“Doubtless the tedium of such a state to a man of the temperament of the gallant commander,” etc., the termination of the article was indulgent. Rosamund recurred to the final paragraph for comfort, and though she loved Beauchamp, the test of her representative feminine sentiment regarding his political career, when personal feeling on his behalf had subsided, was, that the writer of the article must have received an intimation to deal both smartly and forbearingly with the offender: and from whom but her lord? Her notions of the conduct of the Press were primitive. In a summary of the article Beauchamp was treated as naughty boy, formerly brave boy, and likely by-and-by to be good boy. Her secret heart would have spoken similarly, with more emphasis on the flattering terms.
A telegram arrived from her lord. She was bidden to have the house clear for him by noon of the next day.
How could that be done?
But to write blankly to inform the Earl of Romfrey that he was excluded from his own house was another impossibility.
“Hateful man!” she apostrophized Captain Baskelett, and sat down, supporting her chin in a prolonged meditation.
The card of a French lady, bearing the name of Madame d’Auffray, was handed to her.
Beauchamp had gone off to his friend Lydiard, to fortify himself in his resolve to reply to that newspaper article by eliciting counsel to the contrary. Phrase by phrase he fought through the first half of his composition of the reply against Lydiard, yielding to him on a point or two of literary judgement, only the more vehemently to maintain his ideas of discretion, which were, that he would not take shelter behind a single subterfuge; that he would try this question nakedly, though he should stand alone; that he would stake his position on it, and establish his right to speak his opinions: and as for unseasonable times, he protested it was the cry of a gorged middle-class, frightened of further action, and making snug with compromise. Would it be a seasonable time when there was uproar? Then it would be a time to be silent on such themes: they could be discussed calmly now, and without danger; and whether he was hunted or not, he cared nothing. He declined to consider the peculiar nature of Englishmen: they must hear truth or perish.
Knowing the difficulty once afflicting Beauchamp in the art of speaking on politics tersely, Lydiard was rather astonished at his well-delivered cannonade; and he fancied that his modesty had been displaced by the new acquirement; not knowing the nervous fever of his friend’s condition, for which the rattle of speech was balm, and contention a native element, and the assumption of truth a necessity. Beauchamp hugged his politics like some who show their love of the pleasures of life by taking to them angrily. It was all he had: he had given up all for it. He forced Lydiard to lay down his pen and walk back to the square with him, and went on arguing, interjecting, sneering, thumping the old country, raising and oversetting her, treating her alternately like a disrespected grandmother, and like a woman anciently beloved; as a dead lump, and as a garden of seeds; reviewing prominent political men, laughing at the dwarf-giants; finally casting anchor on a Mechanics’ Institute that he had recently heard of, where working men met weekly for the purpose of reading the British poets.
“That’s the best thing I’ve heard of late,” he said, shaking Lydiard’s hand on the door-steps.
“Ah! You’re Commander Beauchamp; I think I know you. I’ve seen you on a platform,” cried a fresh-faced man in decent clothes, halting on his way along the pavement; “and if you were in your uniform, you damned Republican dog! I’d strip you with my own hands, for the disloyal scoundrel you are, with your pimping Republicanism and capsizing everything in a country like Old England. It’s the cat-o’-nine-tails you want, and the bosen to lay on; and I’d do it myself. And mind me, when next I catch sight of you in blue and gold lace, I’ll compel you to show cause why you wear it, and prove your case, or else I’ll make a Cupid of you, and no joke about it. I don’t pay money for a nincompoop to outrage my feelings of respect and loyalty, when he’s in my pay, d’ ye hear? You’re in my pay: and you do your duty, or I’ll kick ye out of it. It’s no empty threat. You look out for your next public speech, if it’s anywhere within forty mile of London. Get along.”