Mrs. Winstanley’s little dinner went off smoothly and pleasantly, as all such entertainments had done under the new régime. The Captain knew how to select his guests, as well as he knew how to compose a menu. People felt pleased with themselves and with their neighbours at his table. There was nothing heavy in the dinner or in the conversation; there were no long sittings over old port or particular claret. The wines were of the first quality; but there was no fuss made about them. Colonel Carteret remembered how he and the Squire had sat prosing over their port or Chateau Lafitte, and felt as if he were living in a new world — a world in which full-blooded friendship and boisterous hospitality were out of fashion. People whose talk had hitherto been intensely local — confined, for the most part to petty sessions, commoners’ rights, hunting, and the parish church and schools — found themselves discussing the widest range of topics, from the prospect of a European war — that European war which has been impending more or less distinctly for the last twenty years — to the latest social scandal in the upper currents of London society. Captain and Mrs. Winstanley’s country friends, inspired by one or two clever young men just imported from the London clubs, were surprised to discover how well they were able to criticise the latest productions in literature, art, and the drama; the newest results of scientific investigation; or the last record of African or Central Asian exploration. It was quite delightful to quiet country people, who went to London on an average once in three years, to find themselves talking so easily about the last famous picture, the latest action for libel in artistic circles, or the promised adaptation of Sardou’s last comedy at a West End theatre, just as glibly as if they knew all about art, and had read every play of Sardou’s.

Roderick Vawdrey enjoyed himself wonderfully at this particular dinner-party, so long as the dinner lasted; for Captain Winstanley, by an oversight which made him inwardly savage all dinner-time, had placed Mr. Vawdrey and Miss Tempest side by side. There had been some confusion in his mind as he finished his plan of the table; his attention having been called away at the last moment, or this thing could not have happened — for nothing was farther from Captain Winstanley’s intention than that Violet and her old playfellow should be happy in each other’s society. And there they sat, smiling and sparkling at each other in the exuberance of youth and high spirits, interchanging little confidential remarks that were doubtless to the disparagement of some person or persons in the assembly. If dark electric glances shot from the covert of bent brows could have slain those two happy triflers, assuredly neither of them would have lived to the end of that dinner.

“How do you like him?” asked Rorie, stooping to sniff at the big Maréchal Niel bud, in the specimen glass by his plate.

“Whom?”

“The man who has Bullfinch.”

Lord Mallow was in the place of honour next his hostess. Involuntarily Violet glanced in that direction, and was startled to find the Irishman’s good-humoured gaze meeting hers, just as if he had been watching her for the last half-hour.

“How do I like him? Well, he seems very good-natured.”

“Seems good-natured. You ought to be able to give me a more definite answer by this time. You have lived in the same house with him — let me see, is it three or four days since he came?”

“He has been here nearly a week.”

“A week! Why then you must know him as well as if he were your brother. There is no man living who could keep himself dark for a week. No; I don’t believe the most inscrutable of men, born and bred in diplomatic circles, could keep the secret of a solitary failing from the eyes of those who live under the same roof with him for seven days. It would leak out somehow — if not at breakfast, at dinner. Man is a communicative animal, and so loves talking of himself that if he has committed murder he must tell somebody about it sooner or later. And as to that man,” continued Rorie, with a contemptuous glance at the single-minded Lord Mallow, “he is a creature whom the merest beginner in the study of humanity would know by heart in half-an-hour.”

“What do you know about him?” asked Vixen laughing. “You have had more than half-an-hour for the study of his character.”

“I know ever so much more than I want to know.”

“Answered like a Greek oracle.”

“What, have you taken to reading Greek?”

“No; but I know the oracles were a provoking set of creatures who answered every inquiry with an enigma. But I won’t have you abuse Lord Mallow. He has been very kind to Bullfinch, and has promised me that he will never part with him. The dear old horse is to have a comfortable stable and kindly treatment to his dying day — not to be sent out to grass in his old age, to shiver in a dreary solitude, or to be scorched by the sun and tormented by the flies.”

