“Non numen habes si sit Prudentia,—eh, O'Kelly?” said Conway.
“Prudentia means the ace of trumps, then,” said Sheridan.
“Where shall I send you my debt?” said Canthorpe to me, in a whisper. “What's your club?”
“He's only just arrived in town,” interrupted O'Kelly; “but I intend to put him up for Brooke's on Wednesday, and will ask you to second him. You 're on the committee, I think?”
“Yes; and I 'll do it with great pleasure,” said Canthorpe.
“I'll settle your score for you,” said O'Kelly to Canthorpe; and now, with much handshaking and cordiality, the party broke up.
“Don't go for a moment,” said O'Kelly to me, as he passed to accompany the Prince downstairs. I sat down before the fire in the now deserted room, and, burying my head between my hands, I endeavored to bring my thoughts to something like order and discipline. It was to no use; the whirlwind of emotions I had endured still raged within me, and I could not satisfy myself which of all my characters was the real one. Was I the outcast, destitute and miserable? or was I the friend of the high-born, and the associate of a Prince? Where was this to end? Should I awake to misery on the morrow, or was madness itself to be the issue to this strange dream? Heaven forgive me if I almost wished it might be so, and if in my abject terror I would have chosen the half-unconscious existence of insanity to the sense of shame and self-upbraiding my future seemed to menace!
While I sat thus, O'Kelly entered, and, having locked the door after him, took his place beside me. I was not aware of his presence till he said,—
“Well, Jack, I intended to mystify others; but, by Jove! it has ended in mystifying myself. Who the devil are you? What are you?”
“If I don't mistake me, you are the man to answer that question yourself. You presented me not alone to your friends, but to your Prince; and it is but fair to infer that you knew what you were about.”