“Ah, sure you’re right, your Ladyship,” Neil returned.  “Sure God send it!  Wouldn’t we be all young again if that was to happen?”

CHAPTER XII

THE ENEMY

My grandmother asked me no more of the gentleman who had come to my help in the wood.  Being old she forgot easily, and, besides, she was absorbed in these days in the preparations for my going to Dublin.

For the moment my own interest in the great matter had waned.  I used to like to slip away from the perpetual fitting on of garments to ride or drive about the roads outside the Abbey.  I was afraid now to walk in unfrequented places, lest I should meet with Richard Dawson; and there are few places in the neighbourhood of Aghadoe which are frequented.  I grew quite zealous about afternoon calls, and would remind my grandmother of her neglect of her social duties, a matter which had never troubled me before.

“Why, what has come to you, Bawn?” she asked at length.  “You have always been unwilling to make calls before, from the time you were a little girl of six, and I thought it would be a fine thing to take you and Theobald in the barouche to call on Mrs. Langdale, but when I looked for you I could find you nowhere and afterwards I discovered that you had both hidden in the loft in the stable-yard.  Well, I suppose you are growing up and this is a sign of it.”

I did not undeceive her.  I had always abhorred the afternoon calls and the dinner-parties, and most of the other social functions to which I had gone; but now it was another matter.  To be sure, when I made my calls I had always the dread of meeting Richard Dawson; but then on the other hand there was always the chance that I might meet that other.

Although he had told me nothing it was certain that he must be staying at some of the houses of the neighbourhood.  All I wonder at was that I heard nothing of him when I made my various calls, for even very slight matters, very unimportant and uninteresting persons, are the subject of much discussion in our drawing-rooms, since we see so little of the outside world.  And he was not unimportant, not uninteresting.  I should have thought they would have talked of nothing else.

My grandmother was very busy in these days.  All the old friendships which she had let slip were to be taken up again for me.  She spent much time at her desk, and the postbag for the Abbey began to contain many delicate, fragrant epistles.

“I am only sorry, Bawn,” she said, looking up at me over her shoulder as I stood behind her chair, “that we cannot open the town-house for you and give a ball for you there.  It is what ought to be done, but, of course, it is out of the question.  But you must go and see the house, child.  It has glorious memories.  It is very much impoverished now, and it will be all in dust and darkness; but there the best blood and brains, aye, and hearts of Ireland, used to come.  There came Grattan, and Burke, and Flood, and Lord Charlemont.  And there came poor Pamela Fitzgerald and her Edward.  All that was beautiful and witty in the Ireland of those days moved through the rooms which you will find dark and dusty.”