you. Believe
me, you have bent a heart as proud and haughty as your own; and you will
have broken it if you refuse him. There, dearest girl---- Thanks! my
heart's thanks for that!'

The slightest pressure of her taper fingers sent a thrill through me,
as I sprang up and dashed down the stairs. In an instant I had seized
O'Grady's arm, and the next moment whispered in his ear--

'You 've won her!'

CHAPTER LXI. NEW ARRIVALS

Mr. Paul Rooney's secret was destined to be inviolable as regarded his
leg of pork; for Madame de Roni, either from chagrin or fatigue, did not
leave her room the entire day. Miss Bellew declined joining us; and we
sat down, a party of three, each wrapped up in his own happiness in a
degree far too great to render us either social or conversational It is
true the wine circulated briskly, and we nodded pleasantly now and then
to one another; but all our efforts to talk led to so many blunders and
cross answers that we scarcely ventured on more than a chance phrase or
a good-humoured smile. There were certainly several barriers in the
way of our complete happiness, in the innumerable prejudices of my
lady-mother, who would be equally averse to O'Grady's project as to
my own; but now was not the time to speculate on these, and we wrapped
ourselves up in the glorious anticipation of our success, and cared
little for such sources of opposition as might now arise. Meanwhile,
Paul entered into a long and doubtless very accurate statement of the
Bellew property, to which, I confess, I paid little attention, save
when the name of Louisa occurred, which momentarily aroused me from my
dreaminess. All the wily stratagems by which he had gained his points
with Galway juries, all the cunning devices by which he had circumvented
opposing lawyers and obtained verdicts in almost hopeless cases, however
I might have relished another time, I only now listened to without
interest, or heard without understanding.

Towards ten o'clock I received more than one hint from O'Grady that
we had promised to take tea at the Place Vendome; while I myself was
manoeuvring to find out, if we were to adjourn for coffee, what prospect
there might be of seeing Louisa Bellew in the drawing-room.

It was in that dusky twilight we sat, a time which seems so suited to
the quiet enjoyment of one's claret with a small and chosen party; where
intimacy prevails sufficiently to make conversation more a thing of
choice than necessity;