In intervals of complaining about the still absent tea-maker, the countess exposed her views for the hundredth time, as to the enormity of the obnoxious Gillin, to her ally Lord Clare, who smiled and nodded. The chancellor was a constant visitor at the Abbey, riding over frequently to dinner for a gossip or a game of cards with his old friend. He told her the last scandal, discussed the political situation, dropped hints about the movements of the patriots, lamented the mad folly of her brother Arthur's protégé; and unconsciously she came to see things through his spectacles, living herself a retired life. Not but what she heard something of the other side from Mr. Curran; but then he seemed to avoid these subjects, while Lord Clare delighted in gloating on them. The two mortal foes met frequently at the Abbey as on neutral ground, and snarled and showed their teeth, and thereby exemplified in their own persons one of the most singular features of a society now happily died away. During the last tempestuous years which preceded the Union, members of all parties were accustomed to meet in social intercourse, dining to-day with men they would hang tomorrow, even in some cases advancing funds out of their own pockets to secure the escape of those whom it was their duty to convict. The cause of the anomaly is not far to seek. Dublin society, though magnificent, was limited to a tiny circle. Absenteeism being voted low, the great families became interwoven by a series of intermarriages, while they were torn at the same time by religious or political dissensions. If your wife's brother holds precisely opposite views to your own, and is in danger of losing his head, still he is your near relative, and as such you will save him from the gallows if you may. It was not surprising then that Mr. Curran, when at length he arrived with the rest, should have courteously taken Lord Clare's jewelled fingers in his own with a hope that his health was good, though he loved him as dogs love cats. Was he not obliged to meet him several times a day in the four courts, or at Daly's? The city would have been too small to hold them if they had come to open strife.
My lady dropped her jeremiad when the young people entered, for the Little House and its belongings formed a mystery which they might not fathom. If Shane chose to distress his mother by flirting with Norah Gillin, it behoved the rest to ignore his sin. Even independent Doreen, who would have liked to scrape acquaintance with a co-religionist, abstained from so doing lest she should offend her aunt. Once, when in a passion, she threatened to call at the Little House, but my lady appeared so pained that she repented the idle threat.
My lady looked at Lord Clare as if to bid him start a subject, then shook her head at Curran for keeping the girls out so late.
Lord Clare was in excellent spirits as he crossed one natty stocking over the other, and, fingertip to fingertip, began to purr over the virtues of the new Viceroy. 'Lord Camden,' he averred, 'was an angel. He was open to advice. Things would have to take place sooner or later which would make it essential that those who governed should be of one mind. The silly geese who dubbed themselves patriots had received a check by the discomfiture of young Tone, but the snake was scotched, not killed. They would doubtless find leaders, and again leaders, who would have to be crushed in turn, and Government had hit on a bright idea for the simplifying of the process of suppression. By virtue of an English law there was a foolish rule which forbade conviction for treason save on the testimony of two witnesses. How ponderous a piece of mechanism! The wheels of the Irish car of justice wanted greasing. Why not one witness? One dear, delightful, useful creature, who would come forward and say his say and finish off the matter in a trice. What did Mr. Curran think of it, that clever advocate?'
Mr. Curran sipped his tea in silence, while his dusky cheek turned dun. They would not dare pass so outrageous an enactment, he reflected. They would dare much, but, with the eyes of Europe on them, not so much as that. The chancellor was drawing him out. So he smiled sweetly, and, handing his cup to be refilled, observed that as Justice did not live in Ireland, it would be folly to provide a car for her. The spectacle of an English Viceroy making believe to dally with the stranger would be as astounding to Irishmen as the spectacle of a horse-racing Venetian.
'Lord Clare likes his joke,' chorused the giant Cassidy, 'but Curran won't be hoodwinked.'
'I assure you I am in earnest,' declared the chancellor, eyeing his foe from under alligator lids. 'I protest the idea is splendid. If they are bent on hanging themselves, why not give them rope? One witness, my dear Curran, would surely be enough.'
'Your joke is a bad one, my lord,' returned the other, sulkily. 'There are hundreds of idle wretches, hanging round Castle-yard, who for a pittance would swear anything. Is it so much trouble to suborn two? Major Sirr, your lordship's jackal, would see to it, I'm sure.'
'An admirable person!' murmured the chancellor.
'If he's not a villain,' retorted his enemy, 'give me as offal to the curs of Ormond Quay. Cassidy here was reproved only an hour ago by one whom we all respect for being too intimate with the rascal.'