Page:The Semi-attached Couple.djvu/172

 word of hers changed the current of his thoughts, and turned his rage to love.

He had now come to her with a proposition which, whatever interest it might have in itself, was important to him principally as a trial of his wife's feelings: it was one of those measures by which statesmen say they will stand or fall.

"Helen, I have been all the morning with G., transacting business, as the newspapers would call it. Do you remember Beaufort's prophecy about me?"

"What, that Mr. G. would bring you into office? Is that really settled? I am so glad. And what are you to be?"

"Nothing can be absolutely settled till Parliament meets, when I am probably to succeed Lisle, who takes the Privy Seal; but in the meanwhile, G. has another employment for me—one that I was at first unwilling to undertake. I hardly know what you will say to it."

"I know so little on those subjects, that I am afraid you cannot consult a less good adviser. But tell me what it is."

"He wants to send me off on a special mission to Lisbon."

He looked earnestly at her as he spoke, and his heart swelled as he waited for her answer. He was divided between his wish to hear the degree of concern she would express for his departure, and his latent hope that she would insist on accompanying him.

"To Lisbon! Oh, Teviot, what an odious plan! What can make him think of sending you to that hot, dusty place? I do not like it at all. But a special mission entails only a short stay, does it? It is merely going out with a message and coming back again?"

"Something like that; the business may be concluded in a fortnight, or I may be detained there a month, and then the passage to and fro will take perhaps a week each time."

"The passage! Yes, and that dreadful Bay of Biscay