 CHAPTER 42 RETRIBUTION The Duchess had been at work with her husband for the last two months, in the hope of renewing her autumnal festivities, but had been lamentably unsuccessful. The Duke had declared that there should be no more rural crowds, no repetition of what he called London turned loose on his own grounds. He could not forget the necessity which had been imposed upon him of turning Major Pountany out of his house, or the change that had been made in his gardens, or his wife's attempt to conquer him at Silverbridge. You mean she said that we are to have nobody? He replied that he thought it would be best to go to matching, and live a Darby and Joan life, said the Duchess. I said nothing of Darby and Joan, whatever may be my feelings I hardly think that you are fitted for that kind of thing. Matching is not so big as gathering, but it is not a cottage. Of course you can ask your own friends. I don't know what you mean by my own friends. I endeavor always to ask yours. I don't know that Major Pountany and Captain Gunner and Mr. Lopez were ever among the number of my friends. I suppose you mean Lady Rezina, said the Duchess. I shall be happy to have her at matching, if you wish it. I should like to see Lady Rezina at a course he had matching very much. And is there to be nobody else? I'm afraid I should find it rather dull, while you two were opening your hearts to each other. Here he looked at her angrily. Can you think of anybody besides Lady Rezina? I suppose you will wish to have Mrs. Finn? What an arrangement! Lady Rezina for you to flirt with, and Mrs. Finn for me to grumble to? That is an odious word, said the Prime Minister. What, flirting? I don't see anything bad about the word. The thing is dangerous, but you are quite at liberty if you don't go beyond Lady Rezina. I should like to know whether you would wish anybody else to come? Of course he made no becoming answer to this question, and of course no becoming answer was expected. He knew that she was trying to provoke him, because he would not let her do this year as she had done last. The house, he had no doubt, would be full to overflowing when he got there. He could not help that. But as compared with Gatherham Castle, the house at matching was small, and his domestic has already sufficed at any rate for shutting up Gatherham for the time. I do not know whether at times her sufferings were not as acute as his own. He at any rate was Prime Minister, and it seemed to her that she was to be reduced to nothing. At the beginning of it all he had, with unwanted tenderness, asked her for her sympathy in his undertaking, and according to her powers she had given it to him with her whole heart. She had thought that she had seen a way by which he might assist him in his great employment, and she had worked at it like a slave. Every day she told herself that she did not herself love the Captain Gunners and the Major Paltneys, nor the Sir Orlando's, nor indeed the Lady Resinas. She had not followed the bent of her own inclination when she had descended to sheets and towels, and busied herself to establish an archery ground. She had not shot an arrow during the whole season, nor had she cared who had won and who had lost. It had not been for her own personal delight that she kept open house for forty persons throughout four months of the year, in doing which he had never taken an ounce of labour off her shoulders by any single word or deed. It had all been done for his sake that his reign might be long and triumphant, that the world would say that his hospitality was noble and full, that his name might be in men's mouths, and that he might prosper as a British minister. Such at least were the assertions which he made to herself when she thought of her own grievances and her own troubles. And now she was angry with her husband. It was very well for him to ask for his sympathy, but he had none to give her in return. He could not pity her failures, even though he himself caused them. If he had a grain of intelligence about him he must, she thought, understand well enough how sore it must be for her to descend from her princely entertainments to solitude at matching, and thus to own before all the world that she was beaten. Then when she asked him for advice, when she was really anxious to know how far she might go in filling her house without offending him, he told her to ask Lady Resided a Corsi. If he chose to be ridiculous, he might. She would ask Lady Resided a Corsi. In her act of anger she did right to Lady Resided a Corsi, a formal letter in which she said that the Duke hoped to have the pleasure of her ladyship's company at Matching Park on the 1st of August. It was an absurd letter, somewhat long, written very much in the Duke's name, with overwhelming expressions of affection instigated in the writer's mind partly by the fun of the supposition that such a man as her husband should flirt with such a woman as Lady Resided. There was something too of anger in what she wrote, some touch of revenge. She sent off this invitation, and she sent no other. Lady Resided took it all in good part, and replied, saying that she should have the greatest pleasure in going to Matching. She had declared to herself that she would ask none but those he had named, and in accordance with her resolution, she sent out no other written invitations. He had also told her to ask Mrs. Finn. Now this had become almost a matter of course. There had grown up from accidental circumstances so strong a bond between these two women, that it was taken for granted by both their husbands that they should be nearly always within reach of one another. And the two husbands were also unkindly, if not affectionate terms with each other. The nature of the Duke's character was such that, with the most