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.