“Some talk about big Kate here, then,” pursued the O’Mahony, “going into the convent. Well, of course, that’s all over with now.” He hesitated for a moment, and decided to withhold all that cruel information about episcopal interference. “And I’ve been thinking it over,” he resumed, “and have come to the conclusion that we’d better not try to bolster up the convent with new girls from outside. It’s always been kept strictly inside the family. Now that that can’t be done, it’s better to let it end with dignity. And that it can’t help doing, because as long as it’s remembered, men will say that its last nuns were its best nuns.”
He closed with a little bow to the Ladies of the Hostage’s Tears. Mother Agnes acknowledged the salutation and the compliment with a silent inclination of her vailed head. If her heart took grief, she did not say so.
“And your new secretary—” put in Cormac, diffidently yet with persistence, “has he that acquaintance an’ familiarity wid mining technicalities and conthracts that would fit him to dale wid ’em satisfactorily?”
A trace of asperity, under which O’Daly definitely wilted, came into The O’Mahony’s tone.
“There is such a thing as being too smart about mining contracts,” he said with meaning. Then, with a new light in his eyes he went on: “The luckiest thing that ever happened on this footstool, I take it, has occurred right here. The young man who sits opposite me is a born O’Mahony, the only son of the man who, if I hadn’t turned up, would have had rightful possession of all these estates. You have seen him about here for some weeks. I understand that you all like him. Indeed, it’s been described to me that Mrs. Fergus here has quite an affection for him—motherly, I presume.”
Mrs. Fergus raised her hand to her hair, and preened her head.
“An’ not so old, nayther, O’Mahony,” she said, defiantly. “Wasn’t I married first whin I was a mere shlip of a girl?”
Sister Ellen looked at Mother Agnes, and lifted up both her hands. The O’Mahony proceeded, undisturbed:
“As I’ve said, you all like him. I like him too, for his own sake, and—and his father’s sake—and—But that can wait for a minute. It’s a part of the general good luck which has brought him here that he turns out to be a trained mining engineer—just the sort of a man, of all others, that Muirisc needs. He tells me that we’ve only scratched the surface of things roundabout here yet. He promises to get more wealth for us and for Muirisc out of an acre than we’ve been getting out of a townland. Malachy, go out and look for old Murphy, and if he can walk, bring him in here.”
The O’Mahony composedly busied himself in filling his glass afresh, the while Malachy was absent on his quest. The others, turning their attention to the boyish-faced, blushing young man whom the speaker had eulogized so highly, noted that he sat next, and perhaps unnecessarily close, to Kate, and that she, also betrayed a suspicious warmth of countenance. Vague comprehension of what was coming began to stir in their minds as Malachy reappeared. Behind him came Murphy, who leaned against the wall by the door, hat in hand, and clung with a piercing, hawk-like gaze to the lightest movement on the master’s face.