“But he is your friend, father,” she was compelled to exclaim, in order to give him courage, for she had never in her life seen him so overcome.
“Those midnight investigations are, as you have said, a curious way of demonstrating friendship,” he remarked blankly. “No,” he added in a dry, hard tone. “To-day is the beginning of the end. These are my last days of office, Mary. The vote may be taken in the Chamber any day, and then—” and his eyes wandered involuntarily to that drawer in his writing-table wherein reposed his revolver, which, alas! more than once of late he had handled so fondly.
“And after that—what?” his daughter asked anxiously.
But only a deep sigh ran through the lofty room, and then she realised that her father’s kindly eyes were filled with tears.
Chapter Seventeen.
The Sazarac Affair.
The great gilded ballroom of the French Embassy in Rome was thronged by a brilliant crowd, even though it was out of the season and the majority of the official and diplomatic world were still absent from the Eternal City, in the mountains or at the baths.
The bright uniforms, the glittering stars and coloured ribbons worn by the men, and the magnificent toilettes of the women, combined to form a perfect phantasmagoria of colour beneath the huge crystal electroliers.