When the Knight of Gwynne found himself by an unexpected turn of fortune condemned to a station so different from his previous life, he addressed himself at once to the difficulties of his lot; and, well aware that all reserve on his part would be set down as the cloak of some deep mystery, he affected an air of easy cordiality with such of the boarding-house party as he ever met, and endeavored, by a tone of well-assumed familiarity, to avoid all detection of the difference between him and his new associates.
It was in this spirit that he admitted Mr. Dempsey to his acquaintance, and even asked him to his cottage. In this diplomacy he met with little assistance from Lady Eleanor and his daughter; the former, from a natural coldness of manner and an instinctive horror of everything low and underbred. Helen's perceptions of such things were just as acute, but, inheriting the gay and lively temperament of her father's house, she better liked to laugh at the absurdities of vulgar people than indulge a mere sense of dislike to their society. Such allies were too dangerous to depend on, and hence the Knight conducted his plans unaided and unsupported.
Whether Mr. Dempsey was bought off by the flattering exception made in his favor, and that he felt an implied superiority on being deemed their advocate, he certainly assumed that position in the circle of Mrs. Fumbally's household, and on the present occasion sustained his part with a certain mysterious demeanor that imposed on many.
“Well, he's gone, at all events!” said a thin old lady with a green shade over a pair of greener eyes; “that can't be denied, I hope! Went off like a shot on Tuesday morning. Sandy M'Shane brought him into Coleraine, for the Dublin coach; and, by the same token, it was an outside place he took—”
“I beg your pardon, ma'am,” interposed a fat little woman, with a choleric red face and a tremulous underlip,—she was an authoress in the provincial papers, and occasionally invented her English as well as her incidents,—“it was the Derry mail he went by. Archy M'Clure trod on his toe, and asked pardon for it, just to get him into conversation; but he seemed very much dejected, and wouldn't interlocute.”
“Very strange indeed!” rejoined the lady of the shade, “because I had my information from Williams, the guard of the coach.”
“And I mine from Archy M'Clure himself.”
“And both were wrong,” interposed Paul Dempsey, triumphantly.
“It's not very polite to tell us so, Mr. Dempsey,” said the thin old lady, bridling.
“Perhaps the politeness may equal the voracity,” said the fat lady, who was almost boiling over with wrath.