‘Yes, yes; tell Sherry to keep a box—a box. And now I’m off to the Privy Council. Sorry I can’t take you with me, Dorothy, but you’re not sworn in yet—not sworn in.’ And off he shambled; his walk and talk were very like one another—rapid, irregular, and fitful. ‘There,’ cried Mrs. Jordan triumphantly, ‘I have got what I wanted for you, Master Harry; the play will now have the Royal patronage.’ ‘Then that gentleman is——’ ‘His Royal Highness the Duke of Clarence, _my husband_.’ CHAPTER XXVIII. THE GREEN-EYED MONSTER. A DROLL rogue of my acquaintance, whom (one tried to think) the force of circumstance, rather than any natural disposition, had driven from the pavement of integrity into the gutter, used to maintain that it was better to confess one’s peccadilloes, with such colourable excuses as might suggest themselves, than to conceal them. In the former case you might, with a struggle, get out of the scrape and have done with it; in the latter case you were never safe from discovery, and when it came there was sure to be a catastrophe. There was, it is true, no peccadillo in William Henry’s keeping that appointment we wot of with those two charming ornaments of Drury Lane Theatre, but since he had an impression that Margaret might not like it, he ought, according to my friend’s philosophy, to have told her all about it. After his interview with his Royal Highness (which could not be concealed) he felt that this straightforward course was the right one, and as he returned home in the hackney carriage with the precious manuscripts, amused himself with the thoughts of the pleasure Margaret would exhibit on hearing of the greatness that had been thrust upon him. When her mind had been dazzled by visions of Royalty, he had intended it to slip out in a casual way that he had been indebted for his introduction to his Royal Highness to one of those professional persons who had called in Norfolk Street the previous day on business, and whom he had been compelled to receive in place of his father—a Mrs. Jordan. The whole thing ran as smoothly and naturally in his own mind as could be. It was like some well-oiled mechanical machine, which the inventor (though of course it was no invention, only an adaptation) feels confident will do all he expects of it, only somehow in practice it doesn’t act. He found Margaret not in the least interested about his Royal Highness, and very much excited about the lady who had been the mere medium of his introduction, and whose part in the matter he had taken, it must be confessed, some pains to minimise. ‘You have not been frank with me, William Henry,’ she said with some severity.