of feeling he was as ready to apply it to great Zeus himself as to his
friends or enemies in the House of Commons. He had done this doubtful
thing--but why should it ever be necessary for him to do another? Vague
philosophic yearnings after virtue, moderation, patriotism, crossed his
mind. The Pagan ideal sometimes smote and fired him, the Christian
never. He could still read his Plato and his Cicero, whereas gulfs of
unfathomable distaste rolled between him and the New Testament. Perhaps
the author of all authors for whom he had most relish was Montaigne. He
would have taken him down to-night had there been nothing more kindling
to think of.

_Marcella_!--ah! Marcella! He gave himself to the thought of her with a
new and delightful tenderness which had in it elements of compunction.
After those disagreeable paragraphs in the evening papers, he had
instantly written to her. "Every public man"--he had said to her,
finding instinctively the note of dignity that would appeal to her--"is
liable at some period of his career to charges of this sort. They are at
once exaggerated and blackened, because he is a public man. To you I owe
perfect frankness, and you shall have it. Meanwhile I do not ask--I
know--that you will be just to me, and put the matter out of your
thoughts till I can discuss it with you. Two days more till I see your
face! The time is long!"

To this there had been no answer. Her last letter indeed had rung sadly
and coldly. No doubt Louis Craven had something to do with it. It would
have alarmed him could he simply have found the time to think about it.
Yet she was ready to see him on the 11th; and his confidence in his own
powers of managing fate was tougher than ever. What pleasant lies he had
told her at Lady Masterton's! Well! What passion ever yet but had its
subterfuges? One more wrestle, and he would have tamed her to his wish,
wild falcon that she was. Then--pleasure and brave living! And she also
should have her way. She should breathe into him the language of those
great illusions he had found it of late so hard to feign with her; and
they two would walk and rule a yielding world together. Action, passion,
affairs--life explored and exploited--and at last--"_que la mort me
treuve plantant mes choulx--mais nonchalant d'elle!--et encore plus de
mon jardin imparfaict_!"

He declaimed the words of the great Frenchman with something of the same
temper in which the devout man would have made an act of