These words were uttered in the very depth of despair, as, kneeling down on the carpet, Mr. Dempsey attempted to collect and arrange the scattered fragments.
“It's no use in life! Here's the Widow Wallace's pills in the middle of the Counsellor's speech! and the last day's drawing of the lottery mixed up with that elegant account of old Darcy's—”
A hand which, if of the gentlest mould, now made a gesture to enforce silence, arrested Mr. Dempsey's words, and at the same moment the Knight entered with Lady Eleanor. Darcy started as he gazed on the excited looks and the air of defiance of his daughter, and for a second a deep flush suffused his features, as with an angry frown he asked of Dempsey, “What does this mean, sir?”
“D-n me if I know what it means!” exclaimed Paul, in utter despair at the confusion of his own faculties. “My brain is in a whirl.”
“It was a little political dispute between Mr. Dempsey and myself, sir,” said Helen, with a faint smile. “He was reading for me an article from the newspaper, whose views were so very opposite to mine, and his advocacy of them so very animated, that—in short, we both became warm.”
“Yes, that's it,” cried Dempsey, glad to accept any explanation of a case in which he had no precise idea wherein lay the difficulty,—“that's it; I 'll take my oath it was.”
“He is a fierce Unionist,” said Helen, speaking rapidly to cover her increasing confusion, “and has all the conventional cant by heart, 'old-fashioned opinions,' 'musty prejudices,' and so on.”
“I did not suspect you were so eager a politician, my dear Helen,” said the Knight, as, half chidingly, he threw his eyes towards the scattered fragments of the torn newspaper.
The young girl blushed till her neck became crimson: shame, at the imputation of having so far given way to passion; sorrow, at the reproof, whose injustice she did not dare to expose; and regret, at the necessity of dissimulation, all overwhelming her at the same moment.
“I am not angry, my sweet girl,” said the Knight, as he drew his arm around her, and spoke in a low, fond accent. “I may be sorry—sincerely sorry—at the social condition that has suffered political feeling to approach our homes and our firesides, and thus agitate hearts as gentle as yours by these rude themes. For your sentiments on these subjects I can scarcely be a severe critic, for I believe they are all my own.”