“I think not. I suspect that negotiations are merely in progress.”
“But if he even was,” broke in Martin, violently, “I have made the fellow what he is, and he should do as I ordered him. Let him come in, Molly.”
“He is not in the house, uncle; he went down to the village.”
“Not here? Why didn't he wait? What impertinence is this?”
“He wished to bait his horses, and probably to get some breakfast for himself, which I had not the politeness to offer him here.”
“His horses? His tandem, I'll be sworn,” said Martin, with a sneer. “I 'll ask for no better evidence of what we are coming to than that Maurice Scanlan drives about the county with a tandem.”
“And handles them very neatly, too,” said Mary, with a malicious sparkle of her eye, for she could n't refrain from the spiteful pleasure of seeing her uncle in a regular fury for a mere nothing. All the more salutary, as it withdrew his thoughts from weightier themes.
“I'm sure of it, Miss Martin. I'm certain that he is a most accomplished whip, and as such perfectly sure to find favor in your eyes. Let him come up here at once, however. Say I want him immediately,” added he, sternly; and Mary despatched a servant with the message, and sat down in front of her uncle, neither uttering a word nor even looking towards the other.
“After all, Molly,” said he, in the quiet, indolent tone so natural to him—“after all, what does it signify who's in or who's out? I don't care a brass farthing about party or party triumphs; and even if I did, I 'm not prepared—What are you laughing at,—what is it amuses you now?” asked he, half testily, while she laughed out in all the unrestrained flow of joyous mirth.
“I have been waiting for that confession this half-hour, uncle, and really I was beginning to be afraid of a disappointment. Why, dearest uncle, you were within a hair's breadth of forgetting your principles, and being actually caught, for once in your life, prepared and ready.”