‘And supposing, which I do not believe, that you could get her to break with Walpole, what could you offer her?’
‘Myself!’
‘Inestimable boon, doubtless; but what of fortune—position or place in life?’
‘The first Napoleon used to say that the “power of the unknown number was incommensurable”; and so I don’t despair of showing her that a man like myself may be anything.’
Dick shook his head doubtingly, and the other went on: ‘In this round game we call life it is all “brag.” The fellow with the worst card in the pack, if he’ll only risk his head on it, keep a bold face to the world and his own counsel, will be sure to win. Bear in mind, Dick, that for some time back I have been keeping the company of these great swells who sit highest in the Synagogue, and dictate to us small Publicans. I have listened to their hesitating counsels and their uncertain resolves; I have seen the blotted despatches and equivocal messages given, to be disavowed if needful; I have assisted at those dress rehearsals where speech was to follow speech, and what seemed an incautious avowal by one was to be “improved” into a bold declaration by another “in another place”; in fact, my good friend, I have been near enough to measure the mighty intelligences that direct us, and if I were not a believer in Darwin, I should be very much shocked for what humanity was coming to. It is no exaggeration that I say, if you were to be in the Home Office, and I at the Foreign Office, without our names being divulged, there is not a man or woman in England would be the wiser or the worse; though if either of us were to take charge of the engine of the Holyhead line, there would be a smash or an explosion before we reached Rugby.’
‘All that will not enable you to make a settlement on Nina Kostalergi.’
‘No; but I’ll marry her all the same.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Will you have a bet on it, Dick? What will you wager?’
‘A thousand—ten, if I had it; but I’ll give you ten pounds on it, which is about as much as either of us could pay.’