‘I read you differently,’ said Nina. ‘When _you_ do mischief you mean mischief. Now I became so--so--what shall I call it, _intriguée_ about this little “fetish” of yours, that I remember well the night you first left off and never resumed it.’ ‘And when was that?’ asked Kate carelessly. ‘On a certain Friday, the night Miss O’Shea dined here last; was it not a Friday?’ ‘Fridays, we fancy, are unlucky days,’ said Kate, in a voice of easy indifference. ‘I wonder which are the lucky ones?’ said Nina, sighing. ‘They are certainly not put down in the Irish almanac. By the way, is not this a Friday?’ ‘Mr. O’Shea will not call it amongst his unlucky days,’ said Kate laughingly. ‘I almost think I like your Austrian,’ said the other. ‘Only don’t call him _my_ Austrian.’ ‘Well, he was yours till you threw him off. No, don’t be angry: I am only talking in that careless slang we all use when we mean nothing, just as people employ counters instead of money at cards; but I like him: he has that easy flippancy in talk that asks for no effort to follow, and he says his little nothings nicely, and he is not too eager as to great ones, or too energetic, which you all are here. I like him.’ ‘I fancied you liked the eager and enthusiastic people, and that you felt a warm interest in Donogan’s fate.’ ‘Yes, I do hope they’ll not catch him. It would be too horrid to think of any one we had known being hanged! And then, poor fellow, he was very much in love.’ ‘Poor fellow!’ sighed out Kate. ‘Not but it was the only gleam of sunlight in his existence; he could go away and fancy that, with Heaven knows what chances of fortune, he might have won me.’ ‘Poor fellow!’ cried Kate, more sorrowfully than before. ‘No, far from it, but very “happy fellow” if he could feed his heart with such a delusion.’ ‘And you think it fair to let him have this delusion?’ ‘Of course I do. I’d no more rob him of it than I’d snatch a life-buoy from a drowning man. Do you fancy, child, that the swimmer will always go about with the corks that have saved his life?’ ‘These mock analogies are sorry arguments,’ said Kate. ‘Tell me, does your Austrian sing? I see he understands music, but I hope he can sing.’ ‘I can tell you next to nothing of my Austrian--if he must be called so. It is five years since we met, and all I know is how little like he seems to what he once was.’ ‘I’m sure he is vastly improved: a hundred times better mannered; with more ease, more quickness, and more readiness in conversation. I like him.’ ‘I trust he’ll find out his great good-fortune--that is, if it be not a delusion.’