My advice
to you is to do as Sir Timothy has asked you.'
'He is such a beast, sir,' said Silverbridge.
'Pray do not speak in that way on matters so serious.'
'I do not think you understand it, sir.'
'Perhaps not. Can you enlighten me?'
'I believe he has done this only to annoy you.' The Duke, who had
again seated himself, and was leaning back in his chair, raised
himself up, placed his hands on the table before him, and looked
his son hard in the face. The idea which Silverbridge had just
expressed had certainly occurred to himself. He remembered well
all the circumstances of the time when he and Sir Timothy Beeswax
had been members of the same government,--and he remembered how
animosities had grown, and how treacherous he had thought the man.
From the moment in which he had read the minister's letter to the
young member, he had felt that the offer had too probably come
from a desire to make the political separation between himself and
his son complete. But he had thought that in counselling his son
he was bound to ignore such a feeling; and it certainly had not
occurred to him that Silverbridge would have been astute enough to
perceive the same thing.
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