‘Mean to do with him? Why, what should I mean to do with him?’ ‘The very point I wish to learn. A protégé, my lord, is a parasitic plant, and you cannot deprive it of its double instincts--to cling and to climb.’ ‘How witty my cousin has become since his sojourn in Ireland,’ said Maude. Walpole flushed deeply, and for a moment he seemed about to reply angrily; but, with an effort, he controlled himself, and turning towards the timepiece on the chimney, said, ‘How late! I could not have believed it was past one! I hope, my lord, I have made your despatch intelligible?’ ‘Yes, yes; I think so. Besides, he will be here in a day or two to explain.’ ‘I shall, then, say good-night, my lord. Good-night, Cousin Maude.’ But Lady Maude had already left the room unnoticed. CHAPTER LXVII WALPOLE ALONE Once more in his own room, Walpole returned to the task of that letter to Nina Kostalergi, of which he had made nigh fifty drafts, and not one with which he was satisfied. It was not really very easy to do what he wished. He desired to seem a warm, rapturous, impulsive lover, who had no thought in life--no other hope or ambition--than the success of his suit. He sought to show that she had so enraptured and enthralled him that, until she consented to share his fortunes, he was a man utterly lost to life and life’s ambitions; and while insinuating what a tremendous responsibility she would take on herself if she should venture by a refusal of him to rob the world of those abilities that the age could ill spare, he also dimly shadowed the natural pride a woman ought to feel in knowing that she was asked to be the partner of such a man, and that one, for whom destiny in all likelihood reserved the highest rewards of public life, was then, with the full consciousness of what he was, and what awaited him, ready to share that proud eminence with her, as a prince might have offered to share his throne. In spite of himself, in spite of all he could do, it was on this latter part of his letter his pen ran most freely. He could condense his raptures, he could control in most praiseworthy fashion all the extravagances of passion and the imaginative joys of love, but, for the life of him, he could abate nothing of the triumphant ecstasy that must be the feeling of the woman who had won him--the passionate delight of her who should be his wife, and enter life the chosen one of his affection.