“It is awful, my lord! If it be not sacrilege by the law, the greater the shame of the opposition in Parliament, who defeat so many other wholesome regulations, intended for the good of the subject.”
“Faith, I am not sure I may not be driven to join them myself, bad as they are, Carnaby; for this neglect of ministers, not to call it by a worse name, might goad a man to even a more heinous measure.’
“I am sure nobody could blame your lordship, were your lordship to join anybody, or anything but the French! I have often told Mrs. Carnaby as much as that, in our frequent conversations concerning the unpleasant situation in which your lordship is just now placed.”
“I had not thought the awkward transaction attracted so much notice,” observed the other, evidently wincing under the allusion.
“It attracts it only in a proper and respectful way, my lord. Neither Mrs. Carnaby, nor myself, ever indulges in any of these remarks, but in the most proper and truly English manner.”
“The reservation might palliate a greater error. That word proper is a prudent term, and expresses all one could wish. I had not thought you so intelligent and shrewd a man, Master Carnaby: clever in the way of business, I always knew you to be; but so apt in reason, and so matured in principle, is what I will confess I had not expected. Can you form no conjecture of the business of this man?”
“Not in the least, my lord. I pressed the impropriety of a personal interview; for, though he alluded to some business or other, I scarcely know what, with which he appeared to think your lordship had some connexion, I did not understand him, and we had like to have parted without an explanation.”
“I will not see the fellow.”
“Just as your lordship pleases—I am sure that, after so many little affairs have passed through my hands, I might be safely trusted with this; and I said as much,—but as he positively refused to make me an agent, and he insisted that it was so much to your lordship’s interests—why, I thought, my lord, that perhaps—just now——”
“Show him in.”