"Never," said Audley, with dry composure.
Amazed at such obtuseness, Randal exclaimed, "Is it possible! And yet, forgive me if I say I think you are ambitious, and love power."
"No man more ambitious; and if by power you mean office, it has grown the habit of my life, and I shall not know what to do without it."
"And how, then, has what seems to me so obvious never occurred to you?"
"Because you are young, and therefore I forgive you; but not the gossips who could wonder why Audley Egerton refused to betray the friends of his whole career, and to profit by the treason."
"But one should love one's country before a party."
"No doubt of that; and the first interest of a country is the honour of its public men."
"But men may leave their party without dishonour!"
"Who doubts that? Do you suppose that if I were an ordinary independent member of Parliament, loaded with no obligations, charged with no trust, I could hesitate for a moment what course to pursue? Oh, that I were but the member for ----! Oh, that I had the full right to be a free agent! But if a member of a cabinet, a chief in whom thousands confide, because he is outvoted in a council of his colleagues, suddenly retires, and by so doing breaks up the whole party whose confidence he has enjoyed, whose rewards he has reaped, to whom he owes the very position which he employs to their ruin--own that though his choice may be honest, it is one which requires all the consolations of conscience."
"But you will have those consolations. And," added Randal energetically, "the gain to your career will be so immense!"
"That is precisely what it cannot be," answered Egerton gloomily. "I grant that I may, if I choose, resign office with the present government, and so at once destroy that government; for my resignation on such ground would suffice to do it. I grant this; but for that very reason I could not the next day take office with another administration. I could not accept wages for desertion. No gentleman could! And therefore--" Audley stopped short, and he buttoned his coat over his broad breast. The action was significant: it said that the man's mind was made up.
In fact, whether Audley Egerton was right or wrong in his theory depends upon much subtler, and perhaps loftier views in the casuistry of political duties, than it was in his character to take. And I guard myself from saying anything in praise or disfavour of his notions, or implying that he is a fit or unfit example in a parallel case. I am but describing the man as he was, and as a man like him would inevitably be, under the influences in which he lived, and in that peculiar world of which he was so emphatically a member. "_Ce n'est pas moi qui parle, c'est Marc Aurèle._"