The young O'Donoghue was not one to harbour any secret thought long unuttered in his breast, and he briefly expressed to Talbot his surprise--almost his dissatisfaction--at the life they were leading. At first Talbot endeavoured to laugh off such inquiries, or turn them aside by some passing pleasantry; but when more closely pressed, he avowed that his present part was a duty imposed upon him by his friends in France, who desired above all things to ascertain the feeling among young men of family and fortune in the metropolis--how they really felt affected towards England, and with what success, should French republicanism fail to convert them, would the fascinations of Parisian elegance and vice be thrown around them. “There must be bribes for all temperaments, Mark,” said he, at the end of a very lengthened detail of his views and stratagems. “Glory is enough for such as you, and happily you can have wherewithal to satisfy a craving appetite; but some must be bought by gold, some by promises of vengeance upon others, some by indemnities for past offences, and not a few by the vague hope of change, which disappointed men ever regard as for the better. To sound the depths of all such motives is part of my mission here, and hence, I have rigidly avoided those by whom I am more than slightly known; but in a week or two I shall exchange this part for another, and then, Mark, we shall mix in the gayer world of the squares, where your fair cousin shines so brilliantly. Meanwhile have a little patience with me, and suffer me to seem sometimes inconsistent, that I may be least so in reality. I see you are not satisfied with me, Mark, and I am sorry to incur a friend's reproach even for a brief season; but come--I make you a pledge. To-day is the 12th; in five days more the Viceroy gives his St. Patrick's ball, at which I am to meet one of our confederates. You seem surprised at this; but where can man speak treason so safely as under the canopy of the Throne?” “But how do you mean to go there? You do not surely expect an invitation.” “Of course not; but I shall go notwithstanding, and you with me. Ay, Mark, never frown and shake your head. This same ball is a public assembly, to which all presented at the Levees are eligible, without any bidding or invitation. Who is to say that Harry Talbot and Mark O'Donoghue have not paid their homage to mock royalty? If you mean that there is some danger in the step, I agree with you there is; but you are not the man, I take it, to flinch on that account.” This adroit stroke of Talbot's settled the matter; and Mark felt ashamed to offer any objection to a course, which, however disinclined to, he now believed was accompanied by a certain amount of peril. CHAPTER XXXII. A PRESAGE OF DANGER