"And you will go to the Barracks for this dance?"
"I will do anything on earth you ask me. You know that too well, I fear, for my peace of mind."
"And you won't be angry with me if I don't dance with you there?"
"No. I promise that, too. Ah! here is Miss Kit coming,—and without the roses,—after all."
It is true she has no roses; she has, indeed, forgotten she even pretended to want them, and has been happy while away with her song and her own thoughts.
"I think, Monica, we ought, perhaps, to be thinking of coming home," she says, apologetically, yet with quite a motherly air. Has she not been mounting guard over and humoring these two giddy young people before her?
"Yes, I think so too;" and the goodness of Kit, and something else, strike her.
"If we are asked to this dance at Clonbree, and if we go, I should like Kit to go too," she says in a soft aside to Desmond, who says, "That is all right: I settled it with Cobbett yesterday," in the same tone; and then a little more energetically, as he sees the moments flying, he goes on, "Before you go, say one thing after me. It will be a small consolation until I see you again. Say, 'Brian, good-by.'"
"Good-by, Brian," she whispers, shyly, and then she draws her hand out of his, and, turning to the studiously inattentive Kit, passes her arm through hers.
"Good-by, Mr. Desmond! I trust we may soon meet again," says the younger Miss Beresford, with rather a grand air, smiling upon him patronizingly.