Archbishop of Canterbury? On my honour, Florian, I believe you are capable of filling any one of these posts with infinite credit. Something has been promised you, surely, were it only a pair of scarlet hose and a cardinal's hat."
"Nothing! as I am a gentleman and a priest!" answered Florian, eagerly. "My advocacy is but for your own sake! For the aggrandisement of yourself and those who love you! For the interests of loyalty and the true religion!"
"You were always an enthusiast," answered the baronet, kindly, "and enthusiasts in every cause are juggled out of their reward. Take a leaf from the book of your employers, and remember their own watchword: 'Box it about, it will come to my father.' Do you let them box it about, till it has nearly reached the—the—well—the claimant of the British crown, and when he has opened his hands to seize the prize, you give it the last push that sends it into his grasp—the Pope could not offer you better counsel. If you have drunk enough claret, let us go to our coffee in Lady Hamilton's boudoir."
But Florian excused himself on the plea of fatigue and business. He had letters to write, he said, which was perfectly true, though they might well have been postponed for a day, or even a week—but he wanted an hour's solitude to survey his position, to look steadily on the future, and determine how far he should persevere in the course on which he had embarked. Neither had he courage to face Cerise again so soon. He felt anxious, agitated, unnerved, by her very presence, and the sound of her voice. To-morrow he would feel more like himself. To-morrow he could learn to look upon her as she must always be to him in future, the wife of his friend. Of course, he argued, this task would become easier day by day; and so, to begin it, he leaned out of window, watching the stars come one by one into view, breathing the perfume from the late autumn flowers in her garden, and thinking that, while to him she was more beautiful than the star, more loveable than the flower, he might as well hope to reach the one as to pluck her like the other, and wear her for himself.
Still, he resolved that his affection, mad, hopeless as it was, should never exceed the limits he had marked out.
