Part 83 (2/2)
All this Ladarelle said hastily, for he half suspected he had made a grievous blunder in pointing out the wealth to which she would succeed as Sir Within's widow.
”I see--I see!” muttered O'Rorke, thoughtfully; which simply meant that there was a great deal to be said for each side of the question.
”What are you thinking of?” said Ladarelle at last, losing patience at his prolonged silence.
”I'm just wondering to myself if she ever knew how near she was to being My Lady.”
”How near, or how far off, you mean!”
”No, I don't! I just mean what I said--how near. You don't know her as well as I do, that's clear!” Another long pause followed these words, and each followed out his own train of thought. At length, Ladarelle, not at all satisfied, as it seemed, with his own diplomacy, said, half-impatiently: ”My friend Grenfell said, if there was any one who would understand how to deal with this matter, you were the man; and it was with that view he gave me the letter you have just read.”
”Oh! there's many a way to deal with it,” said O'Rorke, who was not insensible to the flattery. ”That is to say, if she was anything else but the girl she is, there would be no trouble at all in it.”
”You want me to believe that she is something very uncommon, and that she knows the world, like a woman of fas.h.i.+on.”
”I know nothing about women of fas.h.i.+on, but I never saw man or woman yet was 'cuter than Katty O'Hara, or Luttrell, as she calls herself now.”
”She did not play her cards here so cunningly, that's plain,” said Ladarelle, with a sneer. ”Maybe I can guess why.”
”What is your guess, then?”
”Something happened that wounded her pride! If anything did _that_, she'd forget herself and her advantage--ay, her very life--and she'd think of nothing but being revenged. That's the blood that's in her!”
”So that her pride is her weak point?”
”You have it now! That's it. I think she'd rather have died than write that letter the other morning, and if the answer isn't what she expects, I don't think she'll get over it! Without,” added he, quickly, ”it would drive her to some vengeance or other, if she was to see the way to any.”
”I begin to understand her,” said Ladarelle, thoughtfully. ”The devil a bit of you! And if you were to think of it for twenty years, you wouldn't understand her! She beats _me_, and I don't suspect that _you_ do.”
This was one of those thrusts it was very hard to bear without wincing, but Ladarelle turned away, and concealed the pain he felt.
”It is evident, then, Mr. O'Rorke, that you don't feel yourself her match?”
”I didn't say that; but it would be no disgrace if I _did_ say it,” was the cautious answer.
”Mr. Grenfell a.s.sured me, that with a man like yourself to aid me, I need not be afraid of any difficulty. Do you feel as if he said too much for you, or has he promised more than you like to fulfil? You see, by what I have told you, that I should be very sorry to see that girl here again, or know that she was likely to regain any part of her old influence over my relative. Now, though her present letter does not touch either of these points, it opens a correspondence; don't you perceive that?”
”Go on,” said O'Rorke, half sulkily, for a sort of doubt was creeping over him that possibly his services ought to be retained by the other party.
”And if they once begin writing letters, and if she only be as ready with her pen as you say she is with her tongue, there's nothing to prevent her being back here this day week, on any terms she pleases.”
”Faix, and there are worse places! May I never! if I'd wonder that she'd like to be mistress of it.”
For the second time had Ladarelle blundered in his negotiation, and he was vexed and angry as he perceived it.
”That's not all so plain and easy, Mr. O'Rorke, as you imagine. When old men make fools of themselves, the law occasionally takes them at their word, and p.r.o.nounces them insane. So long as Sir Within's eccentricities were harmless, we bore them, but I'll not promise our patience for serious injury.”
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