My clerk will do what is necessary at the
hotel. You don't look quite satisfied. Is the arrangement that I have
proposed not agreeable to you?"
Iris assured him that she gratefully acceded to the arrangement. At the
same time, she confessed to having been a little startled, on
discovering that he was in consultation with the police. "I remember
that we are in Ireland," she explained, "and I am foolish enough to
fear that you may be in some danger. May I hope that it is only a
trifle?"
Only a trifle! Among ether deficient sensibilities in the strange
nature of Iris, Sir Giles had observed an imperfect appreciation of the
dignity of his social position. Here was a new proof of it! The
temptation to inspire sentiments of alarm--not unmingled with
admiration--in the mind of his insensible goddaughter, by exhibiting
himself as a public character threatened by a conspiracy, was more than
the banker's vanity could resist. Before he left the room, he
instructed Dennis to tell Miss Henley what had happened, and to let her
judge for herself whether he had been needlessly alarmed by, what she
was pleased to call, "a mere trifle."
Dennis Howmore must have been more than mortal, if he could have
related his narrative of events without being influenced by his own
point of view.
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