“A splendid ideal,” added the representative from France. “It would be a coup worthy of the genius who has conceived it. Field-marshal, you will act upon this?”
A superfluous question. The Austrian deputy was but too happy to carry back to his master a suggestion, to which he knew he would gladly give his consent; and after another half-hour spent in talking over its details, the conspirators separated.
“It is an original idea!” soliloquised the Englishman, as he sat smoking his cigar after the departure of his guests. “A splendid idea, as my French friend has characterised it. I shall have my revanche against this proud refugee for the slight he has put upon me in the eyes of the English people. Ah! Monsieur Kossuth! if I foresee aright, your revolutionary aspirations will soon come to an end. Yes, my noble demagogue! your days of being dangerous are as good as numbered?”
Chapter Fifty Four.
A Desirable Neighbourhood.
Lying west of the Regent’s Park, and separated from it by Park Road, is a tract of land sparsely studded with those genteel cottages which the Londoner delights to invest with the more aristocratic appellation of “villas.”
Each stands in its own grounds of a quarter to half an acre, embowered in a shrubbery of lilacs, laburnums, and laurels.
They are of all styles of architecture known to ancient or modern times. And of all sizes; though the biggest of them, in real estate value, is not worth the tenth part of the ground it occupies.