“Yes, Mrs. Rourke,” said my uncle’s voice from behind me, in tones of unusual affability, “I think we have no reason to be ashamed of our representatives.”
I was beginning to feel that I could bear this dreadful ceremonial no longer, when, with sincere inward thanksgiving, I heard the grinding of wheels on the gravel.
“There is the carriage,” I said, turning to Willy, who had all this time been silently holding up the lamp; “do put down that thing, and get me my cloak.”
My uncle himself put my wraps upon me, and stood with me in the open doorway while Roche laid a strip of carpet down the wet steps. As I stood waiting in the doorway, I saw a woman standing in the rain, just outside the circle of light thrown from the carriage lamps. She pressed forward a little as I came down the steps, and then drew quickly back with what sounded like a sob. The momentary gleam of the carriage lights had shown me who it was.
“Willy,” I said, as we drove away, “did you see Anstey Brian standing there? I am almost sure she was crying. What could have been the matter with her?”
“You must have made a mistake,” he said; “maybe it wasn’t Anstey at all. Anyhow, if she wants to cry, there’s no need for her to go and stand out there in the rain to do it.”
He spoke with an annoyance that puzzled me. I was quite certain that I had seen Anstey; but, remembering that for some reason the subject of Moll Hourihane and her daughter had always been an unfortunate one with Willy and my uncle, I said no more.
We had been asked to the Jackson-Crolys’ for nine o’clock, but, although it was not much more than half-past when the Clashmore carriage arrived at Mount Prospect, several heated couples whom we encountered in the hall were proof that the dancing had already been going on for some time. On coming down from the cloak-room, we saw at the foot of the stairs a small, bald-headed gentleman, moving in an agitated way from leg to leg, and apparently engaged in alternately putting on and taking off his gloves.
“That’s Mr. Jackson-Croly,” whispered Connie, rapidly; “he’s an odious little being! Don’t dance with him if you can possibly help it. I always tell lies to escape him; I lose less self-respect in that way than by dancing with him.”
She had no time to say more, as Madam O’Neill had by this time advanced upon our host with a benignity of aspect born of the consciousness of a singularly becoming cap and generally successful toilette. For a moment I thought he was going to make her a courtesy, so low was his reverence on shaking hands with her.