’Think you, when he crossed the tide, Caius Julius Caesar sighed?

’No, nor thought of his life, nor his wife, but of the thing to be done.  Laugh, my boy!  I know what I am about when I set my mind on a powerful example.  As the chameleon gets his colour, we get our character from the objects we contemplate . . .’

Jane glanced over the edge of the letter sheet rosily at Philip.

His dryness in hitting the laughable point diverted her, and her mind became suffused with a series of pictures of the chameleon captain planted in view of the Roman to become a copy of him, so that she did not peruse the terminating lines with her wakefullest attention: 

’The liege lady of my heart will be the earliest to hail her hero triumphant, or cherish him beaten—­which is not in the prospect.  Let Ireland be true to Ireland.  We will talk of the consolidation of the Union by and by.  You are for that, you say, when certain things are done; and you are where I leave you, on the highway, though seeming to go at a funeral pace to certain ceremonies leading to the union of the two countries in the solidest fashion, to their mutual benefit, after a shining example.  Con sleeps with a corner of the eye open, and you are not the only soldier who is a strategist, and a tactician too, aware of when it is best to be out of the way.  Now adieu and pax vobiscum.  Reap the rich harvest of your fall to earth.  I leave you in the charge of the kindest of nurses, next to the wife of my bosom the best of women.  Appreciate her, sir, or perish in my esteem.  She is one whom not to love is to be guilty of an offence deserving capital punishment, and a bastinado to season the culprit for his execution.  Have I not often informed her myself that a flower from her hand means more than treasures from the hands of others.  Expect me absent for a week.  The harangues will not be closely reported.  I stand by the truth, which is my love of the land of my birth.  A wife must come second to that if she would be first in her husband’s consideration.  Hurrah me on, Philip, now it is action, and let me fancy I hear you shouting it.’

The drop of the letter to the signature fluttered affectionately on a number of cordial adjectives, like the airy bird to his home in the corn.

CHAPTER XIX

MARS CONVALESCENT

Jane’s face was clear as the sky when she handed the letter back to Philip.  In doing so, it struck her that the prolonged directness of his look was peculiar:  she attributed it to some effect of the fresh Spring atmosphere on a weakened frame.  She was guessing at his reasons for showing her the letter, and they appeared possibly serious.

’An election to Parliament!  Perhaps Mrs. Adister should have a hint of it, to soften the shock I fear it may be:  but we must wait till her headache has passed,’ she said.

‘You read to the end?’ said Philip.