he thought with jubilation. And then another thought darted through his mind and changed his joy to chagrin. A seat had been left to Chippinge. But why? That Arthur Vaughan, that his renegade cousin, might continue to fill it, might continue to hold it, under his nose and to his daily, hourly, his constant mortification. By Heaven, it was too much! They had said well, who said that an enemy’s gift was to be dreaded. But he would fight the seat, at the next election and at every election, rather than suffer that miserable person, miserable on so many accounts, to fill it at his will. And after all the seat was saved; and no one could tell the future. The lasting gain might outlive the temporary vexation.
So, after frowning a moment, he tried to smooth his brow. “And your mission, Lady Lansdowne,” he said politely, “is to tell me this?”
“In part,” she said, with hesitation, for the course, of his feelings had been visible in his countenance. “But also——”
“But also—and in the main,” he answered with a smile, “to make a proposition, perhaps?”
He thought of the most obvious proposition, and he spoke in pursuance of his thought. “Then forgive me if I speak plainly,” he said. “Whether the borough lose one member or both, whether it figure in schedule B, or in schedule A, cannot affect my opposition to the Bill! If you have it in commission, therefore, to make any proposal, based on a contrary notion, I cannot listen even to your ladyship.”
“I have not,” she answered with a smile. “Sir Robert Vermuyden’s malignancy is too well known. Yet I am the bearer of a proposition. Suppose the Bill to become law, and I am told that it will surely become law, can we not avoid future conflict, and—I will not say future ill-will, for God knows there is none on our side, Sir Robert—but future friction, by an agreement? Of course it will not be possible to nominate members in the future as in the past. But for some time to come whoever is returned for Chippinge must be returned by your influence, or by my lord’s.”
“In view of that,” she continued, flirting her fan, as she watched his face—his manner was not encouraging, “and for the sake of peace between families, and a little, perhaps, because I do not wish Kerry to be beggared by contested elections, can we not now, while the future is on the lap of the gods——”