d in a different voice. "He's a
symbol, if you only knew it. He stands for the great glory we must all
leave behind us. The glory of youth!" His voice sank suddenly to a
lower key, and he raised his glass. "Go on, child!" he added more
quickly. "Shake hands with him; tell him he's welcome."

But Clodagh's flow of speech had been silenced. With a suggestion of
the shyness that marked her sister, she came round the table as
Milbanke rose.

She made no remark as she proffered her hand, and she did not smile as
Nance had done. Instead, her bright eyes scanned his face with a quick,
questioning interest.

In return, he looked at her clear skin, her level eyebrows and proudly
held head; and his awkwardness vanished as he took the slight muscular
hand still cold from the night mist.

"How d'you do?" he said. "I've been hearing of you."

Again Clodagh coloured, and glanced at her father.

"What were you telling him, father?" she asked with native curiosity.

Once more Asshlin laughed loudly.

"Listen to her, James," he said banteringly. "Her conscience is
troubling her. She knows that it's hard to speak well of her. Isn't
that it, scamp? Confess now!"

Clodagh had again passed round the table; and, having thrown her whip
and cap into a chair, had seated herself without ceremony in the vacant
place that awaited her.

"Indeed it isn't!" she replied with immense unconcern. But an instant
later she repeated her question.

"What was it, father? Can't you tell me?"

Asshlin lifted his glass and studied the light through his sherry.

"Ah now, listen to her, James!" he exclaimed again delightedly. "And
women will tell you they aren't inquisitive."

Clodagh flushed.

The little sister, seeing the flush, was suddenly moved to assert
herself.

"'Twasn't anything, Clo," she said quickly. "He only said you were a
scallywag."

Then, as all eyes turned in her direction, she subsided abruptly into
confused silence.

"There you are again, James! Look at the way they stick together. A
poor man hasn't the ghost of a chance when two of them join forces. One
of them ought to have been a boy--if only for the sake of equality."

He shook his head and laughed afresh, while Burke deposited the last
plate upon the table, and dinner began in earnest.

That dinner, like his drive from Muskeere, was an experience to
Milbanke. More than once his eyes travelled involuntarily from the
candle-lit table, with its suggestion of another