’Favour can’t help coming by rotation, except in very extraordinary circumstances, and he was ahead of me with you, and takes my due, and ‘twould be hard on me if I weren’t thoroughly indemnified.’  Mr. Sullivan Smith bowed.  ’You gave them just the start over the frozen minute for conversation; they were total strangers, and he doesn’t appear a bad sort of fellow for a temporary mate, though he’s not perfectly sure of his legs.  And that we’ll excuse to any man leading out such a fresh young beauty of a Bright Eyes—­like the stars of a winter’s night in the frosty season over Columkill, or where you will, so that’s in Ireland, to be sure of the likeness to her.’

‘Her mother was half English.’

’Of course she was.  And what was my observation about the coupling?  Dan Merion would make her Irish all over.  And she has a vein of Spanish blood in her; for he had; and she’s got the colour.—­But you spoke of their coupling—­or I did.  Oh, a man can hold his own with an English roly-poly mate:  he’s not stifled!  But a woman hasn’t his power of resistance to dead weight.  She’s volatile, she’s frivolous, a rattler and gabbler—­haven’t I heard what they say of Irish girls over there?  She marries, and it’s the end of her sparkling.  She must choose at home for a perfect harmonious partner.’

Lady Dunstane expressed her opinion that her couple danced excellently together.

’It’d be a bitter thing to see, if the fellow couldn’t dance, after leading her out!’ sighed Mr. Sullivan Smith.  ’I heard of her over there.  They, call her the Black Pearl, and the Irish Lily—­because she’s dark.  They rack their poor brains to get the laugh of us.’

‘And I listen to you,’ said Lady Dunstane.

’Ah! if all England, half, a quarter, the smallest piece of the land were like you, my lady, I’d be loyal to the finger-nails.  Now, is she engaged?—­when I get a word with her?’

’She is nineteen, or nearly, and she ought to have five good years of freedom, I think.’

‘And five good years of serfdom I’d serve to win her!’

A look at him under the eyelids assured Lady Dunstane that there would be small chance for Mr. Sullivan Smith; after a life of bondage, if she knew her Diana, in spite of his tongue, his tact, his lively features, and breadth of shoulders.

Up he sprang.  Diana was on Mr. Redworth’s arm.  ‘No refreshments,’ she said; and ‘this is my refreshment,’ taking the seat of Mr. Sullivan Smith, who ejaculated,

‘I must go and have that gentleman’s name.’  He wanted a foe.

’You know you are ready to coquette with the General at any moment, Tony,’ said her friend.

‘Yes, with the General!’

‘He is a noble old man.’

’Superb.  And don’t say “old man.”  With his uniform and his height and his grey head, he is like a glorious October day just before the brown leaves fall.’

Diana hummed a little of the air of Planxty Kelly, the favourite of her childhood, as Lady Dunstane well remembered, they smiled together at the scenes and times it recalled.