‘But twenty thousand pounds would settle a great deal.’

The little Marquis was conscious of annihilation, and he sought to escape Mrs. Barton as he might a piece of falling rock.  With a desperate effort he said: 

’Yes, Mrs. Barton—­yes, I agree with you, twenty thousand pounds is a great deal of money; but I think we had better wait until the Lords have passed the new Coercion Bill—­say nothing more about this—­leave it an open question.’

And on this eminently unsatisfactory answer the matter ended; even Mrs. Barton saw she could not, at least for the present, continue to press it.  Still she did not give up hope.  ’Try on to the end; we never know that it is not the last little effort that will win the game,’ was the aphorism with which she consoled her daughter, and induced her to write to Lord Kilcarney.  And almost daily he received from her flowers, supposed to be emblematical of the feeling she entertained for him; and for these Alice was sometimes ordered to compose verses and suitable mottoes.

XXIII

But Lord Kilcarney’s replies to these letters seldom consisted of more than a few well-chosen words, and he often allowed a week, and sometimes a fortnight, to elapse before answering at all.  Olive—­too vain and silly to understand the indifference with which she was treated—­whined and fretted less than might have been expected.  She spent a great deal of her time with Barnes, who fed her with scandal and flattery.  But a storm was about to break, and in August it was known, without any possibility of a doubt, that the Marquis was engaged to Violet Scully, and that their marriage was settled for the autumn.

And this marriage, and the passing of the Bill for the Prevention of Crime, were the two interests present in the mind of Irish landlordism during the summer of ’82.  Immediately the former event was publicly announced, every girl in Dublin ran to her writing desk to confirm to her friends and relatives the truth of the news which for the last two months she had so resolutely anticipated.  The famous Bertha, the terror of the debutantes, rushed to Brookfield, but she did not get there before the Brennans, and the result was a meeting of these families of girls in Mrs. Barton’s drawing-room.  Gladys was, however, the person chosen by God and herself to speak the wonderful words: 

‘Of course you have heard the news, Mrs. Barton?’

‘No,’ replied Mrs. Barton, a little nervously; ‘what is it?’

‘Oh yes, what is it?’ exclaimed Olive.  ‘Anyone going to be married?’

‘Yes.  Can you guess?’

‘No; tell me quick . . . no, do tell me.  Are you going to be married?’

Had Olive been suddenly dowered with the wit of Congreve she could not have contrived an answer that would have shielded her better from the dart that Gladys was preparing to hurl.  The girl winced; and divining the truth in a moment of inspiration, Mrs. Barton said: