She moved away, and played delightfully on the guitar until the guests rose to leave. Then she found an opportunity to tell Lord Reckage not to come back again. She was tired, she said, and her papa would think it too odd.
“Then to-morrow morning,” said he.
She named an hour.
CHAPTER XX
Robert, on leaving the house, drove to Grosvenor Gate, where he had an appointment with Disraeli. The ex-Minister was sitting, in a flowered dressing-gown, by the library fire. The blinds were not drawn, for the night was bright and starry; the moonlight streamed into the room, mingling strangely with the soft glow of the green-shaded lamp. There was a large bundle of documents on the table by Disraeli's side, and a pile of Continental newspapers on the floor. One of the latter he was reading, and, by the slight curl of his mouth and the gleam in his fine eyes, Orange saw that he was working out, to his amusement, some train of thought which gave full jurisdiction to his knowledge of humanity.
“Bismarck,” said he, “is the first German statesman who has not regarded newspapers as inconvenient lumber. He wishes the Press to advance his great ideas by assuming the place of the Universities in training public opinion, and the place of the Church in controlling it. He might as well strive to make the horse into the lion, the mule into the unicorn, a parrot into the soaring eagle! Any man who is written up into a place can be written down out of it. Our friend will learn this too late—probably about the time that we, in England, are adopting, with enthusiasm, his present error. Ah, my dear Orange, watch the sky and you will learn the hearts of men. Observe the changing light, the clouds driven by the wind, the glimpses of pure blue, the sudden blackness, the startling brilliancy, and then—the monotonous grey. They seem too hard for me, at times. The clash between ideas and interests makes our inheritance a grim battlefield, and there are moments of mortification when one may feel tempted to sell it—not for a mess of pottage, but for the promise of a mess of pottage. Tempted, I said. There is always a course left, if you have the courage to face it. It may avail you; I cannot insure you even that. But if I were in your place, I would try.”
“I could never do better, sir, than to follow your advice or your example.”
“Never betray, then, the least depression at disappointments or reverses, but seize the few joyful occasions of life for the indulgence of any accumulated melancholy and bitterness. By this simple rule you will escape the charge urged against all the ambitious, who are usually as intoxicated by success as they are cowardly in adversity. It delights me to see you in high spirits. Tell me the news, but first give me your opinion of this little paragraph which will appear in to-morrow's Times.”