The act of waking was an instantaneous recovery of his emotional rapture of the overnight; nor was it a bar to graver considerations.  His Chief had gone down to a house in the country; his personal business was to see and sound the followers of their party—­after another sight of his Tony.  She would be sure to counsel sagaciously; she always did.  She had a marvellous intuition of the natures of the men he worked with, solely from his chance descriptions of them; it was as though he started the bird and she transfixed it.  And she should not have matter to rule her smooth brows:  that he swore to.  She should sway him as she pleased, be respected after her prescribed manner.  The promise must be exacted; nothing besides, promise.—­You see, Tony, you cannot be less than Tony to me now, he addressed the gentle phantom of her.  Let me have your word, and I am your servant till the Session ends.—­Tony blushes her swarthy crimson:  Diana, fluttering, rebukes her; but Diana is the appeasable Goddess; Tony is the woman, and she loves him.  The glorious Goddess need not cut them adrift; they can show her a book of honest pages.

Dacier could truthfully say he had worshipped, done knightly service to the beloved woman, homage to the aureole encircling her.  Those friends of his, covertly congratulating him on her preference, doubtless thought him more privileged than he was; but they did not know Diana; and they were welcome, if they would only believe, to the knowledge that he was at the feet of this most sovereign woman.  He despised the particular Satyr-world which, whatever the nature or station of the woman, crowns the desecrator, and bestows the title of Fool on the worshipper.  He could have answered veraciously that she had kept him from folly.

Nevertheless the term to service must come.  In the assurance of the approaching term he stood braced against a blowing world; happy as men are when their muscles are strung for a prize they pluck with the energy and aim of their whole force.

Letters and morning papers were laid for him to peruse in his dressing-room.  He read his letters before the bath.  Not much public news was expected at the present season.  While dressing, he turned over the sheets of Whitmonby’s journal.  Dull comments on stale things.  Foreign news.  Home news, with the leaders on them, identically dull.  Behold the effect of Journalism:  a witty man, sparkling overnight, gets into his pulpit and proses; because he must say something, and he really knows nothing.

Journalists have an excessive overestimate of their influence.  They cannot, as Diana said, comparing them with men on the Parliamentary platform, cannot feel they are aboard the big vessel; they can only strive to raise a breeze, or find one to swell; and they cannot measure the stoutness or the greatness of the good ship England.  Dacier’s personal ambition was inferior to his desire to extend and strengthen his England.  Parliament was the field, Government the office.  How many conversations had passed between him and Diana on that patriotic dream!  She had often filled his drooping sails; he owned it proudly:—­and while the world, both the hoofed and the rectilinear portions, were biting at her character!  Had he fretted her self-respect?  He blamed himself, but a devoted service must have its term.