ding somebody's
susceptibilities by having operatic music on a Sunday evening? She knew
nothing at all about half those people; they were merely names to her,
that she had collected round her in order that she might count herself
in among the arts."

"That ill-conditioned brute Quirk seemed to me to be dominating the
whole thing," said Mangan, rather testily. "It's an awful price to pay
for a few puffs. I wonder a woman like that can bear him to come near
her, but she pets the baboon as if he were a King Charles spaniel.
Linnie, my boy, you're no longer first favorite. I can see that;
self-interest has proved too strong; the flattering little review, the
complimentary little notice, has ousted you. It isn't you who are
privileged to meet my Lady Morgan in the street--

'And then to gammon her, in the _Examiner_,
With a paragraph short and sweet.'

Well, now, tell me about that very striking-looking girl, or woman,
rather, whom you took in to dinner. I asked you who she was when she
came into the room."

"That was Miss Honnor Cunyngham."

"Not the salmon-fishing young lady I have heard you speak of?"

"Yes."

"Why, she didn't look like that," said Mangan, thoughtfully. "Not the
least. She has got a splendid forehead--powerful and clear--and almost
too much character about the square brows and the calm eyes. I should
have taken her to be a strongly intellectual woman, of the finer and
more reticent type. Well, well, a salmon-fisher!"

"Why shouldn't she be both?"

"Why, indeed?" said Maurice, absently; and therewith he relapsed (as was
frequently his wont) into silence, and in silence the two friends
pursued their way eastwards to Lionel's rooms.

But when they had arrived at their destination, when soda-water had been
produced and opened, and when Mangan was lying back in an easy-chair,
regarding his friend, he resumed the conversation.

"I should have thought going to see those people to-night would have
brightened you up a little," he began, "but you seem thoroughly out of
sorts, Linn. What is the matter? Overwork or worry? I should not think
overwork; I've never seen your theatre-business prove too much for you.
Worry? What about, then?"

"There may be different things," Lionel said, evasively, as he brought
over the spirit case. "I haven't been sleeping well of late--lying awake
even if I don't go to bed till three or four; and I get a singing in my
ears sometimes that is bothersome. Oh, never