Lady Desmond looked up at him; and he then saw, for the first time,
that she could if she pleased look very stern. Hitherto her face had
always worn smiles, had at any rate always been pleasing when he had
seen it. He had never been intimate with her, never intimate enough
to care what her face was like, till that day when he had carried
her son up from the hall door to his room. Then her countenance had
been all anxiety for her darling; and afterwards it had been all
sweetness for her darling's friend. From that day to this present
one, Lady Desmond had ever given him her sweetest smiles.

But Fitzgerald was not a man to be cowed by any woman's looks. He
met hers by a full, front face in return. He did not allow his eye
for a moment to fall before hers. And yet he did not look at her
haughtily, or with defiance, but with an aspect which showed that he
was ashamed of nothing that he had done,--whether he had done
anything that he ought to be ashamed of or no.

"Clara," said the countess, in a voice which fell with awful
severity on the poor girl's ears, "you had better return to the
house with me."

"Yes, mamma."

"And shall I wait on you to-morrow, Lady Desmond?" said Fitzgerald,
in a tone which seemed to the countess to be, in the present state
of affairs, almost impertinent. The man had certainly been
misbehaving himself, and yet there was not about him the slightest
symptom of shame.

"Yes; no," said the countess. "That is, I will write a note to you