"Hold!" exclaimed Egerton, writhing. "Hold!"
He stopped, and paced the room, muttering, in broken sentences, "To blush before this man! Chastisement, chastisement!"
Levy gazed on him with hard and sinister eyes. The minister turned abruptly.
"Look you, Levy," said he, with forced composure, "you hate me—why, I know not."
"Hate you! How have I shown hatred? Would you ever have lived in this palace, and ruled this country as one of the most influential of its ministers, but for my management, my whispers to the wealthy Miss Leslie? Come, but for me what would you have been,—perhaps a beggar."
"What shall I be now, if I live? And this fortune which my marriage brought to me—it has passed for the main part into your hands. Be patient, you will have it all ere long. But there is one man in the world who has loved me from a boy, and woe to you if ever he learn that he has the right to despise me!"
"Egerton, my good fellow," said Levy, with great composure, "you need not threaten me, for what interest can I possibly have in tale-telling to Lord L'Estrange? Again, dismiss from your mind the absurd thought that I hate you. True, you snub me in private, you cut me in public, you refuse to come to my dinners, you'll not ask me to your own; still, there is no man I like better, nor would more willingly serve. When do you want the L5,000?"
"Perhaps in one month, perhaps not for three or four. Let it be ready when required."
"Enough; depend on it. Have you any other commands?"
"None."