“I have often thought,” said I, “how harsh we are in our judgments of others—how often we accuse those persons of being worldly, who merely seem so to the world; who, for instance, that saw you in your brightest moments, would ever suppose that you could make the confession you have just made?”
“I would not make such a confession to many beside yourself,” answered Lady Roseville; “nay, you need not thank me. I am some years older than you; I have lived longer in the world; I have seen much of its various characters; and my experience has taught me to penetrate and prize a character like yours. While you seem frivolous to the superficial, I know you to have a mind not only capable of the most solid and important affairs, but habituated by reflection to consider them. You appear effeminate, I know that none are more daring—indolent, none are more actively ambitious—utterly selfish, and I know that no earthly interest could bribe you into meanness or injustice—no, nor even into a venial dereliction of principle. It is from this estimate of your character, that I am frank and open to you. Besides, I recognize something in the careful pride with which you conceal your higher and deeper feelings, resembling the strongest actuating principle in my own mind. All this interests me warmly in your fate; may it be as bright as my presentiments forebode.”
I looked into the beautiful face of the speaker as she concluded; perhaps, at that solitary moment, my heart was unfaithful to Ellen; but the infidelity passed away like the breath from the mirror. Coxcomb as I was, I knew well how passionless was the interest expressed for me. Libertine as I had been, I knew, also, how pure may be the friendship of a woman, provided she loves another.
I thanked Lady Roseville, warmly, for her opinion, “Perhaps,” I added, “dared I solicit your advice, you would not find me wholly undeserving of your esteem.”
“My advice,” answered Lady Roseville, “would be, indeed, worse than useless, were it not regulated by a certain knowledge which, perhaps, you do not possess. You seem surprised. Eh bien; listen to me—are you not in no small degree lie with Lord Dawton?—do you not expect something from him worthy of your rank and merit?”
“You do, indeed, surprise me,” said I. “However close my connection with Lord Dawton may be, I thought it much more secret than it appears to be. However, I own that I have a right to expect from Lord Dawton, not, perhaps, a recompense of service, but, at least, a fulfilment of promises. In this expectation I begin to believe I shall be deceived.”
“You will!” answered Lady Roseville. “Bend your head lower—the walls have ears. You have a friend, an unwearied and earnest friend, with those now in power; directly he heard that Mr. V—was promised the borough, which he knew had been long engaged to you, he went straight to Lord Dawton. He found him with Lord Clandonald; however, he opened the matter immediately. He spoke with great warmth of your claims—he did more—he incorporated them with his own, which are of no mean order, and asked no other recompense for himself than the fulfilment of a long made promise to you. Dawton was greatly confused, and Lord Clandonald replied, for him, that certainly there was no denying your talents—that they were very great—that you had, unquestionably, been of much service to their party, and that, consequently, it must be politic to attach you to their interests; but that there was a certain fierte, and assumption, and he might say (mark the climax) independence about you, which could not but be highly displeasing in one so young; moreover, that it was impossible to trust to you—that you pledged yourself to no party—that you spoke only of conditions and terms—that you treated the proposal of placing you in parliament rather as a matter of favour on your part, than on Lord Dawton’s—and, in a word, that there was no relying upon you. Lord Dawton then took courage, and chimed in with a long panegyric on V—, and a long account of what was due to him, and to the zeal of his family, adding, that in a crisis like this, it was absolutely necessary to engage a certain, rather than a doubtful and undecided support; that, for his part, if he placed you in parliament, he thought you quite as likely to prove a foe as a friend; that, owing to the marriage of your uncle, your expectations were by no means commensurate with your presumption, and that the same talents which made your claims to favour, as an ally, created also no small danger in placing you in any situation where you could become hurtful as an enemy. All this, and much more to the same purpose, was strenuously insisted upon by the worthy pair; and your friend was obliged to take his leave, perfectly convinced that, unless you assumed a more complaisant bearing, or gave a more decided pledge, to the new minister, it was hopeless for you to expect any thing from him, at least, for the present. The fact is, he stands too much in awe of you, and would rather keep you out of the House than contribute an iota towards obtaining you a seat. Upon all this, you may rely as certain.”
“I thank you from my heart,” said I, warmly, seizing and pressing Lady Roseville’s hand. “You tell me what I have long suspected; I am now upon my guard, and they shall find that I can offend as well as defend. But it is no time for me to boast; oblige me by informing me of the name of my unknown friend; I little thought there was a being in the world who would stir three steps for Henry Pelham.”
“‘That friend,” replied Lady Roseville, with a faltering voice and a glowing cheek, “was Sir Reginald Glanville.”
“What!” cried I, “repeat the name to me again, or—” I paused, and recovered myself. “Sir Reginald Glanville,” I resumed haughtily, “is too gracious to enter into my affairs. I must be strangely altered if I need the officious zeal of any intermeddler to redress my wrongs.”