“Probably,” replied Hatchett, after a minute's hesitation. “Probably, Orange ... in time.”
“Don't you like him?” said Penborough.
“Like him!” answered Hatchett, rolling up his eyes. “He's an angel!”
“He calls him an angel as though he wished he were one in reality,” said Bradwyn. “I know these generous rivals!”
Ullweather stood gnawing his upper lip.
“Orange,” he said, at last. “Oh, Orange has arrived. He will get no further. Of course, he won that election, but Dizzy managed that. Dizzy is the devil! And then, he is still devoted to Reckage, and, for a man of his supposed shrewdness, I call that a sign of evident weakness.”
At this, Charles Aumerle, who had been listening with the deepest attention to all that passed, looked straight at the speaker.
“You should respect,” said he, “that liberty, which we all have to deceive ourselves. Reckage has many good points.”
“But,” said Penborough, “he has no moral force, no imagination. He judges men by their manners, which is silly. He thinks that every one who is polite to him believes in him. He will have to send in his resignation before long.”
“You don't mean it,” said Aumerle.