“I never lose time in suspecting anybody,” broke in MacNaghten; “but indeed it's not worth any one's while to plot against me! I only say, Watty, don't be hurried away by any momentary anger with Curtis and the like of him. You have a fine position, don't wreck it out of a mere pique!”
“I 'll go abroad again! I 've lived too long out of this wasps' nest to endure the eternal buzzing and stinging that goes on around me.”
“I think you 're right there,” said MacNaghten.
My father made no reply, and looked anything but pleased at the ready concurrence in his plan.
“We shall never understand them, nor they us,” said he, peevishly, after a pause.
MacNaghten nodded an affirmative.
“The Duke, of course, then, remains here?” said Dan, after a pause.
“Of course he does not,” replied my father, pettishly; “he has announced to me the urgent necessity of his return to Dublin, nor do I see that anything has since occurred to alter that contingency.”
The tone in which he had spoken these words showed not only how he felt the taunt implied in Dan's remark, but how sincerely to his own conscience he acknowledged its justice. There was no doubt of it! My father's patriotism, that withstood all the blandishments of “Castle” flattery, all the seductions of power, and all the bright visions of ambition, had given way under the impulse of a wounded self-love. That men so inferior to him should dictate and control his actions, presume to influence his whole conduct, and even exercise rule in his household, gave him deep offence, coming as it did at a moment when his spirit was chafed by disappointment; and thus, he that could neither have been bribed nor bought was entrapped by a trick and an accident.
Every one knows that there are little social panics as there are national ones,—terrors for which none can account, leading to actions for which none can give the reason; so here, all of a sudden, all the guests discovered that they had reached the limit of their stay: some had to hasten home to receive visitors, others were engaged elsewhere; there were innumerable calls of duty, and affection, and business, all uttered with the accustomed sincerity, and listened to by my father with a cold acquiescence which assuredly gave no fresh obstacles to the departures.