The baron looked greatly amazed at his unexpected visitor; but he got up, handed a chair to my Lord with a low bow. "This is an honour," said he.

"You have a charming abode here," said Lord L'Estrange, looking round.

"Very fine bronzes,--excellent taste. Your reception-rooms above are, doubtless, a model to all decorators?"

"Would your Lordship condescend to see them?" said Levy, wondering, but flattered.

"With the greatest pleasure."

"Lights!" cried Levy, to the servant who answered his bell. "Lights in the drawing-rooms,--it is growing dark." Lord L'Estrange followed the usurer upstairs; admired everything,--pictures, draperies, Sevres china, to the very shape of the downy fauteuils, to the very pattern of the Tournay carpets. Reclining then on one of the voluptuous sofas, Lord L'Estrange said smilingly, "You are a wise man: there is no advantage in being rich, unless one enjoys one's riches."

"My own maxim, Lord L'Estrange."

"And it is something, too, to have a taste for good society. Small pride would you have, my dear baron, in these rooms, luxurious though they are, if filled with guests of vulgar exterior and plebeian manners.

It is only in the world in which we move that we find persons who harmonize, as it were, with the porcelain of Sevres, and these sofas that might have come from Versailles."

"I own," said Levy, "that I have what some may call a weakness in a parvenu like myself. I have a love for the beau monde. It is indeed a pleasure to me when I receive men like your Lordship."

"But why call yourself a parvenu? Though you are contented to honour the name of Levy, we, in society, all know that you are the son of a long-descended English peer. Child of love, it is true; but the Graces smile on those over whose birth Venus presided. Pardon my old-fashioned mythological similes,--they go so well with these rooms--Louis Quinze."

"Since you have touched on my birth," said Levy, his colour rather heightening, not with shame, but with pride, "I don't deny that it has had some effect on my habits and tastes in life. In fact--"

"In fact, own that you would be a miserable man, in spite of all your wealth, if the young dandies, who throng to your banquets, were to cut you dead in the streets; if, when your high-stepping horse stopped at your club, the porter shut the door in your face; if, when you lounged into the opera-pit, handsome dog that you are, each spendthrift rake in 'Fop's Alley,' who now waits but the scratch of your pen to endorse billets doux with the charm that can chain to himself for a month some nymph of the Ballet, spinning round in a whirlwind of tulle, would shrink from the touch of your condescending forefinger with more dread of its contact than a bailiff's tap in the thick of Pall Mall could inspire; if, reduced to the company of city clerks, parasite led-captains--"

"Oh, don't go on, my dear Lord," cried Levy, laughing affectedly.

"Impossible though the picture be, it is really appalling. Cut me off from May Fair and St. James's, and I should go into my strong closet and hang myself."

"And yet, my dear baron, all this may happen if I have the whim just to try; all this will happen, unless, ere I leave your house, you concede the conditions I come here to impose."

"My Lord!" exclaimed Levy, starting up, and pulling down his waistcoat with nervous pa.s.sionate fingers, "if you were not under my own roof, I would--"

"Truce with mock heroics. Sit down, sir, sit down. I will briefly state my threat, more briefly my conditions. You will be scarcely more prolix in your reply. Your fortune I cannot touch, your enjoyment of it I can destroy. Refuse my conditions, make me your enemy,--and war to the knife! I will interrogate all the young dupes you have ruined. I will learn the history of all the transactions by which you have gained the wealth that it pleases you to spend in courting the society and sharing the vices of men who--go with these rooms, Louis Quinze. Not a roguery of yours shall escape me, down even to your last notable connivance with an Italian reprobate for the criminal abduction of an heiress. All these particulars I will proclaim in the clubs to which you have gained admittance, in every club in London which you yet hope to creep into; all these I will impart to some such authority in the Press as Mr. Henry Norreys; all these I will, upon the voucher of my own name, have so published in some journals of repute, that you must either tacitly submit to the revelations that blast you, or bring before a court of law actions that will convert accusations into evidence. It is but by sufferance that you are now in society; you are excluded when one man like me comes forth to denounce you. You try in vain to sneer at my menace--your white lips show your terror. I have rarely in life drawn any advantage from my rank and position; but I am thankful that they give me the power to make my voice respected and my exposure triumphant.

Now, Baron Levy, will you go into your strong closet and hang yourself, or will you grant me my very moderate conditions? You are silent. I will relieve you, and state those conditions. Until the general election, about to take place, is concluded, you will obey me to the letter in all that I enjoin,--no demur and no scruple. And the first proof of obedience I demand is, your candid disclosure of all Mr. Audley Egerton's pecuniary affairs."

"Has my client, Mr. Egerton, authorized you to request of me that disclosure?"

"On the contrary, all that pa.s.ses between us you will conceal from your client."

"You would save him from ruin? Your trusty friend, Mr. Egerton!" said the baron, with a livid sneer.

"Wrong again, Baron Levy. If I would save him from ruin, you are scarcely the man I should ask to a.s.sist me."

"Ah, I guess. You have learned how he--"

"Guess nothing, but obey in all things. Let us descend to your business room."

Levy said not a word until he had reconducted his visitor into his den of destruction, all gleaming with spoliaria in rosewood. Then he said this: "If, Lord L'Estrange, you seek but revenge on Audley Egerton, you need not have uttered those threats. I too--hate the man."

