tter laugh, 'I did not think either of you were
bent on being Paul or Virginia.'

'Have I your lordship's permission to ask her own judgment in the matter: I
mean with the assurance of its not being biassed by you?'

'Freely, most freely do I give it. She is not the girl I believe her if she
leaves you long in doubt. But I prejudge nothing, and I influence nothing.'

'Am I to conclude, my lord, that I am sure of this appointment?'

'I almost believe I can say you are. I have asked for a reply by telegraph,
and I shall probably have one to-morrow.'

'You seemed to have acted under the conviction that I should be glad to get
this place.'

'Yes, such was my conclusion. After that fiasco in Ireland you must go
somewhere, for a time at least, out of the way. Now as a man cannot die for
half-a-dozen years and come back to life when people have forgotten
his unpopularity, the next best thing is South America. Bogota and the
Argentine Republic have whitewashed many a reputation.'

'I will remember your lordship's wise words.'

'Do so,' said my lord curtly, for he felt offended at the flippant tone in
which the other spoke. 'I don't mean to say that I'd send the writer of
that letter yonder to Yucatan or Costa Rica.'

'Who may the gifted writer be, my lord?'

'Atlee, Joe Atlee; the fellow you sent over here.'

'Indeed!' was all that Walpole could utter.

'Just take it to your room and read it over. You will be astonished at
the thing. The fellow has got to know the bearings of a whole set of new
questions, and how he understands the men he has got to deal with!'

'With your leave I will do so,' said he, as he took the letter and left the
room.

CHAPTER LX

A DEFEAT

Cecil Walpole's Italian experiences had supplied him with an Italian
proverb which says, '_Tutto il mal non vien per nuocere_,' or, in other
words, that no evil comes unmixed with good; and there is a marvellous
amount of wisdom in the adage.

That there is a deep philosophy, too, in showing how carefully we should
sift misfortune to the dregs, and ascertain what of benefit we might rescue
from the dross, is not to be denied; and the more we reflect on it, the
more should we see that the germ of all real consolation is intimately
bound up in this reservation.

No sooner, then, did Walpole, in novelist phrase, 'realise the fact' that
he was to go to Guatemala, than he set very practically to inquire what
advantages, if any, could be squee