John MacNab Read Free Page B

Probably he is right, but you can’t take that sort of step in cold blood.’
    Mr Palliser-Yeates assented. The fact of having found an associate in misfortune seemed to enliven slightly, very slightly, the spirits of both. From the adjoining table came, like an echo from a happier world, the ringing voice and hearty laughter of youth. Leithen jerked his head towards them.
    â€˜I would give a good deal for Archie’s gusto,’ he said. ‘My sound right leg, for example. Or, if I couldn’t, I’d like Charles Lamancha’s insatiable ambition. If you want as much as he wants, you don’t suffer from tedium.’
    Palliser-Yeates looked at the gentleman in question, the tall dark one of the two diners. ‘I’m not so sure. Perhaps he has got too much too easily. He has come on uncommon quick, you know, and, if you do that, there’s apt to arrive a moment when you flag.’
    Lord Lamancha – the title had no connection with Don Quixote and Spain, but was the name of a shieling in a Border glen which had been the home six centuries ago of the ancient house of Merldand – was an object of interest to many of his countrymen. The Marquis of Liddesdale, his father, was a hale old man who might reasonably be expected to live for another ten years and so prevent his son’s career being compromised by a premature removal to the House of Lords. He had a safe seat for a London division, was a member of the Cabinet, and had a high reputation for the matter-of-fact oratory which has replaced the pre-war grandiloquence. People trusted him, because, in spite of his hidalgo-ish appearance, he was believed to have that combination of candour and intelligence which England desires in her public men. Also he was popular, for his record in the war and the rumour of a youth spent in adventurous travel touched the imagination of the ordinary citizen. At the moment he was being talked of for a great Imperial post which was soon to become vacant, and there was gossip, in the alternative, of a Ministerial readjustment which would make him the pivot of a controversial Government. It was a remarkable position for a man to have won in his early forties, who had entered public life with every disadvantage of birth.
    â€˜I suppose he’s happy,’ said Leithen. ‘But I’ve always held that there was a chance of Charles kicking over the traces. I doubt if his ambition is an organic part of him and not stuck on with pins. There’s a fundamental daftness in all Merklands. I remember him at school.’
    The two men finished their meal and retired to the smoking-room, where they drank their coffee abstractedly. Each was thinking about the other, and wondering what light the other’s case could shed on his own. The speculation gave each a faint glimmer of comfort.
    Presently the voice of Sir Archibald Roylance was heard, and that ebullient young man flung himself down on a sofa beside Leithen, while Lord Lamancha selected a cigar. Sir Archie settled his game leg to his satisfaction, and filled an ancient pipe.
    â€˜Heavy weather,’ he announced. ‘I’ve been tryin’ to cheer up old Charles and it’s been like castin’ a fly against a thirty-mile gale. I can’t make out what’s come over him. Here’s a deservin’ lad like me struggling at the foot of the ladder and not cast down, and there’s Charles high up on the top rungs as glum as an owl and declarin’ that the whole thing’s foolishness. Shockin’ spectacle for youth.’
    Lamancha, who had found an arm-chair beside Palliser-Yeates, looked at the others and smiled wryly.
    â€˜Is that true, Charles?’ Leithen asked. ‘Are you also feeling hipped? Because John and I have just been confessing to each other that we’re more fed up with everything in this gay world than we’ve ever been before in our useful lives.’
    Lamancha nodded. ‘I don’t