‘Well, I’ll take my oath,’ pursued Puddock, ’you couldn’t have made a better dinner at the Prince of Travendahl’s table.  Spanish olea, if you please—­ragou royal, cardoons, tendrons, shellfish in marinade, ruffs and rees, wheat-ears, green morels, fat livers, combs and notts.  ’Tis rather odd, Sir, to us who employ them, to learn that our tailors, while we’re eating the dinners we do—­our tailors, Sir, are absolutely gorging themselves with such things—­with our money, by Jove!’

‘Yours, Puddock, not mine,’ said Devereux.  ’I haven’t paid a tailor these six years.  But, hang it, let’s get on.’

So, in they walked by the barrack-yard, lighted up now with a splendid red blaze of torches, and with different emotions, entered the already crowded ball-room.

Devereux looked round the room, among nodding plumes and flashing brilliants, and smirking old bucks, and simpering young ones, amidst the buzz of two or three hundred voices, and the thunder and braying of the band.  There were scores of pretty faces there—­blondes and brunettes—­blue eyes and brown—­and more spirit and animation, and, I think, more grace too, in dance and talk, than the phlegmatic affectation of modern days allows; and there were some bright eyes that, not seeming to look, yet recognised, with a little thrill at the heart, and a brighter flush, the brilliant, proud Devereux—­so handsome, so impulsive, so unfathomable—­with his gipsy tint, and great enthusiastic eyes, and strange melancholy, sub-acid smile.  But to him the room was lifeless, and the hour was dull, and the music but a noise and a jingle.

’I knew quite well she wasn’t here, and she never cared for me, and I—­why should I trouble my head about her?  She makes her cold an excuse.  Well, maybe yet she’ll wish to see Dick Devereux, and I far away.  No matter.  They’ve heard slanders of me, and believe them.  Amen, say I. If they’re so light of faith, and false in friendship to cast me off for a foul word or an idle story—­curse it—­I’m well rid of that false and foolish friendship, and can repay their coldness and aversion with a light heart, a bow, and a smile.  One slander I’ll refute—­yes—­and that done, I’ll close this idle episode in my cursed epic, and never, never think of her again.’

But fancy will not be controlled by resolutions, though ne’er so wise and strong, and precisely as the captain vowed ’never’—­away glided that wild, sad sprite across the moonlit river, and among the old black elms, and stood unbidden beside Lilias.  Little Lily, as they used to call her five years ago; and Devereux, who seemed to look so intently and so strangely on the flash and whirl of the dancers, saw but an old fashioned drawing-room, with roses clustering by the windows, and heard the sweet rich voice, to him the music of Ariel, like a far-off dirge—­a farewell—­sometimes a forgiveness—­and sometimes the old pleasant talk and merry little laugh, all old remembrances or vain dreams now.