The idea was fully approved of by my energetic hearer. "Right!" said he. "It is exactly the thing which I should have expected from you. You have been ill-treated, I own, but there is no use in kicking at power, unless you can kick it before you. The machinery of government is too huge for any one of us to resist, and unless we run along with it, our only wisdom is, to get out of its way. But you shall have a commission, ay, even if it cost a thousand guineas. Never refuse; I am not in the habit of throwing away my money; but you saved Mariamne's life, and I would not have lost my child for all the bullion in the Bank of England, or on the globe."
I was surprised by this burst of generosity, but it was real; and the Jew, as if to put his sincerity beyond all doubt, had torn a leaf out of his pocket-book, and was writing an order for the sum on his banker: he laid it on the table. I returned it to him at once, perhaps not less to his surprise than his offer had been to mine. But I reminded him, that I had still a balance at my banker's; and I told him besides that I had made up my mind to enter the regiment from which I had been so unceremoniously dismissed, or none. He stared. "If," said I, "I shall not be commissioned in the Coldstream, it will be utterly beyond my power to persuade even my own relatives, much less the world, that I have not been dismissed for some act of impropriety. Or, if men will not hazard saying this to my face, they will only be more likely to say it where I cannot defend myself."
"True!" said Mordecai, as if the opinion had cast a new light on him. "Perfectly to the point. This is a world of scandal; and, like the wolves, the whole pack fall on the wounded. You must recover your commission in the Coldstream; or be ready to tell your story every day of your life, and be only half believed after all. Yes, you must enter that very corps, or be sneered at as long as you live; and if you have a heart to be stung, it will be stung. Our people know that well."
"I should give my last shilling to be carrying its colours at this moment," said I, "but unfortunately money is useless there. The Guards are the favourite of royalty, and their commissions naturally go to men of rank and fortune."
"We must go to town and see what is to be done. When will you be ready?" asked my host.
"To-night—this moment—if possible, I should set out."
"No, no, Mr Marston, my movements cannot be quite so expeditious. I must wait for my London letters in the morning. On their arrival we may start, and, by taking four horses, reach town before the Horse Guards closes for the day."
At breakfast next morning Mariamne was not to be seen: she excused herself by a violent headach; and by the countenance of her Abigail, generally a tolerable reflexion of the temper of the female authority of a house, it was evident that I had fallen into disfavour. But how was this to be accounted for? Mordecai, from the lateness of the hour at which we parted, could not have seen her; even if she should condescend to take my matrimonial chillness as an offence. But the mystery was soon, cleared by her answer to the note which contained my farewell. It was simply the enclosure of a few hapless lines of verse, in which the name of Clotilde occurred, and which had been found in the clearance of my chamber preparatory to my journey. This was decisive. Mariamne was a sovereign, who, choose as she might her prime minister, would not suffer her royal attendance to be diminished by the loss of a single slave. I petitioned for a parting word, it was declined; and I had only to regret my poetic error, or my still greater error in not keeping my raptures under lock and key.
As the carriage drew up to the door, Mordecai casually asked me "have you left your card at the Steyne?"
"No," was the reply. "Was it necessary?"