The furniture, less costly and rich than at Cro' Martin, was all marked by that air of propriety and comfort so observable in rich men's houses.

There were the hundred appliances of ease and luxury that show how carefully the most trifling inconveniences are warded off, and the course of daily life rendered as untroubled as mere material enjoyments can secure. Scanlan sighed deeply, for the thought crossed his mind how was a girl brought up in this way ever to stoop to ally her fortune to a man like him? Was it, then, possible that he nourished such a presumption? Even so. Maurice was of an aspiring turn; he had succeeded in twenty things that a dozen years past he had never dared to dream of.

He had dined at tables and driven with men whose butlers and valets he once deemed very choice company; he had been the guest at houses where once his highest ambition had been to see the interior as a matter of curiosity. "Who could say where he might be at last?" Besides this, he knew from his own knowledge of family matters that she had no fortune, that her father was infinitely more likely to leave debts than an inheritance behind him, and that her uncle was the last man in the world ever to think of a marriage-portion for one he could not afford to part with. There was, then, no saying what turn of fortune might present him in an admissible form as a suitor. At all events, there was no rival in the field, and Maurice had seen many a prize won by a "walk over" purely for want of a compet.i.tor in the race.

Notwithstanding all these very excellent and rea.s.suring considerations, Maurice Scanlan could not overcome a most uncomfortable sense of awkwardness as Mary Martin entered the room, and saluting him with easy familiarity, said, "I'm quite ashamed of having made you wait, Mr.

Scanlan; but I was in the village when I got my uncle's message. I find that he is not well enough to receive you, and if I can--"

"I'm sure it's only too much honor you do me, Miss Mary; I never expected to have the pleasure of this interview; indeed, it will be very hard for me to think of business, at all, at all."

"That would be most unfortunate after your coming so far on account of it," said she, half archly, while she seated herself on a sofa at some distance from him.

"If it were a question about the estate, Miss Mary," said he, in his most obsequious manner, "there's n.o.body equal to yourself; or if it were anything at all but what it is, I know well that you'd see your way out of it; but the present is a matter of politics,--it 's about the borough."

"That weary borough," said she, sighing; "and are we about to have another election?"

"That 's it, Miss Mary; and Lord Kilmorris writes me to say that he 'll be over next week, and hopes he 'll find all his friends here as well disposed towards him as ever."

"Has he written to my uncle?" asked Mary, hastily.

"No; and that's exactly what I came about. There was a kind of coldness,--more my Lady's, I think, than on Mr. Martin's part,--and Lord Kilmorris feels a kind of delicacy; in fact, he doesn't rightly know how he stands at Cro' Martin." Here he paused, in hopes that she would help him by even a word; but she was perfectly silent and attentive, and he went on. "So that, feeling himself embarra.s.sed, and at the same time knowing how much he owes to the Martin interest--"

"Well, go on," said she, calmly, as he came a second time to a dead stop.

"It isn't so easy, then, Miss Mary," said he, with a long sigh, "for there are so many things enter into it,--so much of politics and party and what not,--that I quite despair of making myself intelligible, though, perhaps, if I was to see your uncle, he 'd make out my meaning."

"Shall I try and induce him to receive you, then?" said she, quietly.

"Well, then, I don't like asking it," said he, doubtfully; "for, after all, there's n.o.body can break it to him as well as yourself."

"Break it to him, Mr. Scanlan?" said she, in astonishment.

"Faith, it 's the very word, then," said he; "for do what one will, say what they may, it will be sure to surprise him, if it does no worse."

"You alarm me, sir; and yet I feel that if you would speak boldly out your meaning, there is probably no cause for fear."

"I'll just do so, then, Miss Mary; but at the same time I 'd have you to understand that I 'm taking a responsibility on myself that his Lordship never gave me any warrant for, and that there is not another--" Mr.

Scanlan stopped, but only in time; for, whether it was the fervor in which he uttered these words, or that Miss Martin antic.i.p.ated what was about to follow, her cheek became scarlet, and a most unmistakable expression of her eyes recalled the worthy pract.i.tioner to all his wonted caution. "The matter is this, Miss Martin," said he, with a degree of deference more marked than before, "Lord Kilmorris is dissatisfied with the way your uncle supported him at the last election.

He complains of the hard conditions imposed upon him as to his line of conduct in the House; and, above all, he feels insulted by a letter Lady Dorothea wrote him, full of very harsh expressions and hard insinuations. I never saw it myself, but that's his account of it,--in fact, he's very angry."

"And means to throw up the borough, in short," broke in Mary.

