“I can't tell. I cannot even imagine myself filling any station of responsibility or importance.”
“My reply was brief: Leave for six months' time, to recruit an over-taxed frame and over-wrought intellect; time also for them to look out what to offer me, for I 'll not go to Mexico, nor to Rio; neither will I take Washington, nor any of the Northern Courts. Dearest Bella must have climate, and I myself must have congenial society; and so I said, not in such terms, but in meaning, Skeff Darner is only yours at his price. Let them refuse me,—let me see them even hesitate, and I give my word of honor, I'm capable of abandoning public life altogether, and retiring into my woods at Tilney, leaving the whole thing at sizes and sevens.”
Now, though Tony neither knew what the “whole thing” meant, nor the dire consequences to which his friend's anger might have consigned it, he muttered something that sounded like a hope that he would not leave Europe to shift for herself at such a moment.
“Let them not drive me to it, that's all,” said he, haughtily; and he arose and walked up and down with an air of defiance. “The Lyles do not see this,—Lady Lyle especially. She wants a peerage for her daughter, but ambition is not always scrupulous.”
“I always liked her the least of them,” muttered Tony, who never could forget the sharp lesson she administered to him.
“She 'll make herself more agreeable to you now, Master Tony,” said Skeff, with a dry laugh.
“And why so?”
“Can't you guess?”
“No.”
“On your word?”.