted daisies; the hips were engarlanded with daisies, and the flowers melted and bloomed amid snows of faille and tulle.

The Lord-Lieutenant leaned forward to kiss her, but at that moment of his kiss the thunder crashed so loudly that he withdrew from her, and so abruptly that Her Excellency looked surprised. The incident passed, however, almost unperceived. So loud was the thunder, everybody was thinking of dynamite, and it was some time before even the voluptuous strains of Liddell's band could calm their inquietude. Nevertheless the Chamberlain continued to shout:

'Lady Sarah Cullen, Lady Jane Cullen, Mrs. Scully, presented by Lady Sarah Cullen.'

Then came a batch of people whom no one knew, and in the front of these the aides-de-camp allowed Alice to pass on to His Excellency. She was prettily dressed, dragging after her a train of white faille trimmed with sprays of white heather and tulle, the petticoat being beautifully arranged with folded draperies of crepe de Chine.

A number of ladies had collected in the farther ante-room, and, in lines, they stood watching the effluent tide of satin and silk discharging its volume into the spaces of Patrick's Hall.



XVIII

'I wish Alice would make haste, and not keep us waiting. I suppose she has got behind a crowd. Here are the Scullys; let's hide, they don't know a creature, and will hang on us.'

Olive and Mrs. Barton tried to slip out of sight, but they were too late; and a moment after, looking immense in a train and bodice of Lyons velvet, Mrs. Scully came up and accosted them.

'And how do you do, Mrs. Barton?' she said, with a desperate effort to make herself agreeable;

'I must congratulate you. Everyone is admiring your dress; I assure you your train looked perfectly regal.'

'I am glad you like it,' replied Mrs. Barton; 'but what do you think of Olive? Do you like her dress?'

'Oh, Olive has no need of my praises. If I were not afraid of making her too vain I would tell her that all Dublin is talking of her. Indeed, I heard a gentleman say—a gentleman who, I believe, writes for the papers—that she will be in the World or Truth next week as the belle of the season. None of the other young ladies will have a chance with her.'

'Oh, I don't know about that,' exclaimed Mrs. Barton, laughing merrily; 'haven't you got your Violet?—whom, by the way, you have transformed into a beautiful daisy. It will be, perhaps, not the Rose nor the Olive that will carry off the prize, but the daisy.'

Violet glanced sharply at Mrs. Barton, and there was hate in the glance; for, although her mother did not, she understood well what was meant by the allusion to the daisy, the humblest of the earth's flowers.

The appearance, however, of Lord Kilcarney brought the conversation to a close; and, not knowing how to address him, Olive laughed beautifully from behind her silver fan. They entered Patrick's Hall, where Lord Dungory, Lord Rosshill, and others were waiting to receive Mrs. Barton, who sought for a prominent seat, and dealing out pearly laughs and winsome compliments to her court, she watched Olive, who, according to orders, had taken Lord Kilcarney to sit on the highest of the series of benches that lined one side of the room, which she did, and for a moment Mrs. Barton felt as if she held Dublin under her satin shoe. Alice was her only trouble. What would she do with this gawk of a girl? But soon even this difficulty was solved, for Harding came up and asked her if he might take her to get an ice.

'How absurd we looked dressed up in this way,' said Harding; 'look at that attorney and the court sword. It would be just as logical to stick a quill pen behind the ear of a fat pig.'

'Well, the sword—I confess I don't see much meaning in that; but the rest of the dress is well enough. I don't see why one style of dress should be more absurd than another, unless it is because it isn't the fashion.'

'Yes, but that is just the reason; just fancy dressing oneself up in the costume of a bygone time.'

'And is everything that isn't the fashion ridiculous?'

'Ah, there, I fancy, you have the best of the argument. Waiter, a strawberry ice. But did you say you would have strawberry?'

'I don't think I did, for I prefer lemon.'

The centre of the ceiling was filled with an oval picture representing St. Patrick receiving Pagans into the true faith. The walls were white painted, the panels were gold-listed. There were pillars at both ends of the room, and in a top gallery, behind a curtain of evergreen plants, Liddell's orchestra continued to pour an uninterrupted flood of waltz melody upon the sea of satin, silk, poplin, and velvet that surged around the buffet, angrily demanding cream ices, champagne, and claret-cup. Every moment the crowd grew denser, and the red coats of the Guards and the black corded jackets of the Rifles stained like spots of ink and blood the pallor of the background. A few young men looked elegant and shapely in the velvet and stockings of Court dress. One of these was Fred Scully. He was with May, who, the moment she caught sight of Alice, made frantic efforts to reach her.

'My dear, did anyone ever look so nice! You are as sweet—well, a little sweeter—than you generally are! How do you do, Mr. Harding? And tell me, Alice, what do you think of my dress?'

May was in cream faille with ruchings of tulle. A beautiful piece of white lilac nestled upon her right breast.

'You are very nice, May, and I think the white sets off your hair to advantage.'

'Well, good-bye dear, Fred and I are going into the next room; one is so pushed about here, but there are nice large velvet sofas there where one can sit and talk. I advise you to come.'

In the reposing shadows of rich velvet and sombre hangings women leaned over the sofas, talking to men in uniform, while two strange-looking creatures, in long garments, walked up and down the room—Dons from Trinity, who argued with Mr. Adair earnestly.

'He is one of the lights of your county, is he not?' said Harding, indicating Mr. Adair.

'Oh, yes,' replied Alice, 'he took honours and a gold medal at Trinity College.'

'I know he did, and a capacity for passing competitive examinations is the best proof of a man's incapacity for everything else.'

'Do you know him?'

'Yes, a little. He wears his University laurels at forty, builds parish schools, and frightens his neighbours with the liberality of his opinions and the rectitude of his life.'

