“Upon my word, young lady, he gave no special directions on the subject, nor, if he had, would it signify much. The law, once set in motion, must take its course; I suppose you know that.”
Helen did not hear his speech out, for, yielding to her mother, she quitted the apartment.
Mr. Nickie stood for a few moments gazing at the door by which they had made their exit, and then, turning towards M'Dermot, with a knowing wink he said, “We'll be better friends before we part, I 'll engage, little as she likes me now.”
“Faix, I never seen yer equal at getting round them,” answered the sub, in a voice of fawning flattery, the very opposite of his former gruff tone.
“That's the way I always begin, when they take a saucy way with them,” resumed Nickie, who felt evidently pleased at the other's admiration. “And when they 're brought down a bit to a sense of their situation, I can just be as kind as I was cruel.”
“Never fear ye!” said M'Dermot, with a sententious shake of the head. “Devil a taste of her would lave the room, if it wasn't for the mother.”
“I saw that plain enough,” said Nickie, as he threw a self-approving look at himself in a tall mirror opposite.
“She's a fine young girl, there's no denying it,” said M'Dermot, who anticipated, as the result of his chief's attention, a more liberal scale of treatment for himself. “But I don't know how ye 'll ever get round her, though to be sure if you can't, who can?”
“This inventory will keep me till night,” said Nickie, changing the theme quite suddenly, “and I'll miss Dempsey, I 'm afraid.”
“I hope not; sure you have his track,—haven't you?”