"If you think so, I wonder you ever wished to marry," said Margaret, and a faint tinge flushed her cheeks.

"I thought so, and yet I did wish to marry," said Cleve. "It is perishable, but I can't live without it," and he patted her cheek, and laughed a rather cold little laugh.

"No, love never dies," said Margaret, with a gleam of her old fierce spirit. "But it may be killed."

"It is terrible to kill anything," said Cleve.

"To kill love," she answered, "is the worst murder of all."

"A veritable murder," he acquiesced, with a smile and a slight shrug; "once killed, it never revives."

"You like talking awfully, as if I might lose your love," said she, haughtily; "as if, were I to vex you, you never could forgive."

"Forgiveness has nothing to do with it, my poor little woman. I no more called my love into being than I did myself; and should it die, either naturally or violently, I could no more call it to life, than I could Cleopatra or Napoleon Bonaparte. It is a principle, don't you see? that comes as direct as life from heaven. We can't create it, we can't restore it; and really about love, it is worse than mortal, because, as I said, I am sure it has _no_ resurrection--no, it has no resurrection."

"That seems to me a reason," she said, fixing her large eyes upon him with a wild resentment, "why you should cherish it _very_ much while it lives."

"And _don't_ I, darling?" he said, placing his arms round her neck, and drawing her fondly to his breast, and in the thrill of that momentary effusion was something of the old feeling when to lose her would have been despair, to gain her heaven, and it seemed as if the scent of the woods of Malory, and of the soft sea breeze, was around them for a moment.

And now he is gone, away to that tiresome House--lost to her, given up to his ambition, which seems more and more to absorb him; and she remains smiling on their beautiful little baby, with a great misgiving at her heart, to see Cleve no more for four-and-twenty hours more.

As Cleve went into the House, he met old Colonel Thongs, sometime whip of the "outs."

"You've heard about old Snowdon?"

"No."

"In the Cabinet, by Jove!"

"Really?"

"Fact. Ask your uncle."

"By Jove, it _is_ very unlooked for; no one thought of him; but I dare say he'll do very well."

"We'll soon try that."

It _was_ a _very_ odd appointment. But Lord Snowdon was gazetted; a dull man, but laborious; a man who had held minor offices at different periods of his life, and was presumed to have a competent knowledge of affairs. A dull man, owing all to his dulness, quite below many, and selected as a negative compromise for the vacant seat in the Cabinet, for which two zealous and brilliant compet.i.tors were contending.

"I see it all," thought Cleve; "that's the reason why Caroline Oldys and Lady Wimbledon are to be at Ware this autumn, and I'm to be married to the niece of a Cabinet minister."

Cleve sneered, but he felt very uneasy.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE TRIUMVIRATE.

THAT night Lord Verney waited to hear the debate in the Commons--waited for the division,--and brought Cleve home with him in his brougham.

He explained to Cleve on the way how much better the debate might have been. He sometimes half regretted his seat in the Commons; there were so many things unsaid that ought to have been said, and so many things said that had better have been omitted. And at last he remarked--

"Your uncle Arthur, my unfortunate brother, had a great natural talent for speaking. It's a talent of the Verney's--about it. We all have it; and _you_ have got it also; it is a gift of very decided importance in debate; it can hardly be over-estimated in that respect. Poor Arthur might have done very well, but he didn't, and he's gone--about it; and I'm very glad, for your own sake, you are cultivating it; and it would be a very great misfortune, I've been thinking, if our family were not to marry, and secure a transmission of those hereditary talents and--and things--and--what's your opinion of Miss Caroline Oldys? I mean, quite frankly, what sort of wife you think she would make."

"Why, to begin with, she's been out a long time; but I fancy she's gentle--and foolish; and I believe her mother bullies her."

"I don't know what you call bullying, my good sir; but she appears to me to be a very affectionate mother; and as to her being foolish--about it--I can't perceive it; on the contrary, I've conversed with her a good deal--and things--and I've found her very superior indeed to any young woman I can recollect having talked to.

