“Quadrilles!  Quadrilles!”

Close on her heels came Aunt Kate, crying: 

“Two gentlemen and three ladies, Mary Jane!”

“O, here’s Mr. Bergin and Mr. Kerrigan,” said Mary Jane.  “Mr. Kerrigan, will you take Miss Power?  Miss Furlong, may I get you a partner, Mr. Bergin.  O, that’ll just do now.”

“Three ladies, Mary Jane,” said Aunt Kate.

The two young gentlemen asked the ladies if they might have the pleasure, and Mary Jane turned to Miss Daly.

“O, Miss Daly, you’re really awfully good, after playing for the last two dances, but really we’re so short of ladies tonight.”

“I don’t mind in the least, Miss Morkan.”

“But I’ve a nice partner for you, Mr. Bartell D’Arcy, the tenor.  I’ll get him to sing later on.  All Dublin is raving about him.”

“Lovely voice, lovely voice!” said Aunt Kate.

As the piano had twice begun the prelude to the first figure Mary Jane led her recruits quickly from the room.  They had hardly gone when Aunt Julia wandered slowly into the room, looking behind her at something.

“What is the matter, Julia?” asked Aunt Kate anxiously.  “Who is it?”

Julia, who was carrying in a column of table-napkins, turned to her sister and said, simply, as if the question had surprised her: 

“It’s only Freddy, Kate, and Gabriel with him.”

In fact right behind her Gabriel could be seen piloting Freddy Malins across the landing.  The latter, a young man of about forty, was of Gabriel’s size and build, with very round shoulders.  His face was fleshy and pallid, touched with colour only at the thick hanging lobes of his ears and at the wide wings of his nose.  He had coarse features, a blunt nose, a convex and receding brow, tumid and protruded lips.  His heavy-lidded eyes and the disorder of his scanty hair made him look sleepy.  He was laughing heartily in a high key at a story which he had been telling Gabriel on the stairs and at the same time rubbing the knuckles of his left fist backwards and forwards into his left eye.

“Good-evening, Freddy,” said Aunt Julia.

Freddy Malins bade the Misses Morkan good-evening in what seemed an offhand fashion by reason of the habitual catch in his voice and then, seeing that Mr. Browne was grinning at him from the sideboard, crossed the room on rather shaky legs and began to repeat in an undertone the story he had just told to Gabriel.

“He’s not so bad, is he?” said Aunt Kate to Gabriel.

Gabriel’s brows were dark but he raised them quickly and answered: 

“O, no, hardly noticeable.”

“Now, isn’t he a terrible fellow!” she said.  “And his poor mother made him take the pledge on New Year’s Eve.  But come on, Gabriel, into the drawing-room.”

Before leaving the room with Gabriel she signalled to Mr. Browne by frowning and shaking her forefinger in warning to and fro.  Mr. Browne nodded in answer and, when she had gone, said to Freddy Malins: