“A thousand,” said Morley; “we have already as many parties as in St Stephen’s itself.”
“You terrify me,” said Sybil. “I knew we had fearful odds to combat against. My visit to this city alone has taught me how strong are our enemies. But I believed that we had on our side God and Truth.”
“They know neither of them in the National Convention,” said Morley. “Our career will be a vulgar caricature of the bad passions and the low intrigues, the factions and the failures, of our oppressors.”
At this moment Gerard and Hatton who were sitting in the remote part of the room rose together and advanced forward; and this movement interrupted the conversation of Sybil and Morley. Before however her father and his new friend could reach them, Hatton as if some point on which he had not been sufficiently explicit, had occurred to him, stopped and placing his hand on Gerard’s arm, withdrew him again, saying in a voice which could only be heard by the individual whom he addressed. “You understand—I have not the slightest doubt myself of your moral right: I believe on every principle of justice, that Mowbray Castle is as much yours as the house that is built by the tenant on the lord’s land: but can we prove it? We never had the legal evidence. You are in error in supposing that these papers were of any vital consequence; mere memoranda; very useful no doubt: I hope I shall find them; but of no validity. If money were the only difficulty, trust me, it should not be wanting; I owe much to the memory of your father, my good Gerard; I would fain serve you—and your daughter. I’ll not tell you what I would do for you, my good Gerard. You would think me foolish; but I am alone in the world, and seeing you again, and talking of old times—I really am scarcely fit for business. Go, however, I must; I have an appointment at the House of Lords. Good bye. I must say farewell to the Lady Sybil.”
Book 4 Chapter 10
“You can’t have that table, sir, it is engaged,” said a waiter at the Athenaeum to a member of the club who seemed unmindful of the type of appropriation which in the shape of an inverted plate, ought to have warned him off the coveted premises.
“It is always engaged,” grumbled the member. “Who has taken it?”
“Mr Hatton, sir.”
And indeed at this very moment, it being about eight o’clock of the same day on which the meeting detailed in the last chapter had occurred, a very handsome dark brougham with a beautiful horse was stopping in Waterloo Place before the portico of the Athenaeum Club-house, from which equipage immediately emerged the prosperous person of Baptist Hatton.