She takes an interest in things which don't interest or--or--interest other young persons; and she likes to be instructed about affairs--and, my dear Cleve, I think where a young person of merit--either rightly or wrongly interpreting what she conceives to be your attentions--becomes decidedly _pris_ of you, she ought to be--a--_considered_--her feelings, and things; and I thought I might as well mention my views, and go--about it--straight to the point; and I think you will perceive that it is reasonable, and that's the position--about it; and you know, Cleve, in these circ.u.mstances you may reckon upon me to do anything in reason that may still lie in my power--about it."

"You have always been too kind to me."

"You shall find me so still. Lady Wimbledon takes an interest in you, and Miss Caroline Oldys will, I undertake to say, more and more decidedly as she comes to know you better."

And so saying, Lord Verney leaned back in the brougham as if taking a doze, and after about five minutes of closed eyes and silence he suddenly wakened up and said--

"It is, in fact, it strikes me, high time, Cleve, you should marry--about it--and you must have money, too; you want money, and you shall have it."

"I'm afraid money is not one of _Caroline's_ strong points."

"You need not trouble yourself upon that point, sir; if _I_'m satisfied I fancy _you_ may. I've quite enough for both, I presume; and--and so, we'll let that matter rest."

And the n.o.ble lord let himself rest also, leaning stiffly back with closed eyes, and nodding and swaying silently with the motion of the carriage.

I believe he was only ruminating after his manner in these periods of apparent repose. He opened his eyes again, and remarked--

"I have talked over this affair carefully with Mr. Larkin--a most judicious and worthy person--about it--and you can talk to him, and so on, when he comes to town, and I should rather wish you to do so."

Lord Verney relapsed into silence and the semblance, at least, of slumber.

"So Larkin's at the bottom of it; I knew he was," thought Cleve, with a pang of hatred which augured ill for the future prospects of that good man. "He has made this alliance for the Oldys and Wimbledon faction, and I'm Mr. _Larkin's parti_, and am to settle the management of everything upon him; and what a judicious diplomatist he is--and how he has put his foot in it. A blundering hypocritical c.o.xcomb--D--n him."

Then his thoughts wandered away to Larkin, and to his instrument, Mr.

Dingwell, "who looks as if he came from the galleys. We have heard nothing of him for a year or more. Among the Greek and Malay scoundrels again, I suppose; the Turks are too good for him."

But Mr. Dingwell had not taken his departure, and was not thinking of any such step _yet_, at least. He had business still on his hands, and a mission unaccomplished.

Still in the same queer lodgings, and more jealously shut up during the daytime than ever, Mr. Dingwell lived his odd life, professing to hate England--certainly in danger there--he yet lingered on for a set purpose, over which he brooded and laughed in his hermitage.

To so chatty a person as Mr. Dingwell solitude for a whole day was irksome. Sarah Rumble was his occasional resource, and when she brought him his cup of black coffee he would make her sit down by the wall, like a servant at prayers, and get from her all the news of the dingy little neighbourhood, with a running commentary of his own flighty and savage irony, and he would sometimes entertain her, between the whiffs of his long pipe, with talk of his own, which he was at no pains to adapt to her comprehension, and delivered rather for his own sole entertainment.

"The world, the flesh, and the devil, ma'am. The two first we know pretty well--hey? the other we take for granted. I suppose there _is_ somebody of the sort. We are all pigs, ma'am--unclean animals--and this is a sty we live in--slime and abomination. Strong delusion is, unseen, circling in the air. Our ideas of beauty, delights of sense, vanities of intellect--all a most comical and frightful cheat--egad!

What fun we must be, ma'am, to the spirits who _have_ sight and intellect! I think, ma'am, we're meant for their pantomime--don't you?

Our airs, and graces, and dignities, and compliments, and beauties, and dandies--our metal coronets, and lawn sleeves, and whalebone wigs--fun, ma'am, lots of fun! And here we are, a wonderful work of G.o.d. Eh? Come, ma'am--a word in your ear--all _putrefaction_--pah!

nothing clean but fire, and that makes us roar and vanish--a very odd position we're placed in; hey, ma'am?"