on the whole, liked to
understate his case, and affect distrust of his own opinion. Though there
was not one of these which were not more or less restrictions on him,
he could be brilliant and witty when occasion served, and there was an
incisive neatness in his repartee in which he had no equal. Some of those
he was to meet were well known amongst the most agreeable people of
society, and he rejoiced that at least, if he were to be put upon his
trial, he should be judged by his peers.

With all these flattering prospects, was it not strange that his lordship
never dropped a word, nor even a hint, as to his personal career? He had
told him, indeed, that he could not hope for success at Cradford, and
laughingly said, 'You have left Odger miles behind you in your Radicalism.
Up to this, we have had no Parliament in England sufficiently advanced
for your opinions.' On the whole, however, if not followed up--which Lord
Danesbury strongly objected to its being--he said there was no great harm
in a young man making his first advances in political life by something
startling. They are only fireworks, it is true; the great requisite is,
that they be brilliant, and do not go out with a smoke and a bad smell!

Beyond this, he had told him nothing. Was he minded to take him out to
Turkey, and as what? He had already explained to him that the old days
in which a clever fellow could be drafted at once into a secretaryship
of embassy were gone by; that though a parliamentary title was held to
supersede all others, whether in the case of a man or a landed estate, it
was all-essential to be in the House for _that_, and that a diplomatist,
like a sweep, must begin when he is little.

'As his private secretary,' thought he, 'the position is at once fatal to
all my hopes with regard to Lady Maude.' There was not a woman living more
certain to measure a man's pretensions by his station. 'Hitherto I have not
been "classed." I might be anybody, or go anywhere. My wide capabilities
seemed to say that if I descended to do small things, it would be quite as
easy for me to do great ones; and though I copied despatches, they would
have been rather better if I had drafted them also.'

Lady Maude knew this. She knew the esteem in which her uncle held him. She
knew how that uncle, shrewd man of the world as he was, valued the sort of
qualities he saw in him, and could, better than most men, decide how far
such gifts were marketable, and what pric