“He has promised all that, has he? He would promise a good deal more, I daresay,” muttered Rorie, stooping over his rosebud. “Do you think him handsome? Do women admire a fresh complexion and black whiskers, and that unmistakable air of a hairdresser’s wax model endowed with animation?”

“I see you consider him an idiot,” said Vixen laughing. “But I assure you he is rather clever. He talks wonderfully about Ireland, and the reforms he is going to bring about for her.”

“Of course. Burke, and Curran, and Castlereagh, and O’Connell, and fifty more have failed to steer that lumbering old vessel off the mudbank on which she stranded at some time in the dark ages; in fact, nobody except Oliver Cromwell ever did understand how to make Ireland prosperous and respectable, and he began by depopulating her. And here is a fresh-coloured young man, with whiskers à la c?telette de mouton, who thinks he was born to be her pilot, and to navigate her into a peaceful haven. He is the sort of man who will begin by being the idol of a happy tenantry, and end by being shot from behind one of his own hedges.”

“I hope not,” said Vixen, “for I am sure he means well. And I should like him to outlive Bullfinch.”

Roderick had been very happy all dinner-time. From the soups to the ice-puddings the moments had flown for him. It seemed the briefest dinner he had ever been at; and yet when the ladies rose to depart the silvery chime of the clock struck the half-hour after nine. But Lord Mallow’s hour came later, in the drawing-room, where he contrived to hover over Violet, and fence her round from all other admirers for the rest of the evening. They sang their favourite duets together, to the delight of everyone except Rorie, who felt curiously savage at “I would that my love,” and icily disapproving at “Greeting;” but vindictive to the verge of homicidal mania at “Oh, wert thou in the cauld blast!”

“His ‘plaidie,’ indeed,” he ejaculated inwardly. “The creature never possessed anything so comfortable or civilised. How preposterous it is to hear an Irishman sing Scotch songs. If an Irishman had a plaidie, he would pawn it for a dhrop o’ the cratur.”

Later Violet and Lord Mallow sang a little duet by Masini, “O, que la mer est belle!” the daintiest, most bewitching music — such a melody as the Loreley might have sung when the Rhine flowed peacefully onward below mountain-peaks shining in the evening light, luring foolish fishermen to their doom. Everybody was delighted. It was just the kind of music to please the unlearned in the art. Mrs. Carteret came to the piano to compliment Violet.

“I had no idea you could sing so sweetly,” she said. “Why have you never sung to us before?”

“Nobody ever asked me,” Vixen answered frankly. “But indeed I am no singer.”

“You have one of the freshest, brightest voices I ever had the happiness of hearing,” Lord Mallow exclaimed enthusiastically.

He would have liked to go on singing duets for an indefinite period. He felt lifted into some strange and delightful region — a sphere of love and harmony — while he was mingling his voice with Violet’s. It made the popular idea of heaven, as a place where there is nothing but singing — an eternal, untiring choir — clearer and more possible to him than it had ever seemed before. Paradise would be quite endurable if he and Violet might stand side by side in the serried ranks of choristers. There was quite a little crowd round the piano, shutting in Violet and Lord Hallow, and Roderick Vawdrey was not in it. He felt himself excluded, and held himself gloomingly apart, talking hunting talk with a man for whom he did not care twopence. Directly his carriage was announced —sotto voce by the considerate Forbes, so as not to wound anybody’s feelings by the suggestion that the festivity was on its last legs — Mr. Vawdrey went up to Mrs. Winstanley and took leave. He would not wait to say good-night to Violet. He only cast one glance in the direction of the piano, where the noble breadth of Mrs. Carteret’s brocaded amber back obscured every remoter object, and then went away moodily, denouncing duet-singing as an abomination.

When Lady Mabel asked him next day what kind of an evening he had had at the Abbey House, in a tone which implied that any entertainment there must be on a distinctly lower level as compared with the hospitalities of Ashbourne, he told her that it had been uncommonly slow.

“How was that? You had some stupid person to take into dinner, perhaps?”

“No; I went in with Violet.”

“And you and she are such old friends. You ought to get on very well together.”

