“Too flattering, by half. No, no,” broke he in again. “I 'll tell you what would be the effect of all that, Gusty,”—and his voice swelled out full and forcibly,—“the fellow would come here, and, before a week was over, he 'd call me Glengariff!”
She grew crimson over face and forehead and neck, and then almost as quickly pale again; and, rising hastily from the table, said, “Really, you expect too much from my subtlety as a note-writer. I think I 'd better request Mr. Dunn to look out for one of those invaluable creatures they call companions, who pay your bills, correct your French notes, comb the lapdog, and scold your maid for you. She might be, perhaps, equal to all this nice diplomacy.”
“Not a bad notion, by any means, Gusty,” said he, quickly. “A clever woman would be inestimable for all the correspondence we are like to have soon; far better than a man,—less obtrusive, more confidential, not so open to jobbery; a great point,—a very great point. Dunn's the very man, too, to find out the sort of person we want.”
“Something more than governess, and less than lady,” said she, half superciliously.
“The very thing, Gusty,—the very thing. Why, there are women with breeding enough to be maids of honor, and learning sufficient for a professor, whose expectations never rise beyond a paltry hundred a year—what am I saying?—sixty or seventy are nearer the mark. Now for it, Gusty. Make this object the substance of your letter. You can have no difficulty in describing what will suit us. We live in times, unfortunately, when people of birth and station are reduced to straitened circumstances on every hand. It reminds me of what poor Hammersley used to say,—'Do you observe,' said he, 'that whenever there's a great smash on the turf, you 'll always see the coaches horsed with thoroughbreds for the next year or two!'”
“A very unfeeling remark, if it mean anything at all.” “Never mind. Write this letter, and say at the foot of it, 'We should be much pleased if, in your journeys 's out'—he's always coming down to Cork and the neighborhood—you could give us a few days at Glengariff Hermitage. My father has certain communications to make to you, which he is confident would exempt your visit from the reproach of mere idleness.' He'll take that; the fellow is always flattered when you seem impressed by the immensity of his avocations!” And with a hearty chuckle at the weakness he was triumphing over, the old Lord left the room, while his daughter proceeded to compose her letter.
CHAPTER XXIX. A MORNING AT OSTEND.
It would never have occurred to the mind of any one who saw Annesley Beecher and Davis, as they sat at breakfast together in Ostend, that such a scene as we have described could have occurred between them. Not only was their tone frank and friendly with each other, but a gay and lively spirit pervaded the conversation, and two seemingly more light-hearted fellows it were hard to find.
As the chemist is able by the minutest drop, an almost imperceptible atom of some subtle ingredient, to change the properties of some vast mass, altering color and odor and taste at once, so did the great artist Grog Davis know how to deal with the complicated nature of Beecher, that he could at any moment hurl him down into the blackest depths of despair, or elevate him to the highest pinnacle of hope and enjoyment. The glorious picture of a race-course, with all its attendant rogueries, betting-stands crammed with “fats,” a ring crowded with “green-horns,” was a tableau of which he never wearied. Now, this was a sort of landscape Grog touched off neatly. All the figures he introduced were life-studies, every tint and shade and effect taken carefully from nature. With a masterly hand he sketched out a sort of future campaign, artfully throwing Beecher himself into the foreground, and making him fancy that he was in some sort necessary to the great events before them.