"I trust now, sir, that we have spoken for the last time together. I own--and it is, indeed, humiliation enough to own it--your words have deeply insulted me. I cannot deny you the satisfaction of knowing this; and yet, with all these things before me, I do not hate--I only despise you."

So saying, she moved towards the door; but Linton stepped forward, and said: "One instant, madam. You seem to forget that we are pledged to walk through the rooms; our amiable friends are doubtless looking for us."

"I will ask Mr. Cashel to be my chaperon another time," said she, carelessly, and, drawing her shawl around her, pa.s.sed out, leaving Linton alone in the conservatory.

"Ay, by St Paul! the work goes bravely on," cried he, as soon as she had disappeared. "If she ruin not him and herself to boot, now, I am sore mistaken. The game is full of interest, and, if I had not so much in hand, would delight me."

With this brief soliloquy, he turned to where the Italian was standing, pruning an orange-tree.

"Have you learned any English yet, Giovanni?"

A slight but significant gesture of one finger gave the negative.

"No matter, your own soft vowels are in more request here. The dress I told you of is now come,--my servant will give it to you; so, be ready with your guitar, if the ladies wish for it, this evening."

Giovanni bowed respectfully, and went on with his work, and soon after Linton strolled into the garden to muse over the late scene.

Had any one been there to mark the signs of triumphant elation on his features, they would have seen the man in all the sincerity of his bold, bad heart. His success was perfect. Knowing well the proud nature of the young, high-spirited woman, thoroughly acquainted with her impatient temper and haughty character, he rightly foresaw that to tell her she had become the subject of a calumny was to rouse her pride to confront it openly. To whisper that the world would not admit of this or that, was to make her brave that world, or sink under the effort.

To sting her to such resistance was his wily game, and who knew better how to play it? The insinuated sneers at the cla.s.s to which she had once belonged, as one not "patented" to a.s.sume the vices of their betters, was a deep and most telling hit; and he saw, when they separated, that her mind was made up, at any cost and every risk, to live down the slander by utter contempt of it Linton asked for no more. "Let her," said he to himself, "but enter the lists with the world for an adversary! I 'll give her all the benefits of the best motives,--as much purity of heart, and so forth, as she cares for; but, 'I 'll name the winner,' after all."

Too true. The worthy people who fancy that an innate honesty of purpose can compensate for all the breaches of conventional use, are like the volunteers of an army who refuse to wear its uniform, and are as often picked down by their allies as by their enemies.

CHAPTER III. A PARTIAL RECOVERY AND A RELAPSE

Such a concourse ne'er was seen Of coaches, noddies, cars, and jingles, "Chars-a-bancs," to hold sixteen, And "sulkies," meant to carry singles.

The Pic-nic: A Lay.

It is an old remark that nothing is so stupid as love-letters; and, pretty much in the same spirit, we may affirm that there are few duller topics than festivities. The scenes in which the actor is most interested are, out of compensation, perhaps, those least worthy to record; the very inability of description to render them is disheartening too. One must eternally resort to the effects produced, as evidences of the cause, just as, when we would characterize a climate, we find ourselves obliged to fall back upon the vegetable productions, the fruits and flowers of the seasons, to convey even anything of what we desire. So is it Pleasure has its own atmosphere,--we may breathe, but hardly chronicle it.

These prosings of ours have reference to the gayeties of Tubbermore, which certainly were all that a merry party and an unbounded expenditure could compa.s.s. The style of living was princely in its splendor; luxuries fetched from every land,--the rarest wines of every country, the most exquisite flowers,--all that taste can suggest, and gold can buy, were there; and while the order of each day was maintained with undiminished splendor, every little fancy of the guests was studied with a watchful politeness that marks the highest delicacy of hospitality.

If a bachelor's house be wanting in the gracefulness which is the charm of a family reception, there is a freedom, a degree of liberty in all the movements of the guests, which some would accept as a fair compromise; for, while the men a.s.sume a full equality With their host, the ladies are supreme in all such establishments. Roland Cashel was, indeed, not the man to dislike this kind of democracy; it spared him trouble; it inflicted no tiresome routine of attentions; he was free as the others to follow the bent of his humor, and he asked for no more.

