'I am. I will be. I say again, I will be: to the block. Who says as
much! Do you? Does any man alive?'
The secretary drooped his head with an expression of perfect
acquiescence in anything that had been said or might be; and Lord George
gradually sinking down upon his pillow, fell asleep.
Although there was something very ludicrous in his vehement manner,
taken in conjunction with his meagre aspect and ungraceful presence, it
would scarcely have provoked a smile in any man of kindly feeling; or
even if it had, he would have felt sorry and almost angry with himself
next moment, for yielding to the impulse. This lord was sincere in his
violence and in his wavering. A nature prone to false enthusiasm, and
the vanity of being a leader, were the worst qualities apparent in his
composition. All the rest was weakness--sheer weakness; and it is
the unhappy lot of thoroughly weak men, that their very sympathies,
affections, confidences--all the qualities which in better constituted
minds are virtues--dwindle into foibles, or turn into downright vices.
Gashford, with many a sly look towards the bed, sat chuckling at his
master's folly, until his deep and heavy breathing warned him that he
might retire.
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