Diana instantly struck a treaty with the pertinacious advocate of his claims, to whom, on his relinquishing her, Mr. Sullivan Smith remarked:  ’Oh! sir, the law of it, where a lady’s concerned!  You’re one for evictions, I should guess, and the anti-human process.  It’s that letter of the law that stands between you and me and mine and yours.  But you’ve got your congee, and my blessing on ye!’

‘It was a positive engagement,’ said the enemy.

Mr. Sullivan Smith derided him.  ’And a pretty partner you’ve pickled for yourself when she keeps her positive engagement!’

He besought Lady Dunstane to console him with a turn.  She pleaded weariness.  He proposed to sit beside her and divert her.  She smiled, but warned him that she was English in every vein.  He interjected:  ’Irish men and English women! though it’s putting the cart before the horse—­the copper pennies where the gold guineas should be.  So here’s the gentleman who takes the oyster, like the lawyer of the fable.  English is he?  But we read, the last shall be first.  And English women and Irish men make the finest coupling in the universe.’

‘Well, you must submit to see an Irish woman led out by an English man,’ said Lady Dunstane, at the same time informing the obedient Diana, then bestowing her hand on Mr. Redworth to please her friend, that he was a schoolfellow of her husband’s.

’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.’