第54章 CHAPTER XIII THE FORLORN HOPE(4)

"Nay, nay; you have been sick; you do not know how things have sped in this past month. Atterbury holds, and he is right, Idare swear - he holds that never will there be such another opportunity. The finances of the country are still in chaos, in spite of all Walpole's efforts and fine promises. The South Sea bubble has sapped the confidence in the government of all men of weight. The very Whigs themselves are shaken.

'Tis to King James, England begins to look for salvation from this topsy-turveydom. The tide runs strongly in our favor.

Strongly, sir! If we stay for the ebb, we may stay for good;for there may never be another flow within our lifetime.""Your lordship is grown strangely hot upon this question,"said Caryll, very full of wonder.

As he understood Ostermore, the earl was scarcely the sentimentalist to give way to such a passion of loyalty for a weaker side. Yet his lordship had spoken, not with the cold calm of the practical man who seeks advantage, but with all the fervor of the enthusiast.

"Such is my interest," answered his lordship. "Even as the fortunes of the country are beggared by the South Sea Company, so are my own; even as the country must look to King James for its salvation, so must I. At best 'tis but a forlorn hope, Iconfess; yet 'tis the only hope I see."

Mr. Caryll looked at him, smiled to himself, and nodded. So!

All this fire and enthusiasm was about the mending of his personal fortunes - the grubbing of riches for himself. Well, well! It was good matter wasted on a paltry cause. But it sorted excellently with what Mr. Caryll knew of the nature of this father of his. It never could transcend the practical;there was no imagination to carry it beyond those narrow sordid confines, and Mr. Caryll had been a fool to have supposed that any other springs were pushing here. Egotism, egotism, egotism! Its name, he thought, was surely Ostermore.

And again, as once before, under the like circumstances, he found more pity than scorn awaking in his heart. The whole wasted, sterile life that lay behind this man; the unhappy, loveless home that stood about him now in his declining years were the fruits he had garnered from that consuming love of self with which the gods had cursed him.

The only ray to illumine the black desert of Ostermore's existence was the affection of his ward, Hortensia Winthrop, because in that one instance he had sunk his egotism a little, sparing a crumb of pity - for once in his life - for the child's orphanhood. Had Ostermore been other than the man he was, his existence must have proved a burden beyond his strength. It was so barren of good deeds, so sterile of affection. Yet encrusted as he was in that egotism of his -like the limpet in its shell - my lord perceived nothing of this, suffered nothing of it, understanding nothing. He was all-sufficient to himself. Giving nothing, he looked for nothing, and sought his happiness - without knowing the quest vain - in what he had. The fear of losing this had now in his declining years cast, at length, a shadow upon his existence.