The evening wore on, but the vigour of the party seemed unabated. The fatigues of fashionable life seemed to be as little known in Ireland as its apathy and its ennui Poor, benighted people! you appear to enjoy society, not as a refuge for your own weariness, not as an escape-valve for your own vapours, but really as a source of pleasurable emotions—an occasion for drawing closer the bonds of intimacy, for being agreeable to your friends, and for making yourselves happy. Alas! you have much to learn in this respect; you know not yet how preferable is the languid look of blasé beauty to the brilliant eye and glowing cheek of happy girlhood; you know not how superior is the cutting sarcasm, the whispered equivoque, to the kind welcome and the affectionate greeting; and while enjoying the pleasure of meeting your friends, you absolutely forget to be critical upon their characters or their costume!
What a pity it is that good-nature is underbred, and good-feeling is vulgarity; for, after all, while I contrasted the tone of everything around me with the supercilious cant and unimpassioned coldness of London manners, I could not but confess to myself that the difference was great and the interval enormous. To which side my own heart inclined, it needed not my affection for Louisa Bellew to tell me; yes, I had seen enough of life to learn how far are the real gifts of worth and excellence preferable to the adventitious polish of high society. While these thoughts rushed through my mind, another flashed across it. What if my lady-mother were here! What if my proud cousin! How would her dark eyes brighten as some absurd or ludicrous feature of the company would suggest its mot of malice or its speech of sarcasm! how would their air, their carriage, their deportment, appear in her sight! I could picture to myself the cold scorn of her manner towards the men, the insulting courtesy of her demeanour to the women; the affected naïveté with which she would question them as to their everyday habits, and habitudes, their usages and their wants, as though she were inquiring into the manners and customs of South Sea Islanders! I could imagine the ineffable scorn with which she would receive what were meant to be kind and polite attentions; and I could fashion to myself her look, her manner, and her voice when escaping, as she would call it, from her Nuit parmi les sauvages, she would caricature every trait, every feature of the party, converting into food for laughter their frank and hospitable bearing, and making their very warmth of heart the groundwork of a sarcasm.
The ball continued with unabated vigour, and as, in obedience to Miss Bellew's request, I could not again ask her to dance, I myself felt little inclination to seek for another partner. The practice of the place seemed, however, as imperatively to exclude idleness as the discipline of a man-of-war. If you were not dancing you ought to be playing cards, making love, drinking negus, or exchanging good stories with some motherly, fat, old lady, too heavy for a reel, too stupid for loo. In this dilemma I cut into a round game, which I remember often to have seen at Rooney's, technically called 'speculation.' A few minutes before, and I was fancying to myself what my mother would think of all this; and now, as I drew my chair to the table, I muttered a prayer to my own heart that she might never hear of my doings. How strange it is that we would much rather be detected in some overt act of vice than caught in any ludicrous situation or absurd position! I could look my friends and family steadily enough in the face while standing amid all the blacklegs of Epsom and the swindlers of Ascot, exchanging with them the courtesies of life, and talking on terms of easy and familiar intercourse; yet would I rather have been seen with the veriest pickpocket in fashionable life, than seated amid that respectable and irreproachable party who shook their sides with laughter around the card-table!
Truly, it was a merry game, and well suited for a novice, as it required no teaching. Each person had his three cards dealt him, one of which was displayed to the company in rotation. Did this happen to be a knave or some other equally reproachful character, the owner was mulcted to the sum of fivepence; and he must indeed have had a miser's heart who could regret a penalty so provocative of mirth. Often as the event took place, the fun never seemed to grow old; and from the exuberance of the delight, and the unceasing flow of the laughter, I began to wonder within myself if these same cards had not some secret and symbolic meaning unknown to the neophyte. But the drollery did not end here: you might sell your luck and put up your hand to auction. This led to innumerable droll allusions and dry jokes, and, in fact, if ever a game was contrived to make one's sides ache, this was it.
A few sedate and sober people there were, who, with bent brow and pursed-up lip, watched the whole proceeding. They were the secret police of the card-table; it was in vain to attempt to conceal your luckless knave from their prying eyes; with the glance of a tax-collector they pounced upon the defaulter, and made him pay. Barely or never smiling themselves, they really felt all the eagerness, all the excitement of gambling; and I question if, after all, their hard looks and stern features were not the best fun of the whole.
After about two hours had been thus occupied, during which I had won the esteem and affection of several elderly ladies by the equanimity and high-mindedness with which I bore up against the loss of two whole baskets of counters, amounting to the sum of four-and-sixpence, I felt my shoulder gently touched, and at the same moment Bob Mahon whispered in my ear—'The Dillons are going, and he wants to speak a word with you; so give me your cards, and slip away.'
Resigning my place to the Major, whose advent was received with evident signs of dissatisfaction, inasmuch as he was a shrewd player, I hurried through the room to find out Dillon.
'Ah, here he is!' said Miss Bellew to her uncle, while she pointed to me. 'How provoking to go away so early—isn't it, Mr. Hinton?'
'You, doubtless, feel it so,' said I, with something of pique in my manner; 'your evening has been so agreeably passed.'
'And yours, too, if I am to judge from the laughter of your card-table. I am sure I never heard so noisy a party. Well, Mary, does he consent?'