“If I try to do that, we shall certainly have plenty of occupation,” I said, laughing at the prospect with a foolish enjoyment.
“All right, so much the better”—looking at me and laughing too. “By the way, Connie wants to know if you will ride over to Mount Prospect with her and me the day after to-morrow, to pay our respects after the dance.”
“I shall be very glad,” I answered; “I have not had a ride for a long time. Should you mind ringing the bell? We shall want the lamps for the piano.”
“I should mind very much,” he said, without moving from the substantial armchair in which he was sitting. “I think it would be a much better scheme to sit over the fire instead. You were in such an extraordinary hurry to get away from Clashmore the day before yesterday, that you did not give me time for more than half the smart things I had prepared to say about the Jackson-Crolys’ dance.”
“Very well,” I said, dragging out a little old-fashioned, glass-beaded footstool, and settling myself comfortably with my feet on it in front of the fire. “You can begin now, and say them all one after the other, and by the time you have got through I shall have got my smile ready.”
“You are very hard upon me. You should remember that my bon-mots are exceedingly fragile flowers—kind of hothouse exotics—and they require the most sympathetic attention. You ought to try to encourage native talent, even if it does not come up to your American standard of humour.”
“I don’t know exactly what that is,” I replied; “but I assure you that that dance does not require any embellishments. The only thing needful in describing it is the solid truth.”
“You must not fancy that all our county Cork entertainments are on the Mount Prospect pattern,” he said, a little anxiously. “I dare say you think we are all savages, but we don’t often have a war-dance like that.”
“Well,” I said, checking an inclination to sigh as the thought crossed my mind, “I shall always be glad that I saw at least one before I went back to America.”
He got up and put down his cup; then, drawing his unwieldy chair closer to me before sitting down, “But you are not thinking of going back to America?” he said slowly.