diversion in your favour. Ernest can consult /me/ at any time."

Cleveland walked away; but the intimacy between Maltravers and Florence
was of so frank a nature that there was nothing embarrassing in the
thought of a /tete-a-tete/.

"Lady Florence," said Ernest, "there is no one in the world with whom I
can confer so cheerfully as with you. I am almost glad of Cleveland's
absence, for, with all his amiable and fine qualities, 'the world is too
much with him,' and we do not argue from the same data. Pardon my
prelude--now to my position. I have received a letter from Mr. ------.
That statesman, whom none but those acquainted with the chivalrous
beauty of his nature can understand or appreciate, sees before him the
most brilliant career that ever opened in this country to a public man
not born an aristocrat. He has asked me to form one of the new
administration that he is about to create: the place offered to me is
above my merits, nor suited to what I have yet done, though, perhaps, it
be suited to what I may yet do. I make that qualification, for you
know," added Ernest, with a proud smile, "that I am sanguine and
self-confident."

"You accept the proposal?"

"Nay,--should I not reject it? Our politics are the same only for the
moment, our ultimate objects are widely different. To serve with Mr.
------, I must make an unequal compromise--abandon nine opinions to
promote one. Is not this a capitulation of that great citadel, one's
own conscience? No man will call me inconsistent, for, in public life,
to agree with another on a party question is all that is required; the
thousand questions not yet ripened, and lying dark and concealed in the