"Well, sir," she cried gaily, making him a low curtsey, "we have broken the law between us, and I thank you heartily for your share in the offence against its majesty. Would to God that Admiral Byng could have been saved as easily!"
"You have a generous heart, madam—a heart too easily moved, perhaps, by human miseries, and I tremble for its impulses, while I admire its warmth and courage. You have never been absent from my thoughts since that morning in Sally's garret. Indeed, what man living could forget a scene so incongruous—yet—so beautiful?"
His voice faltered towards the end, and he leant against the late lord's tall armchair.
"You have not been kind in keeping away from me so long, when I was dying to give expression to my gratitude."
"Be sure my recompense was having obliged you. 'Twas superfluous to thank me. I have been very busy. I had arrears of work, and I knew all your hours were engaged."
"Sure there must always be something to do in a town full of people."
She was playing with the great white bird, smoothing his fluffy topknot, ruffling the soft saffron feathers round his neck, tempting him with the pink tips of taper fingers, flashing rose-coloured light from her diamond rings, whose splendour covered the slender hoop of gold with which Kilrush married her.
"You have been entertaining the Duke of Cumberland, I hear."
"Billy the Butcher! That's what my father and I used to call him, when we concocted Jacobite paragraphs for Lloyd's Evening Post. Yes, Mr. Stobart, I have been entertaining royalty for the first time in my life. The honour was not my own seeking either, for his royal highness challenged me to invite him."
"He would not be so much out of the fashion as not to be among your adorers."