d-natured laugh and the exclamation:
"You know there are plenty of swamps and jungles, if you want that sort
of thing," Peter replied that it was very much that sort of thing he did
want; whereupon his chief continued: "I'll see--I'll see. If anything
turns up you shall hear."

Something turned up the very next day: our young man, taken at his word,
found himself indebted to the postman for a note of concise intimation
that the high position of minister to the smallest of Central American
republics would be apportioned him. The republic, though small, was big
enough to be "shaky," and the position, though high, not so exalted that
there were not much greater altitudes above it to which it was a
stepping-stone. Peter, quite ready to take one thing with another,
rejoiced at his easy triumph, reflected that he must have been even more
noticed at headquarters than he had hoped, and, on the spot, consulting
nobody and waiting for nothing, signified his unqualified acceptance of
the place. Nobody with a grain of sense would have advised him to do
anything else. It made him happier than he had supposed he should ever
be again; it made him feel professionally in the train, as they said in
Paris; it was serious, it was interesting, it was exciting, and his
imagination, letting itself loose into the future, began once more to
scale the crowning eminence. It was very simple to hold one's course if
one really tried, and he blessed the variety of peoples. Further
communications passed, the last enjoining on him to return to Paris for
a short interval a week later, after which he would be advised of the
date for his proceeding to his remoter duties.

XXXIX

The next thing he meanwhile did was to call with his news on Lady Agnes
Dormer; it is not unworthy of note that he took on the other hand no
step to make his promotion known to Miriam Rooth. To render it probable
he should find his aunt he went at the luncheon-hour; and she was indeed
on the point of sitting down to that repast with Grace. Biddy was not at
home--Biddy was never at home now, her mother said: she was always at
Nick's place, she spent her life there, she ate and drank there, she
almost slept there. What she contrived to do there for so many hours and
what was the irresistible spell Lady Agnes couldn't pretend she had
succeeded in discovering. She spoke of this baleful resort only as
"Nick's place," and spoke of it at first as little as possible. She
judged