And if we'd go on joking to the end we should content them, if only by justifying their opinion that we're born buffoons.' His happy conscience enabled him to court his wife with assiduity and winsomeness, and the ladies were once more elated by seeing how chivalrously lover-like an Irish gentleman can be after years of wedlock.
Patrick was asked to sing.

Miss Mattock accompanied him at the piano.
Then he took her place on the music-stool, and she sang, and with an electrifying splendour of tone and style.
'But it's the very heart of an Italian you sing with!' he cried.
'It will surprise you perhaps to hear that I prefer German music,' said she.
'But where--who had the honour of boasting you his pupil ?' She mentioned a famous master.

Patrick had heard of him in Paris.

He begged for another song and she complied, accepting the one he selected as the favourite of his brother Philip's, though she said: 'That one ?' with a superior air.

It was a mellifluous love-song from a popular Opera somewhat out of date.