“I am very sorry to have to leave Clane sooner than I expected; but business is business. Business first, pleasure afterwards.”
“And you have given us all a great deal of pleasure. I don’t know such a host anywhere; and it has been such a comfort to me to talk to you about my hateful law business, and to tell you things unreservedly, and consult you. My odious brother-in-law, Lord Suckington, never will assist me, and I never seem to be out of the hands of my solicitors. Ah, here is your horrid telegraph-boy waiting. May I go in and order tea, and pour you out a cup?”
In ten days’ time the entire party had dispersed. Madeline and her father travelled over to London. As the latter took leave of Mrs. Leech at Mallow Junction, and saw her into the Cork train, that warm-hearted lady, looking bewitching in a charming travelling-cloak and hat, leant out of the window and whispered as she pressed his hand, “Good-bye, or, rather, au revoir. Be sure you write to me!”
And was it possible that he had seen a tear in her eye?
CHAPTER XXII.
MR. WYNNE’S VISITOR.
And meanwhile what of Laurence Wynne? His short, smart sketches had made a hit. He was becoming a man of mark in literary as well as legal circles, and was overwhelmed with invitations to dinners, luncheons, and “at homes;” for be it known that Laurence Wynne was looked upon with favourable eyes by not a few mammas and daughters as a clever, rising, good-looking young bachelor. Some had heard a vague rumour that there once upon a time had been a Mrs. Wynne, a girl whom he had married out of a lodging-house or restaurant, but who, fortunately for him, had died in the first year of her marriage. Some said this was not true, some said it was. All agreed with extraordinary unanimity in never alluding to Mrs. Wynne in his company. After all, in these days of feverish haste, a story is soon forgotten, and people have too much to do to waste time in turning over the back pages of other folks’ lives. The ladies had not been slow in picking up sundry hints and allusions to “Wynne,” as dropped across dinner tables by their husbands and fathers, and not a few hospitable families had made up their minds that they would cultivate Mr. Wynne.
In vain they were assured that he was not a society man and hated ladies—which, of course, was nonsense. He was busy and industrious, that was all; and now and then he did come out of his shell, and sit at their tables, and stand against the wall at their dances, and made himself so agreeable that he was figuratively patted on the back, and requested to come again; but he so seldom came again.
It was part of his duty, he told himself, to be on good terms with his august seniors—to respond to their first invitations, to make himself pleasant to their wives and daughters, hand tea-cups, turn over music, open doors, talk suitable commonplaces; but when any of these same young ladies sat down, so to speak, before him, and commenced to open the trenches for a flirtation, he began to feel uncomfortable. Long ago, before he met Madeline West, this sort of thing was well enough—but even then a little of it had gone a long way.
Now, with Madeline in the background, and amusing herself, no doubt very delightfully, and not thinking of him, he could not—no, he could not—like others less conscientious, laugh and exchange sallies and cross swords and glances with any of these pretty, sprightly girls, knowing full well in his heart that he was all the time that wolf in sheep’s clothing—a married man! And then he was critical at heart, and hard to please.