The latter was in the habit of deploring that the former was a patriot lost, seduced by England, because of his aristocratic proclivities. A patriot cannot be a courtier, he constantly declared. The ways of the aristocracy grow more brutal and more reckless with impunity; the coarseness of their debauchery would have disgusted the crew of Comus; their drunkenness, their blasphemy, their ferocity, have left the ignorant English squires far behind. To this the countess would reply (who knew little of the Dublin _monde_, living as she did a retired life) that he was biassed by the prejudice of his Irish slovenliness, in that he could not look upon a man as honest who wore clean linen and velvet small-clothes. And so the friendly conflict would go on, one scoring a point and then the other, one breaking into rage and the other apologising; and so the incongruous cronies wrangled along the road of life, battling with the breezes which blew round them, whether from east or west. Mr. Curran sat down to his breakfast as if nothing had happened, tucking a napkin into his vest, and handing my Lord Clare, with biting amiability, the salt or the butter or the bread, while my lady marked with satisfaction that this tempest was but a squall. That the chairs of Terence and her niece should remain unoccupied was a matter of no moment, for the former was probably sulky after his snubbing; while as for Doreen, her conduct was always more or less improper. Perhaps her serene ladyship would have been ruffled if she could have looked on them in the stable-yard, for they were standing very close together, the one subdued by the prospect of leaving his home for the first time, the other saddened with thinking of the arrests.