'Your pretty daughter's going to faint,' whispered the admiral to the dowager. 'Such sights as I provided for you this morning are all very well for males; but females--except Spaniards and low-class Frenchwomen--don't care about such things. She supervised the dressing of the wounds--Heaven bless her! 'Twas a strain on a delicate nature. She looks ill and overwrought.'
The countess remarked curtly that Sir Borlase was very good, without condescending to explain that the girl was not her daughter. She knew well the cause of the poor maiden's anguish, and felt both for him and her. The constant contemplation of late of her own private spectre had softened her. Terence on a gallows, who, but for circumstances over which his mother had control, might have ended so differently, was burned on her brain as a scathing reproach for ever. Theobald, whom she was used to contemplate as a crackbrained enthusiast, assumed a new interest in her eyes. There was about him a deep-seated hopelessness which is a gruesome sight in a man of thirty-six, and the contemplation of it struck a chord of sympathy in her. The case of Terence she shrank from considering at all. But this young man whose existence was no reproach: she might feel pity for him without stabbing her own soul with red-hot daggers by the impulse.
Things were going as smoothly as could be expected. Shane's little party had developed into a banquet which would become historical. Her firstborn would receive honours from the King which should counterbalance the disgrace wherewith the second seemed destined to endow his family. The French prisoners of war would be exchanged in time, returning to the bosoms of their distracted loves unhurt. There was nothing really, my lady decided in her mind, to make her niece break down, who was wont to be so unduly self-reliant. She looked like a corpse. My lady, who formerly was discomfited in hand-to-hand encounters, began to wonder whether she might conquer after all, and bring about the match for which she yearned.
At the other end of the long table Cassidy kept the company in a roar. Now that he shilly-shallied no longer, his native spirits had come back to him. His jests were racy, of the soil, and coarse--just such as could be appreciated by squireens who were far enough removed from the grandees to give free rein to their hilarity. They voted him the funniest dog; threw themselves forward in a 'Haw-haw!' and flung themselves back with a 'Hee-hee!' slapped their kerseymere shorts; wagged their heads, and giggled, without any tremor now as to the sit of pigtails over high collars. Would the radiant boy come and stop at Letterkenny? He should have the run of the barracks; should be free to go peasant-baiting whensoever he listed. Horses should become his without regard to whom they belonged. His life should be one round of jollity and junketing, if he only would come and sit down at Letterkenny.
'Ah, now, lads, be asy!' he cried, betwixt two sallies. 'Do yez think the likes o' me can stop up here? It's Dublin that's crying for me this blessed minute, and won't be comforted. To Dublin I return to-morrow. Good luck to yez for kind wishes, though. By my sowl, and if there isn't a friend up yonder on whom I've not clapped eyes this long time!'
The repast was over. The countess was sweeping the crumbs out of her lap preparatory to leaving the gentlemen to the superior attractions of the bottle, when she perceived Cassidy, glass in hand, making his way along to the upper end where she sat enthroned. Doreen perceived him too, and losing all self-control, dropped her head upon the table with a moan.
'Mr. Wolfe Tone, I think?' Cassidy shouted out in his big voice. 'Bedad, ye're welcome home! It's long since we met.'
The shade of Banquo broke up with no greater quickness the feast of King Macbeth than did this guileless little speech the party of Lord Glandore. The squireens rose to their feet with one accord; craned out their necks, with jaws dropped and eyes goggling.
Hesitating but for a second, Theobald threw down his cards.
'My name is Theobald Wolfe Tone!' he admitted calmly, and stood waiting for what would follow.