If Mr. Mildmay should find
himself to be quite comfortable, so that he could hear what was said
without a struggle to his ear, and see his colleagues' faces clearly,
and feel the fire without burning his shins, it might be possible
that he would not insist upon resigning. If this were so, how
important was the work now confided to the hands of that aged
messenger! When his anxious eyes had glanced round the room some
half a dozen times, when he had touched each curtain, laid his
hand upon every chair, and dusted certain papers which lay upon a
side-table,--and which had been lying there for two years, and at
which no one ever looked or would look,--he gently crept away and
ensconced himself in an easy chair not far from the door of the
chamber. For it might be necessary to stop the attempt of a rash
intruder on those secret counsels.
Very shortly there was heard the ring of various voices in the
passages,--the voices of men speaking pleasantly, the voices of men
with whom it seemed, from their tone, that things were doing well
in the world. And then a cluster of four or five gentlemen entered
the room. At first sight they seemed to be as ordinary gentlemen as
you shall meet anywhere about Pall Mall on an afternoon. There was
nothing about their outward appearance of the august wiggery of
statecraft, nothing of the ponderous dignity of ministerial position.
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