Not that such a consideration would
have prevented his meeting her question with a little fib, just to keep
the secret.

"Will you not go to this dance with me this evening?" asked Margaret
after dinner, as they sat round the fireplace.

"What ball is that?" inquired Mr. Bellingham.

"I hardly know what it is. It is a party at the Van Sueindell's and
there is 'dancing' on the card. Please go with me; I should have to go
alone."

"I detest the pomp and circumstance of pleasure," said Uncle Horace,
"the Persian appurtenances, as my favourite poet calls them; but I
cannot resist so charming an invitation. It will give me the greatest
pleasure. I will send word to put off another engagement."

"Do you really not mind at all?"

"Not a bit of it. Only three or four old fogies at the club. _Est mihi
nonum superantis annum plenus Albani cadus_," continued Mr. Bellingham,
who never quoted Horace once without quoting him again in the next five
minutes. "I had sent a couple of bottles of my grandfather's madeira to
the club, 1796, but those old boys will enjoy it without me. They would
talk me to death if I went."

"It is too bad," said Margaret, "you must go to the club. I would not
let you break an engagement on my account."

"No, no. Permit me to do a good deed without having to bear the infernal
consequences in this life, at all events. The chatter of those people is
like the diabolical screaming of the peacock on the terrace of the
Emir's chief wife, made memorable by Thackeray the prophet." He paused a
moment, and stroked his snowy pointed beard. "Forgive my strong
language," he added; "really, they are grand adjectives those,
'diabolical' and 'infernal.' They call up the whole of Dante to my
mind." Margaret laughed.

"Are you fond of Dante?" asked she.

"Very. I sometimes buy a cheap copy and substitute the names of my pet
enemies all through the _Inferno_ wherever they will suit the foot. In
that way I get all the satisfaction the author got by putting his
friends in hell, without the labour of writing, or the ability to
compose, the poem." The Countess laughed again.

"Do you ever do the same thing with the _Paradiso_?"

"No," answered Uncle Horace, with a smile. "Purgatory belonged to an age
when people were capable of being made better by suffering, and as for
paradise, my heaven admits none but the fair sex. They are all
beautiful, and many of them are young."

"Will you admit me, Mr. Bellingham?"

"