It was without one particle of vulgar pride of wealth that he delighted in the pleasure he saw around him; it was the mere buoyancy of a high-spirited nature. The cost no more entered into his calculations in a personal than a pecuniary sense. A consciousness that he was the source of all that splendid festivity,--that his will was the motive-power of all that complex machinery of pleasure,--increased, but did not const.i.tute, his enjoyment. To see his guests happy, in the various modes they preferred, was his great delight, and, for once, he felt inclined to think that wealth had great privileges.

The display of all which gratified him most was that which usually took place each day after luncheon; when the great s.p.a.ce before the house was thronged with equipages of various kinds and degrees, with saddle-horses and mounted grooms, and amid all the bustle of discussing where to, and with whom, the party issued forth to spend the hours before dinner.

A looker-on would have been amused to watch all the little devices in request, to join this party, to avoid that, to secure a seat in a certain carriage, or to escape from some other; Linton's chief amus.e.m.e.nt being to thwart as many of these plans as he could, and while he packed a sleepy Chief Justice into the same barouche with the gay Kennyf.e.c.k girls, to commit Lady Janet to the care of some dashing dragoon, who did not dare decline the wife of a "Commander of the Forces."

Cashel always joined the party on horseback, so long as Lady Kilgoff kept the house, which she did for the first week of her stay; but when she announced her intention of driving out, he offered his services to accompany her. By the merest accident it chanced that the very day she fixed on for her first excursion was that on which Cashel had determined to try a new and most splendid equipage which had just arrived; it was a phaeton, built in all the costly splendor of the "Regency of the Duke of Orleans,"--one of those gorgeous toys which even a voluptuous age gazed at with wonder. Two jet-black Arabians, of perfect symmetry, drew it, the whole forming a most beautiful equipage.

Exclamations of astonishment and admiration broke from the whole party as the carriage drove up to the door, where all were now standing.

"Whose can it be? Where did it come from? What a magnificent phaeton!

Mr. Cashel, pray tell us all about it. Do, Mr. Linton, give us its history."

"It has none as yet, my dear Mrs. White; that it may have, one of these days, is quite possible."

Lady Janet heard the speech, and nodded significantly in a.s.sent.

"Mr. Linton, you are coming with us, a'n't you?" said a lady's voice from a britzska close by.

"I really don't know how the arrangement is; Cashel said something about my driving Lady Kilgoff."

Lady Kilgoff pressed her lips close, and gathered her mantle together as if by some sudden impulse of temper, but never spoke a word. At the same instant Cashel made his appearance from the house.

"Are you to drive me, Mr. Cashel?" said she, calmly.

"If you will honor me so far," replied he, bowing.

"I fancied you said something to me about being her Ladyship's charioteer," said Linton.

"You must have been dreaming, man," cried Cashel, laughing.

"Will you allow my Lady to choose?" rejoined Linton, jokingly, while he stole at her a look of insolent malice.

Cashel stood uncertain what to say or do in the emergency, when, with a firm and determined voice, Lady Kilgoff said,--

"I must own I have no confidence in Mr. Linton's guidance."

"There, Tom," said Cashel, gayly, "I 'm glad your vanity came in for that."

"I have only to hope that you are in safer conduct, my Lady," said Linton; and he bowed with uncovered head, and then stood gazing after the swift carriage as it hastened down the avenue.

"Is it all true about these Kennyf.e.c.k girls having so much tin'?" said Captain Jennings, as he stroked down his moustache complacently.

"They say five-and-twenty thousand each," said Linton, "and I rather credit the rumor."

"Eh, aw! one might do worse," yawned the hussar, languidly; "I wish they hadn't that confounded accent!" And so he moved off to join the party on horseback.

"You are coming with me, Jemima," said Mr. Downie Meek to his daughter.

"I want to pay a visit to those works at Killaloe, we have so much committee talk in the House on inland navigation. Oh, dear! it is very tiresome."

"Charley says I 'm to go with him, pa; he 's about to try Smasher as a leader, and wants me, if anything goes wrong."

"Oh, dear! quite impossible."

"Yes, yes, Jim, I insist," said Frobisher, in a half-whisper; "never mind the governor."

"Here comes the drag, pa. Oh, how beautiful it looks! There they go, all together; and Smasher, how neatly he carries himself! I say, Charley, he has no fancy for that splinter-bar so near him,--it touches his near hock every instant; would n't it be better to let his trace a hole looser?"

"So it would," said Frobisher; "but get up and hold the ribbons till I have got my gloves on. I say, Linton, keep Downie in chat one moment, until we 're off."