_ BOOK EIGHTH CHAPTER XIV
Egerton had thrown himself at full length on the sofa, a position exceedingly rare with him; and about his whole air and manner, as Levy entered, there was something singularly different from that stateliness of port common to the austere legislator. The very tone of his voice was different. It was as if the statesman, the man of business, had vanished; it was rather the man of fashion and the idler who, nodding languidly to his visitor, said, "Levy, what money can I have for a year?"
"The estate will bear very little more. My dear fellow, that last election was the very devil. You cannot go on thus much longer."
"My dear fellow!" Baron Levy hailed Audley Egerton as "my dear fellow"! And Audley Egerton, perhaps, saw nothing strange in the words, though his lip curled.
"I shall not want to go on thus much longer," answered Egerton, as the curl on his lip changed to a gloomy smile. "The estate must, meanwhile, bear L5,000 more."
"A hard pull on it. You had really better sell."
"I cannot afford to sell at present. I cannot afford men to say, 'Audley Egerton is done up,--his property is for sale.'"
"It is very sad when one thinks what a rich man you have been--and may be yet!"
"Be yet! How?"
Baron Levy glanced towards the thick mahogany doors,--thick and impervious, as should be the doors of statesmen. "Why, you know that, with three words from you, I could produce an effect upon the stocks of three nations, that might give us each a hundred thousand pounds. We would go shares."
"Levy," said Egerton, coldly, though a deep blush overspread his face, "you are a scoundrel; that is your look-out. I interfere with no man's tastes and conscience. I don't intend to be a scoundrel myself. I have told you that long ago."
The usurer's brows darkened, but he dispelled the cloud with an easy laugh.
"Well," said he, "you are neither wise nor complimentary, but you shall have the money. But yet, would it not be better," added Levy, with emphasis, "to borrow it without interest, of your friend L'Estrange?"
Egerton started as if stung.
"You mean to taunt me, sir!" he exclaimed passionately. "I accept pecuniary favours from Lord L'Estrange!--I!"
"Tut, my dear Egerton, I dare say my Lord would not think so ill now of that act in your life which--"
"Hold!" exclaimed Egerton, writhing. "Hold!"
He stopped, and paced the room, muttering, in broken sentences, "To blush before this man! Chastisement, chastisement!"
Levy gazed on him with hard and sinister eyes. The minister turned abruptly.
"Look you, Levy," said he, with forced composure, "you hate me--why, I know not."
"Hate you! How have I shown hatred? Would you ever have lived in this palace, and ruled this country as one of the most influential of its ministers, but for my management, my whispers to the wealthy Miss Leslie? Come, but for me what would you have been,--perhaps a beggar."
"What shall I be now, if I live? And this fortune which my marriage brought to me--it has passed for the main part into your hands. Be patient, you will have it all ere long. But there is one man in the world who has loved me from a boy, and woe to you if ever he learn that he has the right to despise me!"
"Egerton, my good fellow," said Levy, with great composure, "you need not threaten me, for what interest can I possibly have in tale-telling to Lord L'Estrange? Again, dismiss from your mind the absurd thought that I hate you. True, you snub me in private, you cut me in public, you refuse to come to my dinners, you'll not ask me to your own; still, there is no man I like better, nor would more willingly serve. When do you want the L5,000?"
"Perhaps in one month, perhaps not for three or four. Let it be ready when required."
"Enough; depend on it. Have you any other commands?"
"None."
"I will take my leave, then. By-the-by, what do you suppose the Hazeldean rental is worth--net?"
"I don't know, nor care. You have no designs upon that too?"
"Well, I like keeping up family connections. Mr. Frank seems a liberal young gentleman."
Before Egerton could answer, the baron had glided to the door, and, nodding pleasantly, vanished with that nod. Egerton remained, standing on his solitary hearth. A drear, single man's room it was, from wall to wall, despite its fretted ceilings and official pomp of Brahmah escritoires and red boxes. Drear and cheerless,--no trace of woman's habitation, no vestige of intruding, happy children. There stood the austere man alone. And then with a deep sigh he muttered, "Thank Heaven, not for long,--it will not last long."
Repeating those words, he mechanically locked up his papers, and pressed his hand to his heart for an instant, as if a spasm had shot through it.
"So--I must shun all emotion!" said he, shaking his head gently.
In five minutes more Audley Egerton was in the streets, his mien erect, and his step firm as ever.
"That man is made of bronze," said a leader of the Opposition to a friend as they rode past the minister. "What would I not give for his nerves!" _