hair smoking
a cigarette. She was a remarkable woman both physically and
intellectually. It was her delight to emphasize her splendid figure
by draping it in brilliant reds and yellows. To anyone who cared to
speculate on such a subject it seemed a mystery why her clothes remained
on her when she walked. The laws of gravity seemed to demand that they
should loosen with her movements, become detached, and finally drop
down. Nothing of the sort had ever happened, so it must be presumed that
she had secret and unconventional ways of fastening them. Similarly it
was not easy to see why her hair stayed upon her head. It was arranged
upon no recognised system, and suggested that she had perfected the art,
known generally only to heroines of romances, of twisting her tresses
with a single movement into a loose knot. That she affected white frills
of immense complexity was frequently evident, owing to the difficulty
she experienced in confining her long legs to feminine attitudes.
Her complexion put it in the power of her enemies to accuse her of
familiarity with cosmetics--a slander, for she had been observed to turn
green during an attack of sea-sickness. She had great brilliant eyes,
which were capable of expressing intensity of enthusiasm or hatred,
but no one had ever seen them soften with any emotion like love. Her
attitude towards social conventions was symbolized by her clothes. In
the old days, when the houses of 'society' had still been open to her,
she was accustomed to challenge criticism by fondling a pet monkey
at tea-parties. Since she had lost caste by taking up the cause of
'Independent Ireland' the ape had been discarded, and the same result
achieved by occasional bickerings with the police. She was an able
public speaker, and could convince her audiences for a time of the
reasonableness of opinions which next morning appeared to be the outcome
of delirium. She wrote, not, like Mary O'Dwyer, verse in which any
sentiment may be excused, but incisive and vigorous prose. Occasionally
even the Castle officials got glimmerings of the meaning of one of her
articles, and suppressed the whole issue of the _Croppy_ in which it
appeared.

Near her sat a much less remarkable person--Thomas Grealy, historian
and archaeologist. He had been engaged for many years on a history of
Ireland, but no volume of it had as yet appeared. His friends suspected
that he had got permanently stuck somewhere about the period of the
introd