“I see—I see!” muttered O’Rorke, thoughtfully; which simply meant that there was a great deal to be said for each side of the question.
“What are you thinking of?” said Ladarelle at last, losing patience at his prolonged silence.
“I’m just wondering to myself if she ever knew how near she was to being My Lady.”
“How near, or how far off, you mean!”
“No, I don’t! I just mean what I said—how near. You don’t know her as well as I do, that’s clear!” Another long pause followed these words, and each followed out his own train of thought. At length, Ladarelle, not at all satisfied, as it seemed, with his own diplomacy, said, half-impatiently: “My friend Grenfell said, if there was any one who would understand how to deal with this matter, you were the man; and it was with that view he gave me the letter you have just read.”
“Oh! there’s many a way to deal with it,” said O’Rorke, who was not insensible to the flattery. “That is to say, if she was anything else but the girl she is, there would be no trouble at all in it.”
“You want me to believe that she is something very uncommon, and that she knows the world, like a woman of fashion.”
“I know nothing about women of fashion, but I never saw man or woman yet was ‘cuter than Katty O’Hara, or Luttrell, as she calls herself now.”
“She did not play her cards here so cunningly, that’s plain,” said Ladarelle, with a sneer. “Maybe I can guess why.”
“What is your guess, then?”