Lady Deloraine consoled herself for the "Bedchamber Plot" by
declaring that Lady St Julians was indirectly the cause of it,
and that had it not been for the anticipation of her official
entrance into the royal apartments the conspiracy would not
have been more real than the Meal-tub plot or any other of the
many imaginary machinations that still haunt the page of
history, and occasionally flit about the prejudiced memory of
nations. Lady St Julians on the contrary wrung her hands over
the unhappy fate of her enthralled sovereign, deprived of her
faithful presence and obliged to put up with the society of
personages of whom she knew nothing and who called themselves
the friends of her youth. The ministers who had missed,
especially those who had received their appointments, looked
as all men do when they are jilted--embarrassed and affecting
an awkward ease; as if they knew something which, if they
told, would free them from the supreme ridicule of their
situation, but which, as men of delicacy and honour, they
refrained from revealing. All those who had been in
fluttering hopes, however faint, of receiving preferment, took
courage now that the occasion had passed, and loudly
complained of their cruel and undeniable deprivation.
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