Sir Richard was holding the paper in his right hand; dropping the veil, he brought his left to the front and stood staring in a sort of stupor. A consciousness as of chill, as of a sense of warmth and security suddenly and shockingly withdrawn, tingled through his veins. It was succeeded by a faint thrill of grievance or self-pity. He had been so exceedingly comfortable and happy a moment ago.
“Remember Cæsar!”—just those two words, no more, but how voluminous in terrific import! “Remember Cæsar!” Remember the retribution that always waited on “vaulting ambition.” A vision of a vast Senate-Hall, of a throng of passionate figures holding aloft blood-stained daggers, of a silent, prostrate form in their midst, rose before him. “Remember Cæsar!” Remember Cæsar’s fate: remember what came to befall the greatest soldier, statesman, jurist of his time—possibly of all time.
A certain flattery in the analogy for an instant restored the colour to Sir Richard’s cheek. Perhaps the comparison was not so extravagant a one after all. The position of Lord Treasurer was so exalted, that, looking down from it, all lesser offices and all lesser men appeared dwarfed. It needed surely a stupendous intellect to preserve its equilibrium at that altitude. And yet, such the height, such the fall. The Treasurer’s momentary heroics came down with an anticipatory thwack which left him gasping.
If he could only avoid Cæsar’s fate while admitting the soft analogy! The illustrious Imperator had also, if he remembered rightly, received his warning, and had ignored it. To ape the foolhardinesses of the great was surely not to justify one’s relation to them in the best sense.
A shrill wind blew upon the casement. Its voice had but now awakened a snug response in the Treasurer’s breast. All in a moment it spoke to him of the near approach of the Ides of March, and he shivered and dropped the paper to the floor.
“Phineas,” he said in an agitated voice, “Phineas! How came that into my pocket?”
The valet, busy about his affairs, approached deferentially but curiously, and, at a sign from his master, lifted and examined the billet, and shook his head.
“You don’t know?”
“No, indeed, my lord.”
“How do you read it, man? How do you read it?”