"
"I shall read your speech, which is more than I shall do for most of
the others. And when it is all over, will your turn come?"
"Not mine individually, Madame Goesler."
"But it will be yours individually;--will it not?" she asked with
energy. Then gradually, with half-pronounced sentences, he explained
to her that even in the event of the formation of a Liberal
Government, he did not expect that any place would be offered to him.
"And why not? We have been all speaking of it as a certainty."
He longed to inquire who were the all of whom she spoke, but he could
not do it without an egotism which would be distasteful to him. "I
can hardly tell;--but I don't think I shall be asked to join them."
"You would wish it?"
"Yes;--talking to you I do not see why I should hesitate to say so."
"Talking to me, why should you hesitate to say anything about
yourself that is true? I can hold my tongue. I do not gossip about my
friends. Whose doing is it?"
"I do not know that it is any man's doing."
"But it must be.
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