nial; and when
they met in the streets, they never said, as they would to companions
they esteemed less, "Let us spend the day together!" Such forms of
acquaintance are not uncommon among honourable men who have already
formed habits and pursuits of their own, which they cannot surrender
even to friendship. Colonel Danvers was not at home--they believed he
was at his club, of which Ernest also was a member. Thither Maltravers
bent his way. On arriving, he found that Danvers had been at the club
an hour ago, and left word that he should shortly return. Maltravers
entered and quietly sat down. The room was full of its daily loungers;
but he did not shrink from, he did not even heed, the crowd. He felt not
the desire of solitude--there was solitude enough within him. Several
distinguished public men were there, grouped around the fire, and many
of the hangers-on and satellites of political life; they were talking
with eagerness and animation, for it was a season of great party
conflict. Strange as it may seem, though Maltravers was then scarcely
sensible of their conversation, it all came back vividly and faithfully
on him afterwards, in the first hours of reflection on his own future
plans, and served to deepen and consolidate his disgust of the world.
They were discussing the character of a great statesman whom, warmed
but by the loftiest and purest motives, they were unable to understand.
Their gross suspicions, their coarse jealousies, their calculations of
patriotism by place, all that strips the varnish from the face of that
fair harlot--Political Ambition--sank like caustic into his spirit.
A gentleman seeing him sit silent, with his hat over his moody brows,
civilly extended to him the paper he was reading.

"It is the second edition; you will find the last French express."

"Thank you," said Maltravers; and the civil man started as he heard
the brief answer; there was something so inexpressibly prostrate and
broken-spirited in the voice that uttered it.

Maltravers's eyes fell mechanically on the columns, and caught his own
name. That work which, in the fair retirement of Temple Grove it had
so pleased him to compose--in every page and every thought of which
Florence had been consulted--which was so inseparably associated with
her image, and glorified by the light of her kindred genius--was just
published. It had been completed long since; but the publisher had, for
some excellent reason of the craft, hitherto d