“Oh,” said Miss Mimi, jovially, “we all know that Jimmy has an eye for a pretty girl! I thought,” she continued, addressing Miss Dennehy, “they were very bad about introducing people the other night. Didn’t you, Aggie?”
“Really, I didn’t notice it, Miss Burke; but I heard a great many complaining about it, and I know the Croly girls like to keep their gentlemen friends to themselves,” Miss Dennehy replied.
“Well,” said Miss Horan, “I saw Sissy Croly yesterday, and she said that, indeed, she was introducing gentlemen all the evening. Oh, and she was mad with the O’Neills! She said that Connie O’Neill thought no one good enough to dance with but that officer they had staying at Clashmore; and as for Mr. O’Neill, he pretended he was engaged for every dance, and her fawther”—it was thus that Miss Horan pronounced “father”—“found him, after supper, sitting in the library reading the paper.”
“Oh, I dare say,” said Miss Dennehy. “I know he was engaged to me for the last extra, and as he didn’t choose to come for it, I didn’t choose to wait for him; did I, Captain Sarsfield?”
Mrs. Burke’s continuous twitter of talk did not so engross me that I could not hear all this, and remember that it was Willy who, after his unavailing search for me, had become Nugent’s substitute, and something in the rigid twist of his neck away from my direction told me that he too had not forgotten the antecedents of that dance. Since her last speech Mrs. Barrett had been as silent as she was motionless. I should almost have thought she was asleep, but her eyes wandered to each person’s face as they spoke, and somehow suggested to me the idea of an intelligent restless spirit imprisoned in a featherbed. She now saved Willy the necessity of replying.
“I wonder why the young ladies in this country are so anxious to dance with Nugent O’Neill, as they all abominate him so much?” she inquired solemnly.
Miss Horan and Miss Dennehy looked speechlessly round for sympathy at this accusation, but before their indignation found words, a diversion was created by the entrance of Mrs. Jackson-Croly and her daughters. Miss Sissy Croly lingered at the door to speak to some one in the hall. I recognized the voice which replied to her, though I could not hear the words, and some instinct of self-defence made me rush into conversation with Jimmy Barrett before Nugent followed Miss Croly into the room.
Since the day I had gone into Moycullen I had been slowly and, as I thought, successfully hardening my heart. I had made a mistake, but it was not an irretrievable one, and here was an opportunity of proving to myself how little it had really affected me. So I talked sedulously to Mr. Jimmy Barrett, until, Mrs. Croly’s greetings to the Burkes over, manners demanded that I should shake hands with her. Nugent was standing near, speaking to Miss Burke, and as I turned from Mrs. Croly he paused in his conversation.
“How do you do, Miss Sarsfield?” he said formally; then, after a moment’s silence, he spoke again to Miss Burke—“Yes, I was to have started off yesterday, but I could not manage it, and I thought I should like to see you before I go, as I may not be back again for some time.”
“Why, every one is going away from the country!” said Miss Mimi, directing her discourse to me. “Willy was saying, now this minute, that he was afraid you were thinking of being off too?”