.

There was what is called a _conversazione_ at the house of one of those
Whig noblemen who yet retain the graceful art of bringing agreeable
people together, and collecting round them the true aristocracy, which
combines letters and art and science with hereditary rank and political
distinction,--that art which was the happy secret of the Lansdownes and
Hollands of the last generation. Lord Beaumanoir was himself a genial,
well-read man, a good judge of art, and a pleasant talker. He had a
charming wife, devoted to him and to her children, but with enough love
of general approbation to make herself as popular in the fashionable
world as if she sought in its gayeties a refuge from the dulness of
domestic life.

Amongst the guests at the Beaumanoirs, this evening were two men, seated
apart in a small room, and conversing familiarly. The one might be about
fifty-four; he was tall, strongly built, but not corpulent, somewhat
bald, with black eyebrows, dark eyes, bright and keen, mobile lips round
which there played a shrewd and sometimes sarcastic smile.

This gentleman, the Right Hon. Gerard Danvers, was a very influential
member of Parliament. He had, when young for English public life,
attained to high office; but--partly from a great distaste to the
drudgery of administration; partly from a pride of temperament, which
unfitted him for the subordination that a Cabinet owes to its chief;
partly, also, from a not uncommon kind of epicurean philosophy, at once
joyous and cynical, which sought the pleasures of life and held very
cheap its honours--he had obstinately declined to re-enter office, and
only spoke on rare occasions. On such occasions he carried great weight,
and, by the brief expression of his opinions, commanded more votes than
many an orator infinitely more eloquent. Despite his want of ambition,
he was fond of power in his own way,--power over the people who _had_
power; and, in the love of political intrigue, he found an amusement for
an intellect very subtle and very active. At this moment he was bent on
a new combination among the leaders of different sections in the same
party, by which certain veterans were to retire, and certain younger men
to be admitted into the Administration. It was an amiable feature in his
character that he had a sympathy with the young, and had helped to
bring into Parliament, as well as into office, some of the ablest of
a generation later than his own. He gave them sensible