'But have you seen his pamphlets on the amalgamation of the poor houses?' said Alice, astonished at the slight consideration afforded to the rural genius.

'I have heard of them. It appears he is going in for politics; but his politics will be on a par with his saw-mill, and his farmyard in concrete. Mr. Adair is a well-known person. Every county in England, Ireland, and Scotland, possesses and is proud of its Mr. Adair.'

Alice wondered for some moments in silence; and when suddenly her thoughts detached themselves, she said: 'We didn't see you in the ladies' drawing-room.'

'I was very busy all the morning. I had two articles to write for one of my papers and some books to review.'

'How nice it must be to have a duty to perform every day; to have always an occupation to which you can turn with pleasure.'

'I don't know that I look upon my ink-bottle as an eternal haven of bliss. Still, I would sooner contribute articles to daily and weekly papers than sit in the Kildare Street Club, drinking glasses of sherry. Having nothing to do must be a terrible occupation, and one difficult to fulfil with dignity and honour. But,' he added, as if a sudden thought had struck him, 'you must have a great deal of time on your hands; why don't you write a novel?'

'Everybody can't write novels.'

'Oh yes, they can.'

'Is that the reason why you advise me to write one?

'Not exactly. Did you ever try to write a story?'

'No, not since I was at school. I used to write stories there, and read them to the girls, and . . .'

'And what?'

'Oh, nothing; it seems so absurd of me to talk to you about such things; you will only laugh at me just as you did at Mr. Adair.'

'No, I assure you, I am very loyal to my friends.'

'Friends!'

'I should have thought that friendship was a question of sympathy, and not one of time: but I will withdraw the word.'

'Oh, no, I didn't mean that—I am sure I am very glad . . .'

'Very well, then, we will be friends; and now tell me what you were going to say.'

'I have forgotten—what was I saying?'

'You were telling me about something you had written at school.'

'Oh, yes, I remember. I did a little play for the girls to act just before we left.'

'What was it about—what was it called?'

'It was not original—it was an adaptation of Tennyson's ballad of King Cophetua. You know Miss Gould—she played the King; and Miss Scully, she played the beggar-maid. But, of course, the whole thing was very childish.'

At this moment a figure in knee-breeches and flesh-coloured stockings was seen waving a wand at the far end of the room. He was the usher clearing the way for the viceregal procession.

The first to appear were the A.D.C.'s. They were followed by the Medical Department, by the Private Secretary, the Military Private Secretary, the Assistant Under Secretaries, by the Gentlemen in Waiting, the Master of the Horse, the Dean of the Chapel Royal, the Chamberlain, the Gentleman Usher, the Comptroller, the State Steward, walking with a wand, like a doge in an opera bouffe; then came another secretary, and another band of the underlings who flock about this mock court. And then came a heavy-built, red-bearded man, who carried, as one might a baby, a huge gilt sword in his fat hands. He was followed by their Excellencies. The long, maroon-coloured breeches preserved their usual disconsolateness, the teeth and diamonds retained their splendour, and the train—many yards of azure blue richest Duchesse satin, embroidered with large bouquets of silver lily of the valley, and trimmed with plumes of azure blue ostrich feathers, and bunches of silver coral—was upheld by two tiny children who tottered beneath its enormous weight. Then another batch of A.D.C.'s-in-Waiting, the ladies of the viceregal family: their Excellencies' guests and the ladies in attendance—placed according to their personal precedence—brought up the rear of the procession.

'Doesn't real, actual life sometimes appear to you, Miss Barton, more distorted and unreal than a dream? I know it does to me. The spectacle we have just witnessed was a part of the ages that believed in the godhead of Christ and the divine right of Kings; but it seems to me strange that such barbarities should be permitted to loiter.'

'But what has Christianity to do with the procession that has just passed?'

'Were it not for faith, do you think a mock court would be allowed to promenade in that ludicrous fashion?'

'I'm not sure it is faith that enables them to reverence the sword of State. Is it not rather that love of ceremonial inherent in us all—more or less?'

'Perhaps you are right.'

The conversation drifted back to literature; they talked for ten minutes, and then Alice suggested that it was time she should return to Mrs. Barton. Patrick's Hall was still crowded, and champagne corks exploded through the babbling of the voices. The squadron of distressed damsels had not deserted their favourite corner, and they waited about the pillars like cabs on a stand. At this hour a middle-aged married doctor would be welcomed; all were desirous of being seen, if only for a moment, on the arm of a man. Mrs. Barton's triumph was Caesarean. More than half-a-dozen old lords and one young man listened to her bewitching laugh, and were fed on the brown flashing gold of her eyes. Milord and Rosshill had been pushed aside; and, apart, each sought to convince the other that he was going to leave town by the evening mail. Well in view of everyone, Olive had spent an hour with Lord Kilcarney. He had just brought her back to Mrs. Barton. At a little distance the poor Scullys stood waiting. They knew no one, even the Bartons had given them a very cold shoulder. Mrs. Gould, in an old black velvet dress, wondered why all the nice girls did not get married, and from time to time she plaintively questioned the passers-by if they had seen May. Violet's sharp face had grown sharper. She knew she could do something if she only got a chance. But would she get a chance? The Ladies Cullen, their plank-like shoulders bound in grey frise velvet and steel, were talking to her. Suddenly Lady Sarah bowed to Lord Kilcarney, and the bow said, 'Come hither!' Leaving Olive he approached. A moment after he was introduced to Violet. Her thin face lit up as if from a light within; a grey cloud dimmed the light of Mrs. Barton's golden eyes, and when she saw Him in the vestibule helping the Scullys on with their wraps, she shuddered as if struck with a blast of icy wind.



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 elite; 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 dais—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 debutantes, 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 dais, 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 debutante 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 dais.



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.