dly cool! Not last night, though;
no, by Jove! he lost temper completely. I shall be marked with that
knock, eh? Damn me, it was too bad; he must apologise for it. You
know he was drunk, and somehow he was all wrong the whole evening;
he wouldn't let me back the "rouge," and such a run--you saw that, I
suppose?'

I assented with a nod, for I still hesitated how far I should
communicate to him my knowledge of Burke's villainy towards myself.

'By-the-bye, it's rather awkward my being here; you know your people
have cut me. Don't you think I might get a cab to bring me over to the
Rue d'Alger?'

There was something which touched me in the simplicity of this remark,
and I proceeded to assure him that any former impressions of my friends
would not be remembered against him at that moment.

'Oh, that I'm sure of; no one ever thinks it worth while to bear malice
against a poor devil like me. But if I'd have backed the red----'

'Colonel O'Grady is in the drawing-room,' said a servant in a low voice
to me at this instant; and leaving Lord Dudley to speculate on the
contingencies of his having 'backed the red,' I joined my friend, whom I
had not seen on the previous day. We were alone, and in ten minutes
I explained to him the entire discovery I had fallen upon, concealing
only my affection for Louisa Bellew, which I could not bring myself even
to allude to.

'I see,' said Phil, when I concluded--'I see you are half disposed to
forgive De Vere all his rascality. Now, what a different estimate we
take of men! Perhaps--I can't say--it is because I am an Irishman, but
I lean to the bold-faced villain Burke; the miserable, contemptible
weakness of the one is far more intolerable to me than the ruffian
effrontery of the other. Don't forget the lesson I gave you many a year
ago: a fool is always a blackguard. Now, if that fellow could see his
companion this minute, there is not a circumstance he has noticed here
that he would not retail if it bore to your disadvantage. Untouched by
your kindness to him, he would sell you--ay, to the very man you saved
him from! But, after all, what have we to do with him? Our first point
is to rescue this poor girl's name from being ever mixed with his;
anything further is, of course, out of the question. The Rooneys are
going back: I saw Paul this morning. "The Cruiskeen Lawn" has been
their ruin. All the Irish officers who had taken Madame de Roni for
an illustrious stranger have found out t