Daring pilots in extremity,
Scorning the danger when the waves ran high;
or of those men, heirs to their traditions, who, for nearly twenty years, confronted the no less formidable forces of discontent and disaffection—of Peel and Wellington, Croker and Canning, and he is blind who does not find there the reflection of that firm rule, the shadow of that power which still survived, though maimed and weakened in the early thirties.
Certainly it was not easy to smile at such men then; at their pride or their prejudices, their selfishness or their eccentricity. For behind lay solid power. Small blame to Vaughan therefore, if in the face of the servile attitude, the obsequious rising of the company about him, he felt his countenance change, if he could not quite hide his dismay. And though he told himself that his feelings were out of place, that the man did but stand in the shoes which would one day be his, and was but now what he would be, vox faucibus hæsit—he was dumb. It was Sir Robert who broke the silence.
“I fear, Mr. Vaughan,” he said, the gleam in his eyes alone betraying his passion—for he would as soon have walked the country lanes in his dressing robe as given way to rage in that company—“I fear you are saying in haste words which you will repent at leisure! Did I hear aright that—that you are in favour of the Bill?”
“I am,” Vaughan replied a little huskily. “I——”
“Just so, just so!” Sir Robert replied with a certain lightness. And raising his walking cane he pointed gravely and courteously to the door a pace or two from him. “That is the door, Mr. Vaughan,” he said. “You must be here, I am sure, under an error.”
Vaughan coloured painfully. “Sir Robert,” he said, “I owe you, I know——”
“You will owe me very little by to-morrow evening,” Sir Robert rejoined, interrupting him suavely. “Much less than you now think! But that is not to the point. Will you—kindly withdraw?”
“I would like at least to say this! That I came here——”