“Paragraph! what paragraph?” and his Lordship rose, and rang the library bell with vehemence: “Sadler, bring me the Morning Post.”
The servant entered with the paper. Mr. Vivian Grey seized it from his hands before it reached the Marquess, and glancing his eye over it with the rapidity of lightning, doubled up the sheet in a convenient readable form, and pushing it into his Lordship’s hands, exclaimed, “There, my Lord! there, that will explain all.”
His Lordship read:
“We are informed that some alteration in the composition of the present administration is in contemplation; Lord Past Century, it is said, will retire; Mr. Liberal Principles will have the—; and Mr. Charlatan Gas the—. A noble Peer, whose practised talents have already benefited the nation, and who, on vacating his seat in the Cabinet, was elevated in the Peerage, is reported as having had certain overtures made him, the nature of which may be conceived, but which, under present circumstances, it would be indelicate in us to hint at.”
It would have been impossible for a hawk to watch its quarry with eyes of more fixed and anxious earnestness than did Vivian Grey the Marquess of Carabas, as his Lordship’s eyes wandered over the paragraph. Vivian drew his chair close to the table opposite to the Marquess, and when the paragraph was read, their eyes met.
“Utterly untrue,” whispered the Peer, with an agitated voice, and with a countenance which, for a moment, seemed intellectual.
“But why Mr. Vivian Grey should deem the fact of such overtures having been made ‘impossible,’ I confess, astonishes me.”
“Impossible, my Lord!”
“Ay, Mr. Grey, impossible, that was your word.”
“Oh, my Lord! what should I know about these matters?”