‘I did but speak of the policy of these things,’ said the Cardinal, with an air of humility.
‘It is for me to regard them in another light,’ said Gerald hastily. He paused, and, after a few minutes, resumed in a voice whose accents were full and well weighed: ‘When men have agreed together to support the cause of one they call a Pretender, they ever seem to me to make a sort of compromise with themselves, and insist that he who is to be a royalty to all others, invested with every right and due of majesty, must be to them a plaything and a toy; and then they gather around him with fears, and threats, and hopes, and flatteries—now menacing, now bribing—forgetting the while that if fortune should ever destine such a man to have a throne, they will have so corrupted and debased his nature, while waiting for it, that not one fitting quality, not one rightful trait would remain to him. If history has not taught me wrongly, even usurpers have shown more kingly conduct than restored monarchs.’
‘What would you, Prince?’ said the Cardinal sorrowfully. ‘We must accept the world as we find it.’
‘Say, rather, as we make it.’
The Cardinal rose to take his leave, but evidently wishing that Gerald might say something to detain him. He was very reluctant to leave the young man to ponder in solitude such sentiments as he had avowed.
‘Good-night, sir, good-night. Your Eminence will explain my absence, and say that I will receive these gentlemen tomorrow. What are the papers you hold in your hand—are they for me?’
‘They are some mere routine matters, which your Royal Highness may look over at leisure—appointments to certain benefices, on which it has been the custom to take the pleasure of the Prince your father; but they are not pressing; another time will do equally well.’
There was an adroitness in this that showed how closely his Eminence had studied the Stuart nature, and marked that no flattery was ever so successful with that house as that which implied their readiness to sacrifice time, pleasure, inclination, even health itself to the cares and duties of station. To this blandishment they were never averse or inaccessible, and Gerald inherited the trait in all its strength.
‘Let me see them, sir,’ said Gerald, seating himself at the table, while he gave a deep sigh—fitting testimony of his sense of sacrifice.
‘This is the nomination of John Decloraine Hackett to the see of Elphin; an excellent priest, and a sound politician. He has ever contrived to impress the world so powerfully with his religious devotion, that there are not twelve men in Europe know him to be the craftiest statesman of his time.’