Monica, in plain white India muslin, is doing nothing, unless smiling now and then at Brian Desmond be anything, who is lying on a bear-skin rug, looking supremely happy and full of life and spirits. He has come over from Coole very early, being generously urged so to do by Madam O'Connor when parting with him last night. Ryde is not on the field, so the day is his own.
Miss Fitzgerald is looking rather handsome, in a dress of the very tiniest check, that is meant for a small woman only, or a child, and so makes her appear several sizes larger than she really is. Ulic Ronayne, standing leaning against the chimney-piece as close to Olga as circumstances will permit, is silent to a fault; and, indeed, every one but Mr. Kelly has succumbed to the damp depression of the air.
They have had only one distraction all day,—the arrival of another guest, a distant cousin of their hostess, who has been lauding her for a week or so. On inspection she proves to be a girl of nineteen, decidedly unprepossessing in appearance,—in fact, as Mr. Murphy, the butler, says to Mrs. Collins, the housekeeper, "as ugly as if she was bespoke."
A tall girl oppressed by freckles and with hair of a deep—well, let us emulate our polite French neighbors and call it blond ardent.
"Who is she?" asks Lord Rossmoyne, who arrived about an hour ago, to Ulic Ronayne's discomfiture.
"She's a fraud!" says Mr. Kelly, indignantly,—"a swindle! Madam assured us, last night, a charming girl was coming, to turn all heads and storm all hearts; and to-day, when we rushed in a body to the window and flattened our noses against the panes to see her, lo! a creature with red hair and pimples——"
"No, no; freckled, my dear Owen," interrupts Olga, indolently.
"It is all the same at a distance! general effect fatal in both cases," says Mr. Kelly, airily. "It makes one positively uncomfortable to look at her. I consider her being thrust upon us like this a deliberate insult. I think if she continues I shall leave."
"Oh, don't," says Desmond, in a tone of agonized entreaty. "How should we manage to get on without you?"
"Badly, badly, I know that," regretfully. "But it is a question of breaking either your hearts or mine. Some of us must go to the wall; it would be unfair to the world to make it me."