Cecilia expected him to say that he had foreseen such an event.
He said nothing; and with a singular contraction of the heart she recollected how he had denounced our system of preparing mainly for the defensive in war, on a day when they stood together in the park, watching the slow passage of that very ship, the Hastings, along the broad water, distant below them. The 'swarms of swift vessels of attack,' she recollected particularly, and 'small wasps and rams under mighty steam- power,' that he used to harp on when declaring that England must be known for the assailant in war: she was to 'ray out' her worrying fleets. 'The defensive is perilous policy in war': he had said it. She recollected also her childish ridicule of his excess of emphasis: he certainly had foresight.'
Mr. Austin and Mr. Tuckham came strolling in conversation round the house to the terrace. Beauchamp bowed to the former, nodded to the latter, scrutinizing him after he had done so, as if the flash of a thought were in his mind. Tuckham's radiant aspect possibly excited it: 'Congratulate me!' was the honest outcry of his face and frame. He was as over- flowingly rosy as a victorious candidate at the hustings commencing a speech. Cecilia laid her hand on an urn, in dread of the next words from either of the persons present. Her father put an arm in hers, and leaned on her. She gazed at her chamber window above, wishing to be wafted thither to her seclusion within. The trembling limbs of physical irresoluteness was a new experience to her.
'Anything else in the paper, colonel? I've not seen it to-day,' said
Beauchamp, for the sake of speaking.
'No, I don't think there's anything,' Colonel Halkett replied. 'Our diplomatists haven't been shining much: that 's not our forte.'
'No: it's our field for younger sons.'
'Is it? Ah! There's an expedition against the hilltribes in India, and we're such a peaceful nation, eh? We look as if we were in for a complication with China.'
'Well, sir, we must sell our opium.'
'Of course we must. There's a man writing about surrendering Gibraltar!'
'I'm afraid we can't do that.'