Harley looked at him wistfully, and the n.o.bleman felt a pang that he had debased himself into a single feeling which the usurer could share. Nevertheless, the interview appeared to close with satisfactory arrangements, and to produce amicable understanding. For as the baron ceremoniously followed Lord L'Estrange through the hall, his n.o.ble visitor said, with marked affability,

"Then I shall see you at Lansmere with Mr. Egerton, to a.s.sist in conducting his election. It is a sacrifice of your time worthy of your friendship; not a step farther, I beg. Baron, I have the honour to wish you good-evening."

As the street door opened on Lord L'Estrange he again found himself face to face with Randal Leslie, whose hand was already lifted to the knocker.

"Ha, Mr. Leslie!--you too a client of Baron Levy's,--a very useful, accommodating man."

Randal stared and stammered. "I come in haste from the House of Commons on Mr. Egerton's business. Don't you hear the newspaper vendors crying out 'Great News, Dissolution of Parliament'?"

"We are prepared. Levy himself consents to give us the aid of his talents. Kindly, obliging, clever person!" Randal hurried into Levy's study, to which the usurer had shrunk back, and was now wiping his brow with his scented handkerchief, looking heated and haggard, and very indifferent to Randal Leslie.

"How is this?" cried Randal. "I come to tell you first of Peschiera's utter failure, the ridiculous c.o.xcomb, and I meet at your door the last man I thought to find there,--the man who foiled us all, Lord L'Estrange. What brought him to you? Ah, perhaps his interest in Egerton's election?"

"Yes," said Levy, sulkily. "I know all about Peschiera. I cannot talk to you now; I must make arrangements for going to Lansmere."

"But don't forget my purchase from Thornhill. I shall have the money shortly from a surer source than Peschiera."

"The squire?"

"Or a rich father-in-law."

In the mean while, as Lord L'Estrange entered Bond Street, his ears were stunned by vociferous cries from the Stentors employed by "Standard,"

"Sun," and "Globe,"

--"Great News! Dissolution of Parliament--Great News!" The gas-lamps were lighted; a brown fog was gathering over the streets, blending itself with the falling shades of night. The forms of men loomed large through the mist. The lights from the shops looked red and lurid.

Loungers usually careless as to politics were talking eagerly and anxiously of King, Lords, Commons, "Const.i.tution at stake," "Triumph of liberal opinions,"--according to their several biases. Hearing, and scorning--unsocial, isolated--walked on Harley L'Estrange. With his direr pa.s.sions had been roused up all the native powers that made them doubly dangerous. He became proudly conscious of his own great faculties, but exulted in them only so far as they could minister to the purpose which had invoked them.

"I have const.i.tuted myself a Fate," he said inly; "let the G.o.ds be but neutral, while I weave the meshes. Then, as Fate itself when it has fulfilled its mission, let me pa.s.s away into shadow, with the still and lonely stride that none may follow,--

"'Oh, for a lodge in some vast wilderness.'

"How weary I am of this world of men!" And again the cry "Great News--National Crisis--Dissolution of Parliament--Great News!" rang through the jostling throng. Three men, arm-in-arm, brushed by Harley, and were stopped at the crossing by a file of carriages. The man in the centre was Audley Egerton. His companions were an ex-minister like himself, and one of those great proprietors who are proud of being above office, and vain of the power to make and unmake Governments.

"You are the only man to lead us, Egerton," said this last personage.

"Do but secure your seat, and as soon as this popular fever has pa.s.sed away, you must be something more than the leader of Opposition,--you must be the first man in England."

"Not a doubt of that," chimed in the fellow ex-minister, a worthy man, perfect red-tapist, but inaudible in the reporters' gallery. "And your election is quite safe, eh? All depends on that. You must not be thrown out at such a time, even for a month or two. I hear that you will have a contest--some townsmen of the borough, I think. But the Lansmere interest must be all-powerful; and I suppose L'Estrange will come out and canva.s.s for you. You are not the man to have lukewarm friends!"

"Don't be alarmed about my election. I am as sure of that as of L'Estrange's friendship."

Harley heard, with a grim smile, and pa.s.sing his hand within his vest, laid it upon Nora's memoir.

"What could we do in parliament without you?" said the great proprietor, almost piteously.

"Rather what could I do without parliament? Public life is the only existence I own. Parliament is all in all to me. But we may cross now."

Harley's eye glittered cold as it followed the tall form of the statesman, towering high above all other pa.s.sers-by. "Ay," he muttered, "ay, rest as sure of my friendship as I was of thine! And be Lansmere our field of Philippi! There where thy first step was made in the only life that thou own'st as existence, shall the ladder itself rot from under thy footing. There, where thy softer victim slunk to death from the deceit of thy love, shall deceit like thine own dig a grave for thy frigid ambition. I borrow thy quiver of fraud; its still arrows shall strike thee; and thou too shalt say, when the barb pierces home, 'This comes from the hand of a friend.' Ay, at Lansmere, at Lansmere, shall the end crown the whole! Go, and dot on the canvas the lines for a lengthened perspective, where my eyes note already the vanishing point of the picture."

Then through the dull fog and under the pale gas-lights Harley L'Estrange pursued his noiseless way, soon distinguished no more amongst the various, motley, quick-succeeding groups, with their infinite sub-divisions of thought, care, and pa.s.sion; while, loud over all their low murmurs, or silent hearts, were heard the tramp of horses and din of wheels, and the vociferous discordant cry that had ceased to attract and interest in the ears it vexed, "Great News, Great News--Dissolution of Parliament--Great News!"