"But Ladislaw won't be shipped off like a head of cattle, my dear
fellow; Ladislaw has his ideas. It's my opinion that if he were to
part from me to-morrow, you'd only hear the more of him in the country.
With his talent for speaking and drawing up documents, there are few
men who could come up to him as an agitator--an agitator, you know."
"Agitator!" said Sir James, with bitter emphasis, feeling that the
syllables of this word properly repeated were a sufficient exposure of
its hatefulness.
"But be reasonable, Chettam. Dorothea, now. As you say, she had
better go to Celia as soon as possible. She can stay under your roof,
and in the mean time things may come round quietly. Don't let us be
firing off our guns in a hurry, you know. Standish will keep our
counsel, and the news will be old before it's known. Twenty things may
happen to carry off Ladislaw--without my doing anything, you know."
"Then I am to conclude that you decline to do anything?"
"Decline, Chettam?--no--I didn't say decline. But I really don't see
what I could do. Ladislaw is a gentleman."
"I am glad to hear it!" said Sir James, his irritation making him
forget himself a little. "I am sure Casaubon was not."
"Well, it would have been worse if he had made the codicil to hinder
her from marrying again at all, you know."
"I don't know that," said Sir James. "It would have been less
indelicate."
"One of poor Casaubon's freaks! That attack upset his brain a little.
It all goes for nothing. She doesn't _want_ to marry Ladislaw."
"But this codicil is framed so as to make everybody believe that she
did. I don't believe anything of the sort about Dorothea," said Sir
James--then frowningly, "but I suspect Ladislaw. I tell you frankly,
I suspect Ladislaw."
"I couldn't take any immediate action on that ground, Chettam. In
fact, if it were possible to pack him off--send him to Norfolk
Island--that sort of thing--it would look all the worse for Dorothea
to those who knew about it. It would seem as if we distrusted
her--distrusted her, you know."
That Mr. Brooke had hit on an undeniable argument, did not tend to
soothe Sir James. He put out his hand to reach his hat, implying that
he did not mean to contend further, and said, still with some heat--
"Well, I can only say that I think Dorothea was sacrificed once,
because her friends were too careless. I shall do what I can, as her
brother, to protect her now."
"You can't do better than get her to Freshitt as soon as possible,
Chettam. I approve that plan altogether," said Mr. Brooke, well
pleased that he had won the argument. It would have been highly
inconvenient to him to part with Ladislaw at that time, when a
dissolution might happen any day, and electors were to be convinced of
the course by which the interests of the country would be best served.
Mr. Brooke sincerely believed that this end could be secured by his own
return to Parliament: he offered the forces of his mind honestly to the
nation.