Had this old bachelor of forty-three been really
in love with Lady Laura, would he have allowed her to walk home alone
with Phineas, leaving her with some flimsy pretext of having to look
at his sheep? Phineas resolved that he must at any rate play out his
game,--whether he were to lose it or to win it; and in playing it he
must, if possible, drop something of that Mentor and Telemachus style
of conversation. As to the advice given him of herding with Greshams
and Pallisers, instead of with Ratlers and Fitzgibbons,--he must use
that as circumstances might direct. To him, himself, as he thought
of it all, it was sufficiently astonishing that even the Ratlers and
Fitzgibbons should admit him among them as one of themselves. "When
I think of my father and of the old house at Killaloe, and remember
that hitherto I have done nothing myself, I cannot understand how
it is that I should be at Loughlinter." There was only one way of
understanding it. If Lady Laura really loved him, the riddle might
be read.
The rooms at Loughlinter were splendid, much larger and very much
more richly furnished than those at Saulsby. But there was a certain
stiffness in the movement of things, and perhaps in the manner of
some of those present, which was not felt at Saulsby.
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