“Well, well, it shall be as you like; only I trow I disagree with you about old Kennyfeck: he 's a fine straight-hearted fellow—he's—”
“He 's an attorney, Cashel. These fellows can no more comprehend a transfer of property without a trial at bar, or a suit in Equity, than an Irish second can understand a falling out without one of the parties being brought home on a door. Besides, he has rather a grudge against me. I never told you,—indeed, I never meant to tell you,—but I can have no secrets from you. You know the youngest girl, Olivia?”
“Yes, go on,” said Cashel, red and pale by turns.
“Well, I flirted a good deal last winter with her. Upon my life, I did not intend it to have gone so far; I suppose it must have gone far, though, because she became desperately in love. She is very pretty, certainly, and a really good little girl,—mais, que voulez-vous? If I tie a fly on my hook I can't afford to see a flounder or a perch walk off with it; it's the speckled monster of the stream I fish for. They ought to have known that themselves,—I 've no doubt they did, too; but they were determined, as they say here, to die 'innocent,' and so one fine morning I was just going to join the hounds at Finglas, when old Kennyfeck, very trimly dressed, and looking unutterable importance, entered my lodgings. There's a formula for these kind of explanations—I 've gone through seven of these myself, and I 'll swear that every papa has opened the conference with a solemn appeal to Heaven 'that he never was aware of the attentions shown his daughter, nor the state of his dear child's affections, till last evening.' They always assure you, besides, that if they could give a million and a half as dowry, you are the very man—the actual one individual—they would have selected; so that on an average most young ladies have met with at least half-a-dozen parties whom the fathers have pronounced to be, separately, the one most valued. Kennyfeck behaved, I must say, admirably. His wife would have a Galway cousin sent for, and a duel; some other kind friend suggested to have me waylaid and thrashed. He calmly heard me for about ten minutes, and then taking up his hat and gloves, said, 'Take your rule,' and so it ended. I dined there the next Sunday,—yes, that's part of my system: I never permit people to nourish small grudges, and go about abusing me to my acquaintances. If they will do that, I overwhelm them by their duplicity, as I am seen constantly in their intimacy, and remarkable for always speaking well of them, so that the world will certainly give it against them. The gist of all this tiresome story is, that Kennyfeck and the ladies would, if occasion served, pay off the old debt to me; therefore, beware if you hear me canvassed in that quarter!” Linton, like many other cunning people, very often lapsed into little confessions of the tactics by which he played his game in the world, and although Cashel was not by any means a dangerous confidant to such disclosures, he now marked with feelings not all akin to satisfaction this acknowledgment of his friend's skill.
“You 'd never have shown your face there again, I 'll wager a hundred!” said Linton, reading in the black look of Roland's countenance an expression he did not fancy.
“You are right. I should have deemed it unfair to impose on the young lady a part so full of awkwardness as every meeting must necessitate.”
“That comes of your innocence about women, my dear friend; they have face for anything. It is not hypocrisy, it is not that they do not feel, and feel deeply, but their sense of command, their instinct of what is becoming, is a thousand times finer than ours; and I am certain that when we take all manner of care to, what is called, spare their feelings, we are in reality only sparing them a cherished opportunity of exercising a control over those feelings which we foolishly suppose to be as ungovernable as our own.”
Either not agreeing with the sentiment, or unable to cope with its subtlety, Cashel sat some time without speaking. From Olivia Kennyfeck his thoughts reverted to one in every respect unlike her,—the daring, impetuous Maritaña.
He wondered within himself whether her bold, impassioned nature could be comprehended within Linton's category, and a secret sense of rejoicing thrilled through him as he replied to himself in the negative.
“I 'd wager a trifle, Roland, from that easy smile you wear, that your memory has called up one example, at least, unfavorable to my theory. Eh! I have guessed aright Come then, out with it, man,—who is this peerless paragon of pure ingenuous truth?—who is she whose nature is the transparent crystal where fair thoughts are enshrined? No denizen of our misty northland, I'll be sworn, but some fair Mexican, with as little disguise as drapery. Confess, I say—there is a confession, I 'll be sworn—and so make a clean breast of it.”