“Well, there 's no use in going round about the bush, and this is what I mean. We thought there might be a difficulty, perhaps, about the vote; that the Knight might have promised his friends, or said something or other how he 'd go, and would n't be able to get out of it so easily, so we saw another way of serving his views about the money. You see, my Lady, we considered it all well amongst us.”
“We should feel deeply grateful, sir, to know how far this family has occupied your kind solicitude. But proceed.”
“If the Knight does n't like to vote with the Government, of course there is no use in Bob doing it; so he 'll be a Patriot, my Lady,—and why not? Ha! ha! ha! they 'll be breaking the windows all over Dublin, and he may as well save the glass!—ay!”
“Forgive me, sir, if I cannot see how this has any reference to my family.”
“I'm coming to it—coming fast, my Lady. We were thinking then how we could help the Knight, and do a good turn to ourselves; and the way we hit upon was this: to reduce the interest on the whole debt to five per cent, make a settlement of half the amount on Miss Darcy, and then, if the young lady had no objection to my grandson, Beecham—”
“Stop, sir,” said Lady Eleanor; “I never could suppose you meant to offend me intentionally,—I cannot permit of your doing so through inadvertence or ignorance. I will therefore request that this conversation may cease. Age has many privileges, Mr. Hickman, but there are some it can never confer: one of these is the right to insult a lady and—a mother.”
The last words were sobbed rather than spoken: affection and pride, both outraged together, almost choked her utterance, and Lady Eleanor sat down trembling in every limb, while the old man, only half conscious of the emotion he had evoked, peered at her in stolid amazement through his spectacles.
Any one who knew nothing of old Hickman's character might well have pitied his perplexity at that moment; doubts of every kind and sort passed through his mind as rapidly as his timeworn faculties permitted, and at last he settled down into the conviction that Lady Eleanor might have thought his demand respecting fortune too exorbitant, although not deeming the proposition, in other respects, ineligible. To this conclusion the habits of his own mind insensibly disposed him.
“Ay, my Lady,” said he, after a pause, “'tis a deal of money, no doubt; but it won't be going out of the family, and that's more than could be said if you refuse the offer.”
“Sir!” exclaimed Lady Eleanor, in a tone that to any one less obtusely endowed would have been an appeal not requiring repetition; but the old man had only senses for his own views, and went on:—