‘I missed Parlatti last spring.  What opinion have you formed of her?’

‘I know her only by name at present.’

‘Ah, I fancy you are indifferent to Opera.’

‘Not at all; I enjoy it.  I was as busy then as I am now.’

‘Meetings?  Dorcas, so forth.’

‘Not Dorcas, I assure you.  You might join if you would.’

‘Your most obliged.’

A period perfectly rounded.  At the same time Miss Mattock exchanged a smile with her hostess, of whose benignant designs in handing her to the entertaining officer she was not conscious.  She felt bound to look happy to gratify an excellent lady presiding over the duller half of a table of eighteen.  She turned slightly to Captain O’Donnell.  He had committed himself to speech at last, without tilting his shoulders to exclude the company by devoting himself to his partner, and as he faced the table Miss Mattock’s inclination to listen attracted him.  He cast his eyes on her:  a quiet look, neither languid nor frigid seeming to her both open and uninviting.  She had the oddest little shiver, due to she knew not what.  A scrutiny she could have borne, and she might have read a signification; but the look of those mild clear eyes which appeared to say nothing save that there was fire behind them, hit on some perplexity, or created it; for she was aware of his unhappy passion for the beautiful Miss Adister; the whole story had been poured into her ears; she had been moved by it.  Possibly she had expected the eyes of such a lover to betray melancholy, and his power of containing the expression where the sentiment is imagined to be most transparent may have surprised her, thrilling her as melancholy orbs would not have done.

Captain Con could have thumped his platter with vexation.  His wife’s diplomacy in giving the heiress to Colonel Adister for the evening had received his cordial support while he manoeuvred cleverly to place Philip on the other side of her; and now not a step did the senseless fellow take, though she offered him his chance, dead sick of her man on the right; not a word did he have in ordinary civility; he was a burning disgrace to the chivalry of Erin.  She would certainly be snapped up by a man merely yawning to take the bite.  And there’s another opportunity gone for the old country!—­one’s family to boot!

Those two were in the middle of the table, and it is beyond mortal, beyond Irish, capacity, from one end of a table of eighteen to whip up the whole body of them into a lively unanimous froth, like a dish of cream fetched out of thickness to the airiest lightness.  Politics, in the form of a firebrand or apple of Discord, might knead them together and cut them in batches, only he had pledged his word to his wife to shun politics as the plague, considering Mr. Mattock’s presence.  And yet it was tempting:  the recent Irish news had stung him; he could say sharp things from the heart, give neat thrusts; and they were fairly divided