“Forester of the Guards? Lionel's friend, do you mean?”
“Yes; you know that he has left the army, thrown up his commission, and gone no one knows where?”
“I did not know of that before. I am sincerely sorry for it. Is the cause surmised?”
Miss Daly made no answer, but stood with her eyes bent on the ground, and apparently in deep thought; then looking up suddenly, she said, with more composure than ordinary, “Make my compliments to Lady Eleanor, and say that at the first favorable moment I will pay my personal respects to her—kiss Helen for me—good-bye.” And, without waiting for Darcy to take his leave, she walked hastily by, and closed the door after her.
“This wayward manner,” said Darcy, sorrowfully, to himself, “has a deeper root than mere capriciousness; the heart has suffered so long that the mind begins to partake of the decay.” And with this sad reflection he left the village, and turned his solitary steps towards home.
If Darcy was grieved to find Miss Daly surrounded by such unsuitable companionship, he was more thau recompensed at finding that her taste rejected nearer intimacy with Mrs. Fumbally's household. More than once the fear crossed his mind that, with diminished circumstances, she might have lapsed into habits so different from her former life, and he could better look upon her struggling as she did against her adverse fortune than assimilating herself to those as much below her in sentiment as in station. He was happy to have seen his old friend once more, he was glad to refresh his memory of long-forgotten scenes by the sight of her who had been his playfellow and his companion, but he was not free of a certain dread that Miss Daly would scarcely be acceptable to his wife, while her wayward, uncertain temper would form no safe companionship for his daughter. As he pondered on these things, he began to feel how altered circumstances beget suspicion, and how he, who had never known the feeling of distrust, now found himself hesitating and doubting, where formerly he had acted without fear or reserve.
“Yes,” said he, aloud, “when wealth and station were mine, the consciousness of power gave energy to my thoughts, but now I am to learn how narrow means can fetter a man's courage.”
“Some truth in that,” said a voice behind him; “would cut a very different figure myself if old Bob Dempsey, of Dempsey Grove, were to betake himself to a better world.”
Darcy's cheek reddened between shame and anger to find himself overheard by his obtrusive companion, and, with a cold salute, he passed on. Mr. Dempsey, however, was not a man to be so easily got rid of; he possessed that happy temper that renders its owner insensible to shame and unconscious of rebuke; besides that, he was always “going your way,” quite content to submit to any amount of rebuff rather than be alone. If you talked, it was well; if you listened, it was better; but if you affected open indifference to him, and neither exchanged a word nor vouchsafed the slightest attention, even that was supportable, for he could give the conversation a character of monologue or anecdote, which occupied himself at least.