“Happy, Michael?” asked his mother when the ladies, with many smiles, had withdrawn to their rooms. “Yes. I’m all right,” said Michael. “Only I rather wish you hadn’t asked them so obviously. It made me feel rather a fool.” “Dearest boy, they were delighted at the idea of your company. They seem quite nice people too. Only, as I said, very provincial. Older, too, than I thought at first.” Michael asked how old his mother thought they were, and she supposed them to be about twenty-seven and thirty. Michael was inclined to protest against this high estimate, but since he had spoken to the Miss McDonnells, he felt that after all his mother might be right. In the evening his new friends came down to dinner much enwrapped in feathers, and Michael thought that Kathleen looked very beautiful in the crimson lamplight of the dinner-table. “How smart you are, Michael, to-night!” said Mrs. Fane. “Oh, well, I thought as I’d got my dinner-jacket down here I might as well put it on. I say, mother, I think I’ll get a tail-coat. Couldn’t I have one made here?” “Isn’t that collar rather tight?” asked Mrs. Fane anxiously. “And it seems dreadfully tall.” “I like tall collars with evening dress,” said Michael severely. “You know best, dear, but you look perfectly miserable.” “It’s only because my chin is a bit sore after shaving.” “Do you have to shave often?” enquired Mrs. Fane, tenderly horrified. “Rather often,” said Michael. “About once a week now.” “She has pretty hands, your lady love,” said Mrs. Fane, suddenly looking across to the McDonnells’ table. “I say, mother, for goodness’ sake mind. She’ll hear you,” whispered Michael. “Oh, Michael dear, don’t be so foolishly self-conscious.” After dinner Michael retired to his room, and came down again smoking a cigarette. Mrs. Fane made a little _moue_ of surprise. “I say, mother, don’t keep on calling attention to everything I do. You know I’ve smoked for ages.” “Yes, but not so very publicly, dear boy.” “Well, you don’t mind, do you? I must begin some time,” said Michael. “Michael, don’t be cross with me. You’re so deliciously amusing, and so much too nice for those absurd women,” Mrs. Fane laughed. Just then the Miss McDonnells appeared on the staircase, and Michael frowned at his mother not to say any more about them. It was a fairly successful evening. The elder Miss McDonnell bored Michael rather with a long account of why her father had left Ireland, and what a blow it had been to him to open a large hotel in Burton-on-Trent. He was also somewhat fatigued by the catalogue of Mr. McDonnell’s virtues, of his wit and courage and good looks and shrewdness. “He has a really old-fashioned sense of humour,” said Miss McDonnell. “But then, of course, he’s Irish. He’s accounted quite the cleverest man in Burton, but then, being Irish, that’s not to be wondered at.”