"
"That's paying your conscience off with mere words, general. The truth
is that you are serving a government of returned exiles, of men who have
been without country for twenty years. Of men also who have just got
over a very bad and humiliating fright.... Have no illusions on that
score."
The Duke of Otranto ceased. He had relieved himself, and had attained
his object of stripping some self-respect off that man who had
inconveniently discovered him posturing in a gold-embroidered court
costume before a mirror. But they were a hot-headed lot in the army,
and it occurred to him that it would be inconvenient if a well-disposed
general officer, received by him on the recommendation of one of the
princes, were to go and do something rashly scandalous directly after
a private interview with the minister. In a changed voice he put a
question to the point:
"Your relation--this Feraud?"
"No. No relation at all."
"Intimate friend?"
"Intimate... yes. There is between us an intimate connection of a nature
which makes it a point of honour with me to try..."
The minister rang a bell without waiting for the end of the phrase.
When the servant had gone, after bringing in a pair of heavy silver
candelabra for the writing desk, the Duke of Otranto stood up, his
breast glistening all over with gold in the strong light, and taking a
piece of paper out of a drawer held it in his hand ostentatiously while
he said with persuasive gentleness:
"You must not talk of breaking your sword across your knee, general.
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