Rorie reddened furiously. Happily he was standing with his back to the light in one of the orchid-houses, enjoying the drowsy warmth of the atmosphere, and Mabel was engrossed with the contemplation of a fine zygopetalum, which was just making up its mind to bloom.

“Oh, yes, that was well enough; but the evening was disgustingly slow. There was too much music.”

“Classical?”

“Lord knows. It was mostly French and German. I consider it an insult to people to ask them to your house, and then stick them down in their chairs, and say h — sh — h! every time they open their months. If people want to give amateur concerts, let them say so when they send out their invitations, and then one would know what one has to expect.”

“I am afraid the music must have been very bad to make you so cross,” said Lady Mabel, rather pleased that the evening at the Abbey House should have been a failure. “Who were the performers?”

“Violet, and an Irish friend of Captain Winstanley’s — a man with a rosy complexion and black whiskers — Lord Mallow.”

“Lord Mallow! I think I danced with him once or twice last season. He is rather distinguished as a politician, I believe, among the young Ireland party. Dreadfully radical.”

“He looks it,” answered Rorie. “He has a loud voice and a loud laugh, and they seem to be making a great deal of him at the Abbey House.”

“‘Tommy loves a lord,’” says Lady Mabel brightly. Rorie hadn’t the faintest idea whence the quotation came. “I daresay the Winstanleys are rather glad to have Lord Mallow staying with them.”

“The Squire would have kicked him out of doors,” muttered Rorie savagely.

“But why? Is he so very objectionable? He waltzes beautifully, if I remember right; and I thought him rather a well-meaning young man.”

“Oh, there’s nothing serious against him that I know of; only I don’t think Squire Tempest would have liked a singing man any more than he would have liked a singing mouse.”

“I didn’t know Miss Tempest sang,” said Lady Mabel. “I thought she could do nothing but ride.”

“Oh, she has a very pretty voice, but one may have too much of a good thing, you know. One doesn’t go out to dinner to hear people sing duets.”

“I’m afraid they must have given you a very bad dinner, or you would hardly be so cross. I know that is the way with papa. If the dinner is bad he abuses everything, and declares the ladies were all ugly.”

“Oh, the dinner was excellent, I believe. I’m not a connoisseur, like my uncle. People might give me the most wonderful dinner in the world, and I would hardly be the wiser; or they might give me a wretched one, and I should not feel particularly angry with them.”

The next day was Tuesday, and, as the Duchess and her daughter happened to be driving within a mile or so of the Abbey House, Lady Mabel suggested that they should call upon Mrs. Winstanley.

“I am rather anxious to see the wild Irishman they have captured lately — Lord Mallow. We met him at Lady Dumdrum’s, if you remember, mamma. I danced with him twice.”

“My dear Mabel, do you think I can remember all your partners?”

“But Lord Mallow is rather celebrated. He makes very good speeches. Papa read one of them to us the other day when there was a great debate going on upon the Irish land question.”

The Duchess remembered being read to one evening after dinner, but the debates, as delivered by the Duke, had generally a somnolent effect upon his wife. She had a faint idea of the beginning, and struggled heroically to discover what the speakers were talking about; then came a soft confusion of sound, like the falling of waters; and the middle and end of the debate was dreamland. Lady Mabel was of a more energetic temper, and was interested in everything that could enlarge her sphere of knowledge, from a parliamentary debate to a Greek play.

The Duchess had never in her life refused compliance with any wish of her daughter’s, so the horses’ heads were turned towards the Abbey House, along a smooth hard road through a pine wood, then through a lodge-gate into a forest of rhododendrons.

“This is really a nicer place than Ashbourne, mamma,” remarked Lady Mabel disapprovingly.

It appeared to her quite a mistake in the arrangement of the universe that Violet Tempest should be heiress to a more picturesque estate than that which she, the Duke of Dovedale’s only daughter, was to inherit.

“My dear, Ashbourne is perfect. Everyone says so. The stables, the offices, the way the house is lighted and heated, the ventilation.”

