"How absurdly you talk about my persuading Veriphast to do anything? the only person, as you know, who has any influence over him is Mrs Loveton," responds her ladyship, with a sigh—arising from dyspepsia.
"I have hit it;" and for a moment Larkington looks animated. "Squabbleton is close to the coast, and we will make a party, and I will take you all round in my yacht, the Lovetons and you and Veriphast; we'll go and do the electioneering business together, and keep the yacht as a sort of pied à terre, or rather pied à mer;" and Larkington chuckled, partly at his joke, and partly at this brilliant solution of his dilemma.
And so, while all the world is trying to reconcile their pleasure with what they are pleased to term their duty, being always the duty they owe to themselves, my thoughts are diverted into a very different channel. I am beginning daily to feel, while in the world, that I am less of it. Already I have cut myself off from the one great source of interest which Parliament afforded me, and I have not succeeded in my love as a compensation—that is why Larkington's arrangement to secure both seemed a sort of mockery of my misery. For it was impossible to resist the occasional fits of depression which reduced my mind to the condition of white paper, and the world to that of a doll stuffed with sawdust. I was suffering in this manner the day following the evening entertainment at Lady Broadhem's, which I have already described. The interview which impended inspired me with vague terrors. The night before I had looked forward to it with positive enjoyment. There is no greater bore than to get up morally and physically unhinged, upon the very day that you expect an unusual strain upon your faculties. The days it does not matter, you feel up to anything; but nature too often perversely deserts you at the most critical moment.
Now, upon the morning in question it was necessary as a preliminary measure for me to go into the City and acquire some information essential to the success of my interview with Lady Broadhem, but before starting I was anxious to gain a few particulars from Grandon, the knowledge of which would materially aid me in disentangling the complicated skein of our joint affairs. I therefore looked in upon him for a moment en passant.
"I went to Lady Broadhem's last night, Grandon," I said, "and I have reasons for wishing to know whether you have had any communication with the family lately. I think the time is coming when I shall be able to explain much of my conduct which I can well understand has perplexed and distressed you."
"It would be a relief to me to feel that there was no more mystery between us," he replied. "You have certainly at last most effectually contradicted the report you were the means of originating, but the reparation was tardy, and should never have been rendered necessary. However, there is no use in recurring to the past; but I am entitled to ask what your object is in making your present inquiries?"
"I am to see Lady Broadhem this afternoon," I said, "and I wish to be prepared on all points. I heard something last night which may influence your future far more seriously than mine; and it is in fact in your interests, and not in my own, that I wish to be well informed."
"What do you want to know?"
"I want to know whether you have ever actually proposed to Lady Ursula, and, if so, what was the result?"
"Frank," said Grandon, "after what has passed you are pushing my confidence in you, and my friendship for you, to their utmost limits, in expecting me to answer you in this matter. Still I cannot believe your motives to be unworthy, though they may be unintentionally perverted; nor do I think that it is in your power to affect the position of affairs either for good or harm. The fact is, then, that Lady Ursula does know precisely the state of my feelings towards her, and I feel that, though there may be insuperable obstacles to our union at present, she would never consent to yield to any pressure exercised by her mother in favour of another."