“Why did you not speak about it at the time?”
“Because I wasn’t in Lucifram. I—I—I—You see, I haven’t got out of my old habit.”
“No,” he answered, and raised his hat and turned away again, and spoke with such a short kind of pride, that just the one sharp monosyllable was almost more than Rosalie could stand.
“There now,” said she to the frog, as they walked home, she with a burning heart. “Do you like him now? Did I not tell you no one could be nastier?”
“Well,” replied Brightcoat, “you ask advice, and only give half the information—not that.”
“I see you have conspired against me. If I told him the story of the Governor, and how I met with you, he would only laugh and say I was dreaming.”
“You shouldn’t stammer when you’re speaking. People always misconstrue it, and give it more meaning than it has.”
“Because people are so stupid. Well, we’ve quarrelled again now, and you can blame me if you like; but I blame him. And I would so love to see Mariana again. And to think he called her a housemaid! Housemaid? I’ve seen no woman to compare to her in beauty or grace since I came here. The only thing she needed was life. And housemaids, as a rule, have too much of that.”
It is sad to relate that a few days after this the Great High Priest died, and his death was a general relief. He was little mourned for. The public do not always forgive a man readily, even when he has the grace to die, though it’s certainly a great point in his favour. But still there was a certain section still in his favour, or rather, in favour of a certain Golden Priest called Phillipus, who was the oldest of that superior gathering, and likeliest, therefore, to come soonest upon dotage. Now Phillipus, if seniority had anything to do with it, ought to have stepped into the vacant throne, and would have done, if the events of the last two years or so had not undermined public feeling.
He was a man of sixty, so well preserved, and of an intellect so keen, he appeared as one in the very middle youth of life. But when events are against a man, he may be what he will, he doesn’t make much headway, from a worldly point of view.