‘Never mind, never mind; he was kind of an uncle, you know—any man might be proud of him. What a glorious fellow!—full of fun, full of spirit and animation. Ah, just like all your countrymen! I’ve a little Irish blood in my veins myself; my mother was an O’Flaherty or an O’Neil, or something of that sort; and there’s Laura—you don’t know my daughter?’ ‘I have not the honour.’
‘Come along, and I’ll introduce you to her; a little reserved or so,’ said he, in a whisper, as if to give me the carte du pays—’ rather cold, you know, to strangers; but when she hears you are the nephew of my old friend Mark—Mark and I were like brothers.—Laura, my love,’ said he, tapping the young lady on her white shoulder as she stood with her back towards us; ‘Laura, dear—-the son of my oldest friend in the world, General O’Leary.’
The young lady turned quickly round, and, as she drew herself up somewhat haughtily, dropped me a low curtsy, and then resumed her conversation with a very much whiskered gentleman near. The colonel seemed, despite all his endeavours to overcome it, rather put out by his daughter’s hauteur to the son of his old friend; and what he would have said or done I know not, but the abbé came suddenly up, and with a card invited me to join a party at whist. The moment was so awkward for all, that I would have accepted an invitation even to écarté to escape from the difficulty, and I followed him into a small boudoir where two ladies were awaiting us. I had just time to see that they were both pleasing-looking, and of that time of life when women, without forfeiting any of the attractions of youth, are much more disposed to please by the attractions of manner and esprit than by mere beauty, when we sat down to our game. La Baronne de Meer, my partner, was the younger and the prettier of the two; she was one of those Flemings into whose families the race of Spain poured the warm current of southern blood, and gave them the dark eye and the olive skin, the graceful figure and the elastic step, so characteristic of their nation.
‘A la bonne heure,’ said she, smiling; ‘have we rescued one from the enchantress?’
‘Yes,’ replied the abbé, with an affected gravity; ‘in another moment he was lost.’
‘If you mean me,’ said I, laughing, ‘I assure you I ran no danger at all; for whatever the young lady’s glances may portend, she seemed very much indisposed to bestow a second on me.’
The game proceeded with its running fire of chitchat, from which I could gather that Mademoiselle Laura was a most established man-killer, no one ever escaping her fascinations save when by some strange fatality they preferred her sister Julia, whose style was, to use the abbé’s phrase, her sister’s ‘diluted.’ There was a tone of pique in the way the ladies criticised the colonel’s daughters, which I have often remarked in those who, accustomed to the attentions of men themselves, without any unusual effort to please on their part, are doubly annoyed when they perceive a rival making more than ordinary endeavours to attract admirers. They feel as a capitalist would, when another millionaire offers money at a lower rate of interest. It is, as it were, a breach of conventional etiquette, and never escapes being severely criticised.
As for me, I had no personal feeling at stake, and looked on at the game of all parties with much amusement.
‘Where is the Comte d’Espagne to-night?’ said the baronne to the abbé. ‘Has he been false?’
‘Not at all; he was singing with mademoiselle when I was in the salon.’