“Plenty women begin on the back sheet.”
“You’re abominable; faith, you are,” said Lucian. “You’re a regular prayer-mill of lies!”
“I’d never have touched it if I hadn’t prepared my excuse beforehand. Ruin my career for the sake of reading an old love-letter? Not I!”
Even as Farquhar wished it, the contemptuous and insulting reference displeased Lucian; the letter was still sacred in his eyes. But he would not, and he did not, allow the feeling to be seen. Farquhar’s measure of reserve was matched by his present openness; but Lucian, whose affairs were everybody’s business, kept his mind as a fenced garden and a fountain sealed. Action and reaction are always equal and opposite; the law is true in the moral as well as the physical world.
“Kindly speak of my letter with more respect, will you?” was all Lucian said.
“Oh, the letter was charming; I wish it had been addressed to me!”
“You shut up, and don’t try to be a profane and foolish babbler. I want to know what it’s all for—what’s your aim and object, sonny?”
“I’m going to get into the Cabinet.”
“You are, are you?” said Lucian. “And why not be premier?”
“And why not king? Because I happen to know my own limitations. I’ll make a damned good understrapper, but the other’s beyond me.”