“I 'm ready,” quoth Paul, as he turned to arrange his cravat, and run his hand through his hair; “I 'm at their service.”
“Remember, Mr. Dempsey, remember, that what I've spoken to you this day is in the strictest confidence. If matters have proceeded far with the young lady upstairs, if your heart, if hers be really engaged, forget everything,—forget me.”
Mrs. Fumbally's emotion had so overpowered her towards the end of her speech, that she rushed into an adjoining closet and clapped-to the door, an obstacle that only acted as a sound-board to her sobs, and from which Paul hastened with equal rapidity to escape.
An entire hemisphere might have separated the small chamber where Mr. Dempsey's late interview took place from the apartment on the first floor, to which he now was summoned, and so, to do him justice, did Paul himself feel; and not all the stimulating properties of that pleasant cordial could allay certain tremors of the heart, as he turned the handle of the door.
Lady Eleanor was seated at a writing-table, and Helen beside her, working, as Mr. Dempsey entered, and, after a variety of salutations, took a chair, about the middle of the room, depositing his hat and umbrella beside him.
“It would seem, Mr. Dempsey,” said Lady Eleanor, with a very benign smile, “it would seem that we have made a very silly mistake; one, I am bound to say, you are quite exonerated from any share in, and the confession of which will, doubtless, exhibit my own and my daughter's cleverness in a very questionable light before you. Do you know, Mr. Dempsey, we believed this to be an inn.”
“An inn!” broke in Paul, with uplifted hands.
“Yes, and it was only by mere accident we have discovered our error, and that we are actually in a boarding-house. Pray now, Helen, do not laugh, the blunder is quite provoking enough already.”
Why Miss Darcy should laugh, and what there could be to warrant the use of the epithet, “provoking,” Paul might have been broken on the wheel without being able to guess, while Lady Eleanor went on,—
“Now, it would seem customary for the guests to adopt here certain hours in common,—breakfasting, dining together, and associating like the members of one family.”