I lay awake nearly the whole of that night, and did not get to sleep until shortly before I was called at half-past eight o'clock.
It was a few minutes after nine when I came down to the coffee-room. We had ordered an English breakfast, and Mervin was pouring out his coffee when I came into the room.
"Just in time," he said, by way of salutation, helping himself as he spoke, in a way which showed that he would not have delayed his breakfast if I had been late. "Why, I had no idea that you could dance."
"Much obliged for your kindness in saying that I could."
"Oh, yes," he answered. "Don't mention it; I thought I'd take a rise out of you. Beaten with my own weapons. Lost the adorable Polly for my pains——"
"I hope you have nothing to say against Miss O'Flaherty," I said, getting angry. "If you have it had better not be said in my presence."
"Hulloa! 'pistols for two, coffee for one,'" said Mervin, laughing. "All I have to say, my dear fellow, is that for a woman who is not a coquette, and who is one of the truest women alive, she is the greatest man-slayer I have ever known. What I could never make out is how she could belong to such a clan as the O'Flahertys of O'Flaherty Hall (as we called it), Bedford Square. But 'dull Boetia gave a Pindar birth,' and I suppose that it was on the same principle that nature permitted the late Michael O'Flaherty, of money-lending renown, to be the sire of a woman who would be an empress if rank were the reward of merit and not accident."
"So her father was a money-lender," I said, helping myself to some cutlets.
"A prince among money-lenders," rejoined Mervin, "a man whose rate per cent. rose in a very direct proportion to your necessities, and who never deserted his prey while there was a drop of blood left in its carcass. But, 'rest his sowl,' he's been dead these last three years."
"But O'Flaherty is not a Jewish name," I remarked.