CHAPTER LXXI
THE DRIVE
Sunday came, and with it the visit to South Kensington, where Aunt Jerningham lived; and Atlee found himself seated beside Lady Maude in a fine roomy barouche, whirling along at a pace that our great moralist himself admits to be amongst the very pleasantest excitements humanity can experience.
‘I hope you will add your persuasions to mine, Mr. Atlee, and induce my uncle to take these horses with him to Turkey. You know Constantinople, and can say that real carriage-horses cannot be had there.’
‘Horses of this size, shape, and action the Sultan himself has not the equals of.’
‘No one is more aware than my lord,’ continued she, ‘that the measure of an ambassador’s influence is, in a great degree, the style and splendour in which he represents his country, and that his household, his equipage, his retinue, and his dinners, should mark distinctly the station he assumes to occupy. Some caprice of Mr. Walpole’s about Arab horses—Arabs of bone and blood he used to talk of—has taken hold of my uncle’s mind, and I half fear that he may not take the English horses with him.’
‘By the way,’ said Atlee, half listlessly, ‘where is Walpole? What has become of him?’
‘He is in Ireland at this moment.’
‘In Ireland! Good heavens! has he not had enough of Ireland?’
‘Apparently not. He went over there on Tuesday last.’