‘One broken-backed, both unwashed! O, the sincerity of the resistance I overheard! No gentleman admitted, forsooth! O, for a lodge in some vast wilderness! Yes; St. Anthony would have found it a wilderness indeed without his temptations. What would St. Dunstan have been minus the black gentleman’s nose, or St. Kevin but for Kathleen? It was a fortunate interposition that Calthorp turned up the day before I came, or I might have had to drag the lake for you.’
This personal attack only made her persist. ‘It was very different when we were alone or with you; you know very well that there could have been no objection.’
‘No objection on your side, certainly, so I perceive; but suppose there were no desire on the other?’
‘Oh!’ in a piqued voice, ‘I know many men don’t care for ladies’ society, but I don’t see why they should be nameless.’
‘I thought you would deem such a name unworthy to be mentioned.’
‘Well, but who is the shy man? Is it the little Henniker, who used to look as if he would dive under the table when you brought him from Westminster?’
‘If I told you, you would remember it against the poor creature for life, as a deliberate insult and want of taste. Good night.’
He took his hat, and went out, leaving Lucy balancing her guesses between Ensign Henniker and him whom she could not mention. Her rejection of Mr. Calthorp might have occasioned the present secrecy, and she was content to leave herself the pleasant mystery, in the hope of having it dispelled by her last glance of Kingstown quay.
In that hope, she rocked herself to sleep, and next morning was so extra vivacious as to be a sore trial to poor Rashe, in the anticipation of the peine forte et dure of St. George’s Channel. Owen was also in high spirits, but a pattern of consideration and kind attention, as he saw the ladies on board, and provided for their comfort, not leaving them till the last moment.
Lucilla’s heart had beaten fast from the moment she had reached Kingstown; she was keeping her hand free to wave a most encouraging kiss, and as her eye roamed over the heads upon the quay without a recognition, she felt absolutely baffled and cheated; and gloriously as the Bay of Dublin spread itself before her, she was conscious only of wrath and mortification, and of a bitter sense of dreariness and desertion. Nobody cared for her, not even her brother!