There is no quality so dangerous to eulogise as experience, and Atlee thought long over this. One determination or another must speedily be come to. If there was no likelihood of success with Lady Maude, he must not lose his chances with the Greek girl. The sum, whatever it might be, which her father should obtain for his secret papers, would constitute a very respectable portion. ‘I have a stronger reason to fight for liberal terms,’ thought he, ‘than the Prince Kostalergi imagines; and, fortunately, that fine parental trait, that noble desire to make a provision for his child, stands out so clearly in my brief, I should be a sorry advocate if I could not employ it.’
In the few words that passed between Lord Danesbury and himself on arriving, he learned that there was but little chance of winning his election for the borough. Indeed, he bore the disappointment jauntily and good-humouredly. That great philosophy of not attaching too much importance to any one thing in life, sustained him in every venture. ‘Bet on the field—never back the favourite,’ was his formula for inculcating the wisdom of trusting to the general game of life, rather than to any particular emergency. ‘Back the field,’ he would say, ‘and you must be unlucky, or you’ll come right in the long run.’
They dined that day alone, that is, they were but three at table; and Atlee enjoyed the unspeakable pleasure of hearing them talk with the freedom and unconstraint people only indulge in when ‘at home.’ Lord Danesbury discussed confidential questions of political importance: told how his colleagues agreed in this, or differed on that; adverted to the nice points of temperament which made one man hopeful and that other despondent or distrustful; he exposed the difficulties they had to meet in the Commons, and where the Upper House was intractable; and even went so far in his confidences as to admit where the criticisms of the Press were felt to be damaging to the administration.
‘The real danger of ridicule,’ said he, ‘is not the pungency of the satire, it is the facility with which it is remembered and circulated. The man who reads the strong leader in the Times may have some general impression of being convinced, but he cannot repeat its arguments or quote its expressions. The pasquinade or the squib gets a hold on the mind, and in its very drollery will ensure its being retained there.’
Atlee was not a little gratified to hear that this opinion was delivered apropos to a short paper of his own, whose witty sarcasms on the Cabinet were exciting great amusement in town, and much curiosity as to the writer.
‘He has not seen “The Whitebait Dinner” yet,’ said Lady Maude; ‘the cleverest jeu d’esprit of the day.’
‘Ay, or of any day,’ broke in Lord Danesbury. ‘Even the Anti-Jacobin has nothing better. The notion is this. The Devil happens to be taking a holiday, and he is in town just at the time of the Ministerial dinner, and hearing that he is at Claridge’s, the Cabinet, ashamed at the little attention bestowed on a crowned head, ask him down to Greenwich. He accepts, and to kill an hour—
“He strolled down, of course,
To the Parliament House,
And heard how England stood,
As she has since the Flood,
Without ally or friend to assist her.
But, while every persuasion
Was full of invasion
From Russian or Prussian,
Yet the only discussion
Was, how should a Gentleman marry his sister.”’
‘Can you remember any more of it, my lord?’ asked Atlee, on whose table at that moment were lying the proof-sheets of the production.
‘Maude has it all somewhere. You must find it for him, and let him guess the writer—if he can.’