“That your distinguished countryman does not marry her. Where else could he hope to find such devotion mingled with everything that can charm? I may say I have watched her behaviour for several years, for a girl in her position must be under the public eye, and her discretion cannot be too highly praised. She seems to have an astonishing natural sense of what is due to herself and others. My only and deep regret is that she is not in the position to which her merits entitle her. No one would receive her more joyfully than I.”
“Your Majesty astonishes me!” the Duchess said slowly. She was weighing this utterance with her own, repeated more than once to Hamilton. Naturally it could only appear to her that the Queen’s words were prompted by pure admiration of great qualities. The Duchess was no stateswoman and in such matters saw no further than her own charming nose. The Queen drew back a little.
“Oh, madam, I beg ten thousand pardons! I had forgotten that the Ambassador has the happiness to be your Grace’s cousin. Let us say no more.”
“Pray do not misunderstand me, madam. I have no objection to the thought. I feel, as no doubt Your Majesty does, all the objections which can be made to a man’s marrying his openly acknowledged mistress. Still, this is a most exceptional case. My cousin is ageing. It would be almost impossible to find any one so adapted to his life and tastes. I have come to an age myself when I consider the world’s opinion much less than the essentials. I believe Your Majesty’s suggestion to be a valuable one.”
The Queen disclaimed this praise with pretty gestures of head and hands. She blew it off lightly as a soap-bubble. No responsibility in such a case for a daughter of the Cæsars!
“Oh, madam, you misunderstand. It is not for me to offer a suggestion. The saints forbid. This is but my opinion as a private woman. As Queen—you see my position. There must be many great English ladies whom we should welcome here as Ambassadress. Only—I cannot do wrong in expressing the hope that when the chosen comes she may equal the fair Emma in tact and talent, for there are dark days at hand in Europe, and if I mistake not the Mediterranean will be the scene of great events. The Queen of France, my sister, writes to me—no, I dare not repeat her words. But if any one imagines that this raging fire of revolution can be shut up in France and spread no further he is heavily mistaken.”
Her eyes darkened and she looked away through the flowers. The Duchess, with no more imagination than the rest of her countrymen and the conviction that because things were well enough already with England they would so remain, passed this off with an indifferent remark on the growing infidelity of France and the danger of unsettling religion, and in a moment the Queen had drawn the mask over her face again and was talking of the new excavations at Pompeii.
But the conversation dwelt in the Duchess’s mind. Every day convinced her more strongly that Hamilton doted upon the wonder-girl. Why should he not be happy in his own way? A little courage and the thing was done. There was no doubt whatever in her mind that it would very much ease his own public position as well as Emma’s. The Queen’s words left little anxiety on that point. She resolved to speak yet more plainly.
When Emma returned to her Hamilton praise of the Queen was loud on her lips. She was not yet a stateswoman and saw in all that had passed merely a tribute to her own graces, and wrote to that effect to Greville in her next news-letter. It pleased her easy-going good-humour to write to him from time to time and relate these triumphs. Like many women of her type, past was past with her, and unpleasant associations soon dwindled in a comfortable haze of indifference. He really did not matter particularly to her now, but it was agreeable to feel that he knew how highly placed people considered what he had rejected.
This letter gave Greville a vague uneasiness to which he had long been a stranger, the more so because it also sounded the loud trumpet about the Duchess of Argyll’s condescension. The Duchess! Emma was climbing indeed!