He told him the absurd versions that had got abroad of the incident in the press; and cautiously feeling his way, went on to tell how Dick Kearney had started from town full of the most fiery intentions towards that visitor whom the newspapers called a 'noted profligate' of London celebrity.

'If you had not been shot before, we were to have managed it for you now,' said he.
'Surely these fellows who wrote this had never heard of me.' 'Of course they had not, further than you were on the Viceroy's staff; but is not that ample warranty for profligacy?
Besides, the real intention was not to assail you, but the people here who admitted you.' Thus talking, he led Walpole to own that he had no acquaintanceship with the Kearneys, that a mere passing curiosity to see the interesting house had provoked his request, to which the answer, coming from an old friend, led to his visit.
Through this channel Atlee drew him on to the subject of the Greek girl and her parentage.

As Walpole sketched the society of Rome, Atlee, who had cultivated the gift of listening fully as much as that of talking, knew where to seem interested by the views of life thrown out, and where to show a racy enjoyment of the little humoristic bits of description which the other was rather proud of his skill in deploying; and as Atlee always appeared so conversant with the family history of the people they were discussing, Walpole spoke with unbounded freedom and openness.
'You must have been astonished to meet the "Titian Girl" in Ireland ?' said Joe at last, for he had caught up the epithet dropped accidentally in the other's narrative, and kept it for use.
'Was I not! but if my memory had been clearer, I should have remembered she had Irish connections.

I had heard of Lord Kilgobbin on the other side of the Alps.' 'I don't doubt that the title would meet a readier acceptance there than here.' 'Ah, you think so!' cried Walpole.

'What is the meaning of a rank that people acknowledge or deny at pleasure?
Is this peculiar to Ireland ?' 'If you had asked whether persons anywhere else would like to maintain such a strange pretension, I might perhaps have answered you.' 'For the few minutes of this visit to me, I liked him; he seemed frank, hearty, and genial.' 'I suppose he is, and I suspect this folly of the lordship is no fancy of his own.' 'Nor the daughter's, then, I'll be bound ?' 'No; the son, I take it, has all the ambition of the house.' 'Do you know them well ?' 'No, I never saw them till yesterday.