“Lady Eleanor,—ay, and Miss Helen herself.”
A start of anger and a half-spoken exclamation were as quickly interrupted by a fit of laughing; and the Knight leaned back in his chair, and shook with the emotion.
“You doubt it; you think it absurd,” said Dempsey, himself laughing, and not exhibiting the slightest irritation. “What if they say it's true,—will that content you?”
“I'm afraid it would not,” said Darcy, equivocally; “there's nothing less likely to do so. Still, I assure you, Mr. Dempsey, if the ladies are of the mind you attribute to them, I shall find it very difficult to disbelieve anything I ever hear hereafter.”
“I'm satisfied to stand or fall by their verdict,” said Paul, resolutely. “I'm not a fool, exactly; and do you think if I had not something stronger than mere suspicion to guide me, that I'd have gone that same journey to London? Oh, I forgot—I did not tell you about my going to Lord Netherby.”
“You went to Lord Netherby, and on this subject?” said Darcy, whose face became suffused with shame, an emotion doubly painful from Forester's presence.
“That I did,” rejoined the unabashed Paul, “and a long conversation we had over the matter. He introduced me to his wife too. Lord bless us, but that is a bit of pride!”
“You are aware that the lady is Lord Wallincourt's mother,” interposed Darcy, sternly.
“Faith, so that she is n't mine,” said the inexorable Paul, “I don't care! There she was, lying in state, with a greyhound with silver bells on his neck at her feet; and when I came into the room, she lifts up her head and gives me a look, as much as to say, 'Oh, that's him.'—'Mr. Dempsey, of Dempsey's Hole,'—for hole he would call it, in spite of me,—'Mr. Dempsey, my love,' said my Lord, bowing as ceremoniously as if he never saw her before; and so, taking the hint, I began a little course of salutations, when she called out, 'Tell him not to do that, Netherby,—tell him not to do that-'”
This was too much for Mr. Dempsey's hearers, who, however differently minded as to the narrative, now concurred in one outbreak of hearty laughter.