Lord Kilgobbin

‘Don’t ask me to share such heresies. I see nothing out there but bleak desolation. I don’t know if it ever had a past; I can almost swear it will have no future. Let us not talk of it.’

‘What shall we talk of?’ asked Kate, with an arch smile.

‘You know well enough what led me up here. I want to hear what you know of that strange man Dick brought here to-day to dinner.’

‘I never saw him before – never even heard of him.’

‘Do you like him?’

‘I have scarcely seen him.’

‘Don’t be so guarded and reserved. Tell me frankly the impression he makes on you. Is he not vulgar – very vulgar?’

‘How should I say, Nina? Of all the people you ever met, who knows so little of the habits of society as myself? Those fine gentlemen who were here the other day shocked my ignorance by numberless little displays of indifference. Yet I can feel that they must have been paragons of good-breeding, and that what I believed to be a very cool self-sufficiency, was in reality the very latest London version of good manners.’

‘Oh, you did not like that charming carelessness of Englishmen that goes where it likes and when it likes, that does not wait to be answered when it questions, and only insists on one thing, which is – “not to be bored.” If you knew, dearest Kate, how foreigners school themselves, and strive to catch up that insouciance, and never succeed – never!’

‘My brother’s friend certainly is no adept in it.’

‘He is insufferable. I don’t know that the man ever dined in the company of ladies before; did you remark that he did not open the door as we left the dinner-room? and if your brother had not come over, I should have had to open it for myself. I declare I’m not sure he stood up as we passed.’

‘Oh yes; I saw him rise from his chair.’

‘I’ll tell you what you did not see. You did not see him open his napkin at dinner. He stole his roll of bread very slyly from the folds, and then placed the napkin, carefully folded, beside him.’

‘You seem to have observed him closely, Nina.’

‘I did so, because I saw enough in his manner to excite suspicion of his class, and I want to know what Dick means by introducing him here.’

‘Papa liked him; at least he said that after we left the room a good deal of his shyness wore off, and that he conversed pleasantly and well. Above all, he seems to know Ireland perfectly.’

‘Indeed!’ said she, half disdainfully.

‘So much so that I was heartily sorry to leave the room when I heard them begin the topic; but I saw papa wished to have some talk with him, and I went.’

‘They were gallant enough not to join us afterwards, though I think we waited tea till ten.’

‘Till nigh eleven, Nina; so that I am sure they must have been interested in their conversation.’

‘I hope the explanation excuses them.’

‘I don’t know that they are aware they needed an apology. Perhaps they were affecting a little of that British insouciance you spoke of – ’

‘They had better not. It will sit most awkwardly on their Irish habits.’

‘Some day or other I’ll give you a formal battle on this score, Nina, and I warn you you’ll not come so well out of it.’

‘Whenever you like. I accept the challenge. Make this brilliant companion of your brother’s the type, and it will test your cleverness, I promise you. Do you even know his name?’

‘Mr. Daniel, my brother called him; but I know nothing of his country or of his belongings.’

‘Daniel is a Christian name, not a family name, is it not? We have scores of people like that – Tommasina, Riccardi, and such like – in Italy, but they mean nothing.’

‘Our friend below-stairs looks as if that was not his failing. I should say that he means a good deal.’

‘Oh, I know you are laughing at my stupid phrase – no matter; you understand me, at all events. I don’t like that man.’

‘Dick’s friends are not fortunate with you. I remember how unfavourably you judged of Mr. Atlee from his portrait.’

‘Well, he looked rather better than his picture – less false, I mean; or perhaps it was that he had a certain levity of manner that carried off the perfidy.’

‘What an amiable sort of levity!’

‘You are too critical on me by half this evening,’ said Nina pettishly; and she arose and strolled out upon the leads.

For some time Kate was scarcely aware she had gone. Her head was full of cares, and she sat trying to think some of them ‘out,’ and see her way to deal with them. At last the door of the room slowly and noiselessly opened, and Dick put in his head.

‘I was afraid you might be asleep, Kate,’ said he, entering, ‘finding all so still and quiet here.’

‘No. Nina and I were chatting here – squabbling, I believe, if I were to tell the truth; and I can’t tell when she left me.’

‘What could you be quarrelling about?’ asked he, as he sat down beside her.

‘I think it was with that strange friend of yours. We were not quite agreed whether his manners were perfect, or his habits those of the well-bred world. Then we wanted to know more of him, and each was dissatisfied that the other was so ignorant; and, lastly, we were canvassing that very peculiar taste you appear to have in friends, and were wondering where you find your odd people.’

‘So then you don’t like Donogan?’ said he hurriedly.

‘Like whom? And you call him Donogan!’

‘The mischief is out,’ said he. ‘Not that I wanted to have secrets from you; but all the same, I am a precious bungler. His name is Donogan, and what’s more, it’s Daniel Donogan. He was the same who figured in the dock at, I believe, sixteen years of age, with Smith O’Brien and the others, and was afterwards seen in England in ‘59, known as a head-centre, and apprehended on suspicion in ‘60, and made his escape from Dartmoor the same year. There’s a very pretty biography in skeleton, is it not?’

‘But, my dear Dick, how are you connected with him?’

‘Not very seriously. Don’t be afraid. I’m not compromised in any way, nor does he desire that I should be. Here is the whole story of our acquaintance.’

And now he told what the reader already knows of their first meeting and the intimacy that followed it.

‘All that will take nothing from the danger of harbouring a man charged as he is,’ said she gravely.

‘That is to say, if he be tracked and discovered.’

‘It is what I mean.’

‘Well, one has only to look out of that window, and see where we are, and what lies around us on every side, to be tolerably easy on that score.’

And, as he spoke, he arose and walked out upon the terrace.

‘What, were you here all this time?’ asked he, as he saw Nina seated on the battlement, and throwing dried leaves carelessly to the wind.