“That’s what I thought, but there’s no chance of that now. She has taken time to consider her answer, and we know what that means. I thought I’d tell you myself, before—before you could hear it from any one else.” Mansfield gasped, and Usk went on hurriedly, “I wouldn’t have believed it, but the fellow told me himself. Perhaps it’s a lie.”
“No fear!” was the sternly hopeless answer. “What would be the good, when a word with your father would put you right at once? She has been over-persuaded.”
“Yes, I know how it is. He has got round her with the notion that it’s her duty to sacrifice herself to him for the sake of his rotten kingdom, like a girl in a book. I’m awfully sorry, Mansfield—sick, too.”
Mansfield answered only by an inarticulate grunt.
“I wouldn’t have believed Phil was such an owl,” went on her brother. “Every one knows that sort of arrangement is bound to end in an awful smash. But never say die, old man; she may chuck him yet.”
“Not she,” returned Mansfield, with a fixed despair.
CHAPTER XXIII.
MAN AND WIFE.
“This is the irony of fate!” said Mansfield to himself the next morning. The English mail had come in, and the city postman, going his leisurely rounds on his white donkey, was engaged in distributing the letters it brought. A few minutes before, he had placed in Mansfield’s hands that which should have been his passport to paradise. The Right Honourable Geoffrey Forfar wrote to say that one of his secretaries had accepted an appointment under Government, and he had much pleasure in fulfilling his promise with regard to the vacant post. Would Mansfield kindly arrange to take up his new duties as soon as his present employer could spare him?
Mr Forfar would have been surprised to learn that his kindly letter served but to inflict on its recipient torments worse than those of Tantalus. If the offer had only arrived yesterday, Mansfield reflected bitterly, he might have spoken to Philippa in time to forestall her royal suitor—but no, it did not turn up until Philippa was beyond his reach. That was how things always happened, he assured himself, for misfortune was developing in him the usual touch of cynicism. For a short time he had visions of accepting the post and returning to England forthwith, throwing himself into his new work with an ardour that carried all before it. He saw himself entering the House, backed by Mr Forfar’s influence and the prestige of his own reputation as a man with an unusual and practical knowledge of European politics, saw himself, equally famous as a thinker and a debater, accepting office and rising to giddy heights of power—and this was all undertaken for the sake of convincing the faithless Philippa that the true lover whom she had cast off to obtain a throne would have been able to give her something more than the love she despised. Unfortunately for Mansfield’s political future, his heart took fright instantly at the idea of leaving Syria while Philippa remained there. He must be on the spot, even if it was only to witness the complete destruction of his hopes. It is possible, also, that those hopes were not yet quite so absolutely dead as he imagined.
“I won’t answer this at once,” he said, thrusting the letter into his pocket, and turned to some notes which he was to write out for Cyril. He had scarcely sat down when he was interrupted by the Chevalier, who emerged from the inner room in a state of wild disorder. When he had asked to see Cyril, Mansfield had observed that he appeared to be labouring under great emotion, but now he seemed to have been tearing both his hair and his clothes. He dropped into a chair opposite Mansfield, and smote his forehead with his hands.