But now the catalogue of his virtues is complete. He was not a man of genius, or even a man of talent. He had performed no great service for his country; had neither proposed nor carried through any valuable project of diplomacy; nor had he shown any close insight into the habits and feelings of the people among whom he had lived. But he had been useful as a great oil-jar, from whence oil for the quiescence of troubled waters might ever and anon be forthcoming. Expediency was his god, and he had hitherto worshipped it with a successful devotion.
That he had not been a good husband has been hinted; that he had been a very indifferent father has been made apparent. But at the moment of his meeting with his son, he atoned for all his past sins in this respect by the excellence of his manner; and before the evening was over, George liked his father, who had owed him everything and given him nothing, ten times better than he had ever liked his uncle who had given him everything though he had owed him nothing.
"It's an odd place for us to have met in at last, is it not, sir?" said George. They were sitting after supper very close together on one of those stationary sofas which are found affixed to the wall in every room in the East, and the son was half holding, half caressing his father's arm. Sir Lionel, to tell the truth, did not much care for such caresses, but under the peculiar circumstances of this present interview he permitted it.
"You see, I'm always in odd places, George."
"No, never. It's not on the road anywhere, or on any road at all, as one may well see. I never knew such a place to get to. Now there are roads of some sort even about Bagdad."
"Oh, Damascus is a highway; but nobody comes to Jerusalem except the pilgrims, and those who like to look after the pilgrims. We are just in the thick of them now, I believe."
"Yes, sir. There are thirteen thousand here. I am sure you'll like the place. I am delighted with it, although I have been here as yet only two days."
"Perhaps more so than you will be when you have been ten."
"I don't think it. But it is not the city itself."
"I would not mind the dirt if the place were but true." Sir Lionel did not quite understand him, but he said nothing. "It is the country round, the immediate vicinity of Jerusalem that fascinates so wonderfully."