“Yes, My Lord.”

Hornblower at last took his eyes from Harcourt’s face. He himself had been a dashing young officer once. Now he had far more sympathy than ever before with the older men who had entrusted him with enterprises. A senior officer had perforce to trust his juniors, while still carrying the ultimate responsibility. If Harcourt should blunder, if he should be guilty of some indiscretion leading to a diplomatic protest, it would certainly be true that he might wish he had never been born—Hornblower would see to that. But Hornblower would be wishing he himself had never been born, too. But there was no useful purpose to be served in pointing that out.

“That is all, then, Mr. Harcourt.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

“Come on, Mr. Gerard. We’re late already.”

The upholstery of Mr. Sharpe’s carriage was of green satin, and the carriage was admirably sprung, so that although it lurched and swayed over the uneven street surfaces, it did not jolt or jerk. Yet after five minutes of lurching and swaying—the carriage had been standing for some time in the hot May sun—Hornblower felt himself turning as green as the upholstery. The Rue Royale, the Place d’armes, the Cathedral, received hardly a glance from him. He welcomed the halts despite the fact that each halt meant a formal meeting with strangers, the kind of meeting he disliked most heartily. He stood and gulped in the humid air during the blessed moments between descending from the carriage and entering in under the ornate porticoes that stood to welcome him. It had never occurred to him before that an Admiral’s full dress uniform might with advantage be made of something thinner than broadcloth, and he had worn his broad red ribbon and his glittering star far too often by now to feel the slightest pleasure in displaying it.

At the Naval Headquarters he drank an excellent Madeira; the General gave him a heavy Marsala; at the Governor’s mansion he was given a tall drink which had been iced (presumably with ice sent down during the winter from New England and preserved in an icehouse until nearly at midsummer it was more precious than gold) extraordinarily to the point where actual frost was visible on the tumbler.