"I'm afraid not, Miss Mary," said the other, in a half whisper.

"What then?--what can he purpose doing?"

"He means to try and come in on his own interest," said Scanlan, who uttered the words with an effort, and seemed to feel relief when they were out.

"Am I to understand that he would contest the borough with us?"

Scanlan nodded an affirmative.

"No, no, Mr. Scanlan, this is some mistake,--some misapprehension on your part. His Lordship may very possibly feel aggrieved,--he may have some cause, for aught I know,--about something in the last election, but this mode of resenting it is quite out of the question,--downright impossible."

"The best way is to read his own words. Miss Martin. There's his letter," said he, handing one towards her, which, however, she made no motion to take.

"If you won't read it, then, perhaps you will permit me to do so.

It's very short, too, for he says at the end he will write more fully to-morrow." Mr. Scanlan here muttered over several lines of the epistle, until he came to the following: "I am relieved from any embarra.s.sment I should have felt at breaking with the Martins by reflecting over the altered conditions of party, and the new aspect politics must a.s.sume by the operations of the Emanc.i.p.ation Act. The old ways and traditions of the Tories must be abandoned at once and forever; and though Martin in his life of seclusion and solitude will not perceive this necessity, we here all see and admit it. I could, therefore, no longer represent his opinions, since they would find no echo in the House. To stand for the borough I must stand on my own views, which, I feel bold to say, include justice to both of the contending factions."

"Admirably argued," broke in Mary. "He absolves himself from all ties of grat.i.tude to my uncle by adopting principles the reverse of all he ever professed."

"It's very like that, indeed, Miss Mary," said Scanlan, timidly.

"Very like it, sir? it is exactly so. Really the thing would be too gross if it were not actually laughable;" and as she spoke she arose and paced the room in a manner that showed how very little of the ludicrous side of the matter occupied her thoughts. "He will stand for the borough--he means to stand in opposition to us?"

"That's his intention--at least, if Mr. Martin should not come to the conclusion that it is better to support his Lordship than risk throwing the seat into the hands of the Roman Catholics."

"I can't follow all these intrigues, Mr. Scanlan. I confess to you, frankly, that you have puzzled me enough already, and that I have found it no small strain on my poor faculties to conceive a gentleman being able to argue himself into any semblance of self-approval by such sentiments as those which you have just read; but I am a poor country girl, very ignorant of great topics and great people. The best thing I can do is to represent this affair to my uncle, and as early as may be."

"I hope he'll not take the thing to heart, miss; and I trust he 'll acquit _me_--"

"Be a.s.sured he'll despise the whole business most thoroughly, sir. I never knew him take any deep interest in these themes; and if this be a fair specimen of the way they are discussed, he was all the wiser for his indifference. Do you make any stay in the village? Will it be inconvenient for you to remain an hour or so?"

"I'll wait your convenience, miss, to any hour," said Scanlan, with an air of gallantry which, had she been less occupied with her thoughts, might have pushed her hard to avoid smiling at.

"I'll be down at Mrs. Cronan's till I hear from you, Miss Mary." And with a look of as much deferential admiration as he dared to bestow, Scanlan took his leave, and mounting to his box, a.s.sumed the ribbons with a graceful elegance and a certain lackadaisical languor that, to himself at least, appeared demonstrative of an advanced stage of the tender pa.s.sion.

"Begad, she's a fine girl; devil a lie in it, but she has n't her equal!

and as sharp as a needle, too," muttered he, as he jogged along the shingly beach, probably for the first time in his whole life forgetting the effect he was producing on the bystanders.

CHAPTER V. A STUDIO AND AN ARTIST

"Is my uncle in the library, Terence?" asked Mary of a very corpulent old man, in a red-brown wig.

"No, miss, he's in the--bother it, then, if I ever can think of the name of it."

"The studio, you mean," said she, smiling.

"Just so, Miss Mary," replied he, with a sigh; for he remembered certain penitential hours pa.s.sed by himself in the same locality.

"Do you think you could manage to let him know I want him--that is, that I have something important to say to him?"

"It's clean impossible, miss, to get near him when he's there. Sure, is n't he up on a throne, dressed out in goold and dimonds, and as cross as a badger besides, at the way they're tormenting him?"

"Oh, that tiresome picture, is it never to be completed?" muttered she, half unconsciously.

"The saints above know whether it is or no," rejoined Terence, "for one of the servants told me yesterday that they rubbed every bit of the master out, and began him all again; for my Lady said he was n't half haggard enough, or worn-looking; but, by my conscience, if he goes on as he 's doing, he ought to satisfy them."