‘Well, sir, you were right. I am not sure that my reasons for avoiding him were exactly as strong as yours, but they sufficed for me.’
There was something so like reproof in the way these words were uttered that Donogan had not courage to speak for some time after. At last he said, ‘In one thing, your Greeks have an immense advantage over us here. In your popular songs you could employ your own language, and deal with your own wrongs in the accents that became them. We had to take the tongue of the conqueror, which was as little suited to our traditions as to our feelings, and travestied both. Only fancy the Greek vaunting his triumphs or bewailing his defeats in Turkish!’
‘What do you know of Mr. Walpole?’ asked she abruptly.
‘Very little beyond the fact that he is an agent of the Government, who believes that he understands the Irish people.’
‘Which you are disposed to doubt?’
‘I only know that I am an Irishman, and I do not understand them. An organ, however, is not less an organ that it has many “stops.”’
‘I am not sure Cecil Walpole does not read you aright. He thinks that you have a love of intrigue and plot, but without the conspirator element that Southern people possess; and that your native courage grows impatient at the delays of mere knavery, and always betrays you.’
‘That distinction was never his—that was your own.’
‘So it was; but he adopted it when he heard it.’
‘That is the way the rising politician is educated,’ cried Donogan. ‘It is out of these petty thefts he makes all his capital, and the poor people never suspect how small a creature can be their millionaire.’