“Well, what are they going to do with you?”
“Oh, it's nothing very high and mighty. I am to be what they call a Queen's Messenger.”
“Under the Foreign Office?”
“Yes.”
“Not bad things these appointments,—that is to say, gentlemen hold them, and contrive to live on them. How they do so it's not very easy to say; but the fact is there, and not to be questioned.”
This speech, a random shot as it was, hit the mark; and Maitland saw that Tony winced under it, and he went on.
“The worst is, however, that these things lead to nothing. If a man takes to the law, he dreams of the Great Seal, or, at least, of the bench. If he be a soldier, he is sure to scribble his name with 'lieutenant-general' before it. One always has an eye to the upper branches, whatever be the tree; but this messenger affair is a mere bush, which does not admit of climbing. Last of all, it would never do for you.”
“And why not do for me?” asked Tony, half fiercely.
“Simply because you could not reduce yourself to the mere level of a piece of mechanism,—a thing wound up at Downing Street, to go 'down' as it reached Vienna. To you life should present, with its changes of fortune, its variety, its adventures, and its rewards. Men like you confront dangers, but are always conquered by mere drudgery. Am I right?”
“Perhaps there is something in that.”