"Rash boy!" says Kelly, with a sigh. "As you refuse to hearken to the voice of common sense, and afflict yourself with a megrim, I leave you to your fate."
So saying, he turns aside, and, having gone a step or two, finds himself face to face with Miss Beresford.
"This dance is ours," he says, mendaciously, knowing well this is the first time they have met this evening.
Monica laughs: to be angry with so sad a visaged man as Owen Kelly would be a cruelty.
"I am glad of it," she says, "because I do not want to dance at all; and I think you will not mind sitting with me and talking to me for a little while."
"You remember me then?" he says, shifting his glass from one eye to the other, and telling himself she is as pretty as she is wise.
"I think so," shyly, yet with a merry glance; "you are that Master O'Kelly, of Kelly Grove, county Antrim, who is the bright and shining light of the Junior Bar."
"You do indeed know me," returns he, mildly.
"'Thy modesty's a candle to thy merit,'" quotes she, wickedly, in a low tone.
At this he smiles sadly (a luxury he rarely permits himself), and, taking up her hand, lays it on his arm.