“Yes, mamma; but those are details which nobody thinks about except an architect or a house-agent. Ashbourne is so revoltingly modern. It smells of stucco. It will take a century to tone it down. Now this fine old place is like a dream of the past; it is a poem in wood and stone. Ashbourne would be very well for a hunting-box for anyone who had three or four other places, as my father has; but when my time comes, and I have only Ashbourne, I’m afraid I shall hate it.”

“But you will have a choice of places by-and-by,” said the Duchess consolingly “You will have Briarwood.”

“Briarwood is a degree uglier than Ashbourne,” sighed Lady Mabel, leaning back in the carriage, wrapped to the chin in Russian sable, the image of discontent.

There are moments in every life, as in Solomon’s, when all seems vanity. Lady Mabel Ashbourne’s life had been cloudless — a continual summer, an unchangeable Italian sky; and yet there were times when she was weary of it, when some voice within her murmured, “This is not enough.” She was pretty, she was graceful, accomplished, gifted with a self-confidence that generally passed for wit; all the blood in her veins was the bluest of the blue, everybody bowed down to her, more or less, and paid her homage; the man she liked best in the world, and had so preferred from her childhood, was to be her husband; nobody had ever contradicted her, or hinted that she was less than perfect; and yet that mysterious and rebellious voice sometimes repeated, “It is not enough.” She was like the woman in the German fairy tale, who, beginning as the wife of a half-starved fisherman, came, by fairy power, to be king, and then emperor, and then pope: and still was not contented, but languished for something more, aye, even to have the ordering of the sun and moon.

The rebellious voice expostulated loudly this winter afternoon, as Lady Mabel’s languid eyes scanned the dark shining rhododendron bushes, rising bank above bank, a veritable jungle, backed by tall beeches and towerlike Douglas firs. A blackbird was whistling joyously amongst the greenery, and a robin was singing on the other side of the drive. The sunlit sky was soft and pearly. It was one of those mild winters in which Christmas steals unawares upon the footprints of a lovely autumn. The legendary oak was doubtless in full bud at Cadenham, like its miraculous brother, the Glastonbury thorn.

“I don’t think any of my father’s places can compare with this,” Lady Mabel said irritably.

She would not have minded the beauty of the grounds so much had they been the heritage of any other heiress than Violet Tempest.

The old hall was full of people and voices when the Duchess and her daughter were announced. There was a momentary hush at their entrance, as at the advent of someone of importance, and Mrs. Winstanley came smiling put of the firelight to welcome them, in Theodore’s last invention, which was a kind of skirt that necessitated a peculiar gliding motion in the wearer, and was built upon the lines of a mermaid’s tail.

“How good of you!” exclaimed Mrs. Winstanley.

“We were coming through Lyndhurst, and could not resist the temptation of coming in to see you,” said the Duchess graciously. “How do you do, Miss Tempest? Were you out with the hounds this morning? We met some people riding home.”

“I have never hunted since my father’s death,” Violet answered gravely; and the Duchess was charmed with the answer and the seriously tender look that accompanied it.

Lord Mallow was standing before the hearth, looking remarkably handsome in full hunting costume. The well-worn scarlet coat and high black boots became him. He had enjoyed his first day with the Forest hounds, had escaped the bogs, and had avoided making an Absalom of himself among the spreading beechen boughs. Bullfinch had behaved superbly over his old ground.

Mr. and Mrs. Scobel were among those dusky figures grouped around the wide firelit hearth, where the piled-up logs testified to the Tempest common of estovers. Mr. Scobel was talking about the last advance movement of the Ritualists, and expatiating learnedly upon the Ornaments Rubric of 1559, and its bearing upon the Advertisements of 1566, with a great deal more about King Edward’s first Prayer-book, and the Act of Uniformity, to Colonel Carteret, who, from an antique conservative standpoint, regarded Ritualists, Spirit-rappers, and Shakers in about the same category; while Mrs. Scobel twittered cheerily about the parish and the schools to the Colonel’s bulky wife, who was a liberal patroness of all philanthropic institutions in her neighbourhood.

Lord Mallow came eagerly forward to recall himself to the memories of Lady Mabel............