‘True, I assure you. Do I look like one? Ever since that terrible denunciation I have often asked myself whether so much knocking about as I have known has not ruffianized me in appearance, at all events.’ ‘Where on earth is the Arcadia you speak of?’ asks Wyndham. ‘Well, to tell you everything, I went down to Curraghcloyne this morning to have a look at the old place.’ ‘What! There! Why, I was there to-day, too,’ says Wyndham, and then pauses, as if suddenly sorry he had spoken. ‘We must have missed each other, then, and come up by different trains.’ ‘I suppose so,’ says Wyndham slowly. ‘And so your Arcadia is Curraghcloyne? Fancy an adventure there!’ He shrugs his shoulders, and leans back in his chair. ‘You have had so many real adventures that I expect you like to revel in imagining one now and then.’ ‘Perhaps so,’ says Crosby. ‘Still, even in Arcadia one doesn’t like to be called a thief. I say, it is getting late, isn’t it? Your aunt spoke of ten. It is now well after eleven. Buck up, my child, and let us on.’ CHAPTER XV. ‘The web of our life is of mingled yarn, Good and ill together.’ The rooms are crowded to excess, and it is with difficulty that Crosby and Wyndham make their way to the place where someone has told them their hostess is to be found. They have arrived very late, in spite of Crosby’s attempt at haste, so late, indeed, that already some of the guests are leaving—a fact that has somewhat embarrassed their journey up the staircase. The heat is intense, and the perfume of the many roses makes the air heavy. Quite at the end of the music-room Wyndham sees his aunt, and presently she, seeing him and Crosby in the doorway, makes them a faint salutation. The Hon. Mrs. Prior is a tall woman, with a high, aristocratic nose, fair hair, and blue eyes, now a little pale. She was the handsomest of the three daughters of Sir John Burke, and, what is not always the case, had made the best marriage. Her youngest sister, Kate, had, however, done very well, too, when she married James Wyndham, but the eldest sister had made a distinct fiasco of her life. She had run away with a ne’er-do-well, a certain Robert Haines, who came from no one knew where, and went no one knew where, either, taking Sir John’s favourite daughter with him. It was hushed up at the time, but the old man had caused ceaseless secret inquiries to be made for the missing daughter, always, however, without result. It was for a time a blot upon the family history, but it was forgotten after awhile, and Mrs. Prior and her daughter have for some time taken leading parts in Dublin society.