“Has he come back?” asked Lady Augusta, as she bent her head more deeply over her work, and her cheeks grew a shade more red.
“No; he's dining with royalties, and driving about in princely carriages on the Continent Seeing what the pleasures of his intimacy have cost us here at home, I'd say that these great personages ought to look sharp, or, by George! he'll sell them out, as he has done us.” He laughed a bitter laugh at his jest, but his daughter did not join in the emotion.
“I scarcely think it fair,” said she, at length, “to connect Mr. Dunn with a legislation which he is only called upon to execute.”
“With all my heart. Acquit him as much as you will; but, for my part, I feel very little tenderness for the hand that accomplishes the last functions of the law against me. These fellows have displayed a zeal and an alacrity in their work that shows how they relish the sport. After all,” said he, after a pause, “this Dunn is neither better nor worse than the rest of them, and in one respect he has the advantage over them,—he has not forgotten himself quite so much as the others. To be sure, we knew him in his very humblest fortunes, Augusta; he was meek enough then.”
She stooped to pick up her work, which had fallen, and her neck and face were crimson as she resumed it.
“Wonderful little anticipation had he then of the man he was to become one of these days. Do you know, Augusta, that they say he is actually worth two millions?—two millions!”
She never spoke; and after an interval Lord Glengariff burst out into a strange laugh.
“You 'd scarcely guess what I was laughing at, Augusta. I was just remembering the wretched hole he used to sleep in. It was a downright shame to put him there over the stable, but the cottage was under repair at the time, and there was no help for it. 'I can accommodate myself anywhere, my Lord,' he said. Egad, he has contrived to fulfil the prediction in a very different sense. Just fancy—two millions sterling!”
It was precisely what Lady Augusta was doing at the moment, though, perhaps, not quite in the spirit his Lordship suspected.
“Suppose even one half of it be true, with a million of money at command, what can't a man have nowadays?”