Godolphin, who had been so silent hitherto that his presence was scarcely noticed, spoke now from the window-seat.
"You have done us a great service, Mr. Montague. I think we should all be very grateful."
This came gracefully from a member of that Tory party that had supported Harley's bank. Mr. Montague bowed, very gratified; my lord had that soft way of conciliating possible enemies with outspoken courtesy.
Portland made no such speeches; he considered it only the bare duty of the English to adequately support the King, whose life, ever since his accession, had been one struggle to obtain money from the English Parliament.
He took up his hat and saluted the company.
"I must endure with what patience I may till the fifteenth," he said, and left them gravely.
He went out into the sunny streets of London, and turned towards the Mall. There was no coach waiting for him; he was frugal in his habits to a fault, and uninterested in any kind of display. No one would have taken him for anything but a soldier home from Flanders, tanned at the wars—an obvious foreigner with a stiff military carriage.
The town was very empty. The state of anxiety, suspense, and danger the country was passing through was not to be guessed at from the well-kept houses, the few leisurely passers-by, and the prosperous shops with their wares displayed behind neat diamond panes.
Portland, passing the pillared façade of Northumberland House and the bronze statue of Charles I. on horseback, came into the Mall, past the tennis-court and archery butts, where several people were practising, to the pond covered with wild fowl and overshaded with elm and chestnut that gave a thick green colour to the water. To his right was a row of handsome houses looking on to the avenue of trees in the Mall, and at most of the windows people were seated; for it was near the turn of the afternoon, and a pleasant coolness began to temper the heat of the day.
Portland looked at these people: fashionably dressed women, with lap dogs or embroidery, drinking tea or talking; easy-looking men smoking or reading one of the new sheets which had flooded the country since the lapse of the censorship of the press—all comfortable, well-to-do, self-satisfied, and rather insolent in their enjoyment of the sunshine, and the shadow of the trees, and their own comfortable homes.