Mr. Gascoigne's mind seemed to run on
political topics, but whether relating to the past, present, or future
could not easily be determined, since the same ideas and phrases
have been in vogue these fifty years. Now he rattled forth
full-throated sentences about patriotism, national glory, and the
people's right; now he muttered some perilous stuff or other, in a sly
and doubtful whisper, so cautiously that even his own conscience could
scarcely catch the secret; and now, again, he spoke in measured
accents, and a deeply deferential tone, as if a royal ear were
listening to his well-turned periods. Colonel Killigrew all this
time had been trolling forth a jolly bottle song, and ringing his
glass in symphony with the chorus, while his eyes wandered toward
the buxom figure of the Widow Wycherly. On the other side of the
table, Mr. Medbourne was involved in a calculation of dollars and
cents, with which was strangely intermingled a project for supplying
the East Indies with ice, by harnessing a team of whales to the
polar icebergs.
As for the Widow Wycherly, she stood before the mirror
courtesying and simpering to her own image, and greeting it as the
friend whom she loved better than all the world beside.
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