There was hardly anybody in it. Four young men in evening
dress were playing cards at a side-table; at another table a solitary
member was writing; but at the long supper-table--which was prettily lit
up with crimson-shaded lamps, and the appointments of which seemed very
trim and clean and neat--all the chairs were empty, and the only other
occupants of the place were the servants, who wore a simple livery of
white linen.
"What for supper, Maurice?" the younger of the two friends asked.
"Anything--with salad," Mangan answered; he was examining a series of
old engravings that hung around the walls.
"On a warm night like this what do you say to cold lamb, salad, and some
hock and iced soda-water?"
"All right."
Supper was speedily forthcoming, and, as they took their places, Mangan
said,
"You don't often go down to see the old people, Linn?"
"I'm so frightfully busy!"
"Has Miss Francie ever been up to the theatre--to see 'The Squire's
Daughter,' I mean?"--this question he seemed to put rather diffidently.
"No. I've asked her often enough; but she always laughs and puts it off.
She seems to be as busy down there as I am up here.
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