She broke off for a moment and looked straight before her, as though she saw visions, and when she looked up at me again her dear eyes were dim.

“If things had been otherwise,” she went on, “we need not have shut up the house, with only Maureen’s sister, Bridget, to look after it.  Still, Mary Champion will see to your enjoyment, Bawn; and I am surprised to find how many people yet remember me in Dublin.  You are sure of a hearty welcome for your grandfather’s sake and mine from the old friends.  You will make your own way with the young.  But now, since I have letters to write, Bawn, and they must be long ones, supposing you go yourself this afternoon and call on Lady Ardaragh and the Chenevixes.  You can have the phaeton and drive yourself.  And you can leave cards for me.  My card-case is on the table.”

Now, I thought it quite possible that he might be a guest of the Ardaraghs, who had always people staying with them.  On the other hand, it was a house where I always dreaded to meet Richard Dawson, for I had heard Lady Ardaragh say, when the Dawsons were coming to Damerstown and we were all full of indignation against them, that she for her part was delighted to hear of somebody who had money and that she for one would welcome the Dawsons.

“I think money the one good and desirable thing of all the world,” she had said.

I remember that Sir Arthur, who was present, looked at her in some surprise, and that she repeated the speech with greater emphasis and a heightened colour.  And afterwards my grandmother spoke of her with a certain pitying tenderness, saying to Mary Champion that she was too pretty and too young to be left so much to her own devices.  I overheard the speech by accident, being in the oriel of the library where long ago I had heard my grandmother’s speech to my grandfather concerning me.  My grandmother was fond of Lady Ardaragh and so was I.

I had taken Mickey, my foster-brother who is devoted to me, to hold the pony when I should alight.  Perhaps, also, out of fear that I might meet with Richard Dawson, alone and unprotected.

When we drove up in front of the Ardaraghs’ house the hall door stood open.  There was not a soul in sight; not even a friendly dog came down the steps to greet us, though usually there were half a dozen of them.

I rang and knocked but no one came.  It was five in the afternoon, and I guessed that Lady Ardaragh might be out and the servants at tea somewhere in the back premises.

However, I was not to be put off by an unanswered bell since the door stood open.  I knew my way about the house well, and was on terms of sufficient intimacy to announce myself.

I guessed that the most likely place to find Lady Ardaragh would be the little inner drawing-room of which she had made a boudoir, to which were admitted only her favoured and intimate visitors.