‘‘Faith, I do not,’ replied Kearney; ‘but somehow I think I know the chestnut. To be sure I do. There’s the old mark on her knee, how ever she found the man who could throw her down. Isn’t she Miss O’Shea’s Kattoo?’
‘That she is, sir, and I’m her nephew.’
‘Are you?’ said Kearney dryly.
The young fellow was so terribly pulled up by the unexpected repulse—more marked even by the look than the words of the other—that he sat unable to utter a syllable. ‘I had hoped, sir,’ said he at last, ‘that I had not outgrown your recollection, as I can promise none of your former kindness to me has outgrown mine.’
‘But it took you three weeks to recall it, all the same,’ said Kearney.
‘It is true, sir, I am very nearly so long here; but my aunt, whose guest I am, told me I must be called on first; that—I’m sure I can’t say for whose benefit it was supposed to be—I should not make the first visit; in fact, there was some rule about the matter, and that I must not contravene it. And although I yielded with a very bad grace, I was in a measure under orders, and dared not resist.’
‘She told you, of course, that we were not on our old terms: that there was a coldness between the families, and we had seen nothing of each other lately?’
‘Not a word of it, sir.’
‘Nor of any reason why you should not come here as of old?’
‘None, on my honour; beyond this piece of stupid etiquette, I never heard of anything like a reason.’