Under ordinary circumstances
the scene at the council table would have entirely exhausted Otto's
store both of energy and anger; he would have begun to examine and
condemn his conduct, have remembered all that was true, forgotten
all that was unjust in Seraphina's onslaught; and by half an hour
after would have fallen into that state of mind in which a Catholic
flees to the confessional and a sot takes refuge with the bottle.
Two matters of detail preserved his spirits. For, first, he had
still an infinity of business to transact; and to transact business,
for a man of Otto's neglectful and procrastinating habits, is the
best anodyne for conscience. All afternoon he was hard at it with
the Chancellor, reading, dictating, signing, and despatching papers;
and this kept him in a glow of self-approval. But, secondly, his
vanity was still alarmed; he had failed to get the money; to-morrow
before noon he would have to disappoint old Killian; and in the eyes
of that family which counted him so little, and to which he had
sought to play the part of the heroic comforter, he must sink lower
than at first. To a man of Otto's temper, this was death. He could
not accept the situation. And even as he worked, and worked wisely
and well, over the hated details of his principality, he was
secretly maturing a plan by which to turn the situation. It was a
scheme as pleasing to the man as it was dishonourable in the prince;
in which his frivolous nature found and took vengeance for the
gravity and burthen of the afternoon.
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