“Can you doubt it?”
“At the present moment,” said the Knight, gravely, “I see no reason for doubting anything merely on the score of its unlikelihood; your Lordship's colleagues have given us some sharp lessons on the subject of credulity, and we should be more unteachable than the savage if we had not learnt something by this time.”
Lord Castlereagh was about to answer, when Lord Drogheda came forward to say “Good night.” The others were going too, and in the bustle of leave-taking some moments were passed.
“Your carriage has not come yet, sir,” replied a servant to the Knight.
“Shall we take you home, Darcy,” said Lord Drogheda; “or are you going to the Club?”
“Let me say no to that offer, Knight,” interposed Lord Castlereagh, “and give me the pleasure of your company till the carriage arrives.”
Darcy acceded to a request, the courteous mode of making which had already secured its acceptance, and the Knight sat down at the fire tête-à-tête with the Secretary.
“I was most anxious for a moment like this,” said Lord Castlereagh, with the air of one abandoning himself to the full liberty of sincerity. “It very seldom happens to men placed like myself to have even a few brief minutes' intercourse with any out of the rank of partisans or opponents.
“I will not disguise from you how highly I should value the alliance of yourself to our party; I place the greatest price upon such support, but there is something better and more valuable than even a vote in a strong division, and that is, the candid judgment of a man who has enjoyed your opportunities and your powers of forming an opinion. Tell me now, frankly,—for we are here in all freedom of intercourse,—what do you object to? What do you fear from this contemplated enactment?”
“Let me rather hear,” said the Knight, smiling, “what do you hope from it,—how you propose it to become the remedy of our existing evils? Because I shall thereby see whether your Lordship and myself are like-minded on the score of the disease, before we begin to discuss the remedy.”