Mr. Austin and Mr. Tuckham came strolling in conversation round the house to the terrace.  Beauchamp bowed to the former, nodded to the latter, scrutinizing him after he had done so, as if the flash of a thought were in his mind.  Tuckham’s radiant aspect possibly excited it:  ’Congratulate me!’ was the honest outcry of his face and frame.  He was as over-flowingly rosy as a victorious candidate at the hustings commencing a speech.  Cecilia laid her hand on an urn, in dread of the next words from either of the persons present.  Her father put an arm in hers, and leaned on her.  She gazed at her chamber window above, wishing to be wafted thither to her seclusion within.  The trembling limbs of physical irresoluteness was a new experience to her.

‘Anything else in the paper, colonel?  I’ve not seen it to-day,’ said Beauchamp, for the sake of speaking.

‘No, I don’t think there’s anything,’ Colonel Halkett replied.  ’Our diplomatists haven’t been shining much:  that ‘s not our forte.’

‘No:  it’s our field for younger sons.’

’Is it?  Ah!  There’s an expedition against the hilltribes in India, and we’re such a peaceful nation, eh?  We look as if we were in for a complication with China.’

‘Well, sir, we must sell our opium.’

‘Of course we must.  There’s a man writing about surrendering Gibraltar!’

‘I’m afraid we can’t do that.’

‘But where do you draw the line?’ quoth Tuckham, very susceptible to a sneer at the colonel, and entirely ignorant of the circumstances attending Beauchamp’s position before him.  ’You defend the Chinaman; and it’s questionable if his case is as good as the Spaniard’s.’

’The Chinaman has a case against our traders.  Gibraltar concerns our imperial policy.’

’As to the case against the English merchants, the Chinaman is for shutting up his millions of acres of productive land, and the action of commerce is merely a declaration of a universal public right, to which all States must submit.’

’Immorality brings its punishment, be sure of that.  Some day we shall have enough of China.  As to the Rock, I know the argument; I may be wrong.  I’ve had the habit of regarding it as necessary to our naval supremacy.’

‘Come! there we agree.’

‘I’m not so certain.’

‘The counter-argument, I call treason.’

‘Well,’ said Beauchamp, ’there’s a broad policy, and a narrow.  There’s the Spanish view of the matter—­if you are for peace and harmony and disarmament.’

‘I’m not.’

‘Then strengthen your forces.’

‘Not a bit of it!’

’Then bully the feeble and truckle to the strong; consent to be hated till you have to stand your ground.’

‘Talk!’

‘It seems to me logical.’

‘That’s the French notion—­c’est lodgique!’

Tuckham’s pronunciation caused Cecilia to level her eyes at him passingly.