“Yes, immediately,” said she, in reply.
She entreated the old man to rest himself for a while ere he continued his walk homeward; but he declined, and with an affectionate farewell they parted,—he towards the vicarage, and she to re-enter the castle.
There is no need to practise mystery with our reader; and he who had just arrived, and was eager to see Miss Martin, was only Maurice Scanlan! As little use is there also in denying the fact that Mary was much annoyed at his inopportune coming. She was in no mood of mind to meet either him or such topics as he would certainly discuss.
However, she had, so to say, given him a permission to be admitted at all times, and there was no help for it!
These same people that one “must see,” are very terrible inflictions sometimes. They are ever present at the wrong time and the wrong place. They come in moments when their presence is a discord to all our thoughts; and what is to the full as bad, they don't know it,—or they will not know it. They have an awful amount of self-esteem, and fancy that they never can be but welcome. A type of this class was Maurice Scanlan. Thrust forward by the accidents of life into situations for which nothing in his own humble beginnings seemed to adapt him, he had, like all the other Maurice Scanlans of the world, taken to suppose that he was really a very necessary and important ingredient in all affairs. He found, too, that his small cunning served to guide him, where really able men's wisdom failed them,—for so it is, people won't take soundings when they think they can see the bottom; and, finally, he conceived a very high opinion of his faculties, and thought them equal to much higher purposes than they had ever been engaged in.
Since his last interview with Mary Martin, he had never ceased to congratulate himself on the glorious turn of his affairs. Though not over-sanguine about others, Maurice was always hopeful of himself. It is one of the characteristics of such men, and one of the greatest aids to their activity, this ever-present belief in themselves. To secure the good opinion he had already excited in his favor was now his great endeavor; and nothing could so effectually contribute to this, as to show an ardent zeal and devotion to her wishes. He had read somewhere of a certain envoy who had accomplished his mission ere it was believed he had set out; and he resolved to profit by the example. It was, then, in the full confidence of success, that he presented himself on this occasion.
Mary received him calmly, almost coldly. His presence was not in harmony with any thought that occupied her, and she deemed the task of admitting him something like an infliction.
“I drove over, Miss Mary,” said he, rather disconcerted by her reserve,—“I drove over to-day, though I know you don't like business on a Sunday, just to say that I had completed that little matter you spoke of,—the money affair. I did n't sleep on it, but went to work at once; and though the papers won't be ready for some days, the cash is ready for you whenever you like to draw it.”
“You have been very kind and very prompt, sir,” said she, thankfully, but with a languor that showed she was not thinking of the subject.
“He said five per cent,” continued Scanlan, “and I made no objection; for, to tell you the truth, I expected he'd have asked us six,—he's generally a hard hand to deal with.”