“You seem to have picked up a trifle since you came into England,” he said.  “A damned shrewd estimate, I’ll be sworn.  And for a colonial!  But, as for power,” he added a little doggedly, “I have it in plenty, and the kind I like.  The King and North hate and fear me already more than Wilkes.”

“And with more cause,” I replied warmly.  “His Majesty perhaps knows that you understand him better, and foresees the time when a man of your character will give him cause to fear indeed.”

He did not answer that, but called for a reckoning; and taking my arm again, we walked out past the sleeping houses.

“Have you ever thought much of the men we have in the colonies?” I asked.

“No,” he replied; “Chatham stands for ’em, and I hate Chatham on my father’s account.  That is reason enough for me.”

“You should come back to America with me,” I said.  “And when you had rested awhile at Carvel Hall, I would ride with you through the length of the provinces from Massachusetts to North Carolina.  You will see little besides hard-working, self-respecting Englishmen, loyal to a king who deserves loyalty as little as Louis of France.  But with their eyes open, and despite the course he has taken.  They are men whose measure of resolution is not guessed at.”

He was silent again until we had got into Piccadilly and opposite his lodgings.

“Are they all like you?” he demanded.

“Who?” said I. For I had forgotten my words.

“The Americans.”

“The greater part feel as I do.”

“I suppose you are for bed,” he remarked abruptly.

“The night is not yet begun,” I answered, repeating his favourite words, and pointing at the glint of the sun on the windows.

“What do you say to a drive behind those chestnuts of mine, for a breath of air?  I have just got my new cabriolet Selwyn ordered in Paris.”

Soon we were rattling over the stones in Piccadilly, wrapped in greatcoats, for the morning wind was cold.  We saw the Earl of March and Ruglen getting out of a chair before his house, opposite the Green Park, and he stopped swearing at the chairmen to wave at us.

“Hello, March!” Mr. Fox said affably, “you’re drunk.”

His Lordship smiled, bowed graciously if unsteadily to me, and did not appear to resent the pleasantry.  Then he sighed.

“What a pair of cubs it is,” said he; “I wish to God I was young again.  I hear you astonished the world again last night, Charles.”

We left him being assisted into his residence by a sleepy footman, paid our toll at Hyde Park Corner, and rolled onward toward Kensington, Fox laughing as we passed the empty park at the thought of what had so lately occurred there.  After the close night of St. Stephen’s, nature seemed doubly beautiful.  The sun slanted over the water in the gardens in bars of green and gold.  The bright new leaves were on the trees, and the morning dew