“Yes, Excellency.”
His note thus despatched, the Marquis threw himself down in his arm-chair, and again read Jost’s mysterious communication.
“Whatever messenger has passed himself off as coming from me, Jost must have been crazy to receive him without credentials,” he said. “There must be a mistake somewhere!”
A vague alarm troubled him; he was not moved by conscientious scruples, but the idea that any of his secret moves should be ‘explained’ to a stranger was, to say the least of it, annoying, and not conducive to the tranquillity of his mind. A thousand awkward possibilities suggested themselves at once to his brain, and as he carried a somewhat excitable disposition under his heavy and phlegmatic exterior, he fumed and fretted himself for the next half hour into an impatience which only found vent in the prosaic and everyday performance of dressing himself. Ah!—if those who consider a Prime Minister great and exalted, could only see him as he pulls on his trousers, and fastens his shirt collar, what a disillusion would be promptly effected! Especially if, like the Marquis de Lutera, he happened to be over-stout, and difficult to clothe! This particular example of Premiership was an ungainly man; his proud position could not make him handsome, nor lend true dignity to his deportment. Old Mother Nature has a way of marking her specimens, if we will learn to recognize the signs she sets on certain particular ‘makes’ of man. The Marquis de Lutera was ‘made’ to be a stock-jobber, not a statesman. His bent was towards the material gain and good of himself, more than the advantage of his country. His reasoning was a slight variation of Falstaff’s logical misprisal of honour. He argued; “If I am poor, then what is it to me that others are rich? If I am neglected, what do I care that the people are prosperous? Let me but secure and keep those certain millions of money which shall ensure to me and my heritage a handsome endowment, not only for my life, but for all lives connected with mine which come after me,—and my ‘patriotism’ is satisfied!”
He had just finished insinuating himself by degrees into his morning coat, when his servant entered.
“Well!” he asked impatiently.
“Mr. Jost is coming round at once, Excellency. He ordered his carriage directly he read your note.”
“He sent no answer?”
“None, Excellency.”
“When he arrives, show him into the library.”