loving heart, he was hardly capable of that opening out of himself to another which is necessary for positive friendship. There was the stiff reserve about him, of which he was himself only too conscious, which almost prohibited friendship. But he liked Mr. Finn, both as a man and a member of his party, and was always satisfied to have him as a guest. The Duchess therefore had taken it for granted that Mrs. Finn would come to her, and that Mr. Finn would come also during any time that he might be able to escape from Ireland. But when the invitation was verbally conveyed, Mr. Finn had gone to the Admiralty, and had already made his arrangements for going to sea as a gallant sailor should. We are going away in the Black Watch for a couple of months, said Mrs. Finn. Now, the Black Watch was the Admiralty yacht. Heavens and Earth ejaculated the Duchess. It is always done the First Lord would have his epaulette stripped if he didn't go to sea in August. And must you go with him? I have promised. I think it very unkind, very hard upon me. Of course you knew that I should want you. But if my husband wants me too, bother your husband, I wish with all my heart I had never helped to make up the match. It would have been made up just the same, Lady Glen. You know that I cannot get on without you, and he ought to know it too. There isn't another person in the world that I could really say a thing to. Why don't you have Mrs. Gray? She's going to Persia after her husband, and then she is not wicked enough. She always lectured me, and she does it still. What do you think is going to happen? Nothing terrible, I hope, said Mrs. Finn, mindful of her husband's new honours at the Admiralty, and hoping that the Duke might not have repeated his threat of resigning. We are going to matching. So I supposed. And whom do you think we are going to have? Not Major Paltney. No, not at my asking. Nor Mr. Lopez. Nor yet Mr. Lopez. Guess again. I suppose there will be a dozen to guess. No, sweet caduchess, there will only be one. I have asked one at his special desire, and as you won't come, I shall ask nobody else. But I pressed him to name a second he named you. I'll obey him to the letter. Now, my dear, who do you think is the chosen one, the one person who is to solace the perturbed spirit of the Prime Minister for the three months of the autumn? Mr. Warburton, I should say. Oh, Mr. Warburton, no doubt Mr. Warburton will come as part of his luggage, and perhaps half a dozen treasury clerks. He declares, however, that there is nothing to do, and therefore Mr. Warburton's strength may alone suffice to help him do it. There is to be one unnecessary guest—unnecessary, that is, for official purpose—though, oh, so much needed for his social happiness. Guess once more. Knowing the spirit of mischief that is in you, perhaps it is Lady Rezina? Of course it is Lady Rezina, said the duchess, clapping her hands together, that I should like to know what you mean by a spirit of mischief. I asked him, and he himself said that he particularly wished to have Lady Rezina at matching. Now, I'm not a jealous woman, am I? Not of Lady Rezina. I don't think they'll do any harm together, but it is particular, you know. However, she is to come, and nobody else is to come. I did count upon you. And Mrs. Finn counseled her very seriously, as to the bad taste of such a joke, explaining to her that the duke had certainly not intended that her invitations should be confined to Lady Rezina. But it was not all joke with the duchess. She had been driven almost to despair, and was very angry with her husband. He had brought the thing upon himself, and must now make the best of it. She would ask nobody else. She declared that there was nobody whom she could ask with propriety. She was tired of asking. Let her ask whom she would. He was dissatisfied. The only two people he cared to see were Lady Rezina and the old duke. She had asked Lady Rezina for his sake, let him ask his old friend himself, if he pleased. The duke and duchess with all the family went down together, and Mr. Warburton went with them. The duchess had said not a word more to her husband about his interests, nor had he alluded to the subject. But each was laboring under a conviction that the other was misbehaving, and with that feeling it was impossible that there should be confidence between them. He visit himself with books and papers, always turning over those piles of newspapers to see what evil was said of himself, and speaking only now and again to his private secretary. She engaged herself with the children, or pretended to read a novel. Her heart was sore within her. She had wished to punish him, but in truth she was punishing herself. On the day of their arrival the father and mother with Lord Silverbridge, the eldest son, who was home from Eaton, and the private secretary, dined together. As the duke sat at table he began to think how long it was, since such a state of things had happened to him before, and his heart softened towards her. Instead of being made angry by the strangeness of her proceeding, he took the light in it, that in the course of the evening spoke a word to signify his satisfaction. I'm afraid it won't last long, she said, for Lady Resina comes to-morrow. Oh, indeed! You bid me ask her yourself. Then he perceived at all how she had taken advantage of his former answer to her, and had acted upon it in a spirit of contradictory petulance. But he resolved that he would forgive it and endeavour to bring her back to him. I thought we were both joking, he said, good-humoredly. Oh, no! I never suspected you of a joke at any rate she is coming. She will do neither of us any harm. And Mrs. Finn, you have sent her to see. She may be at sea, and he too, but it is without my sending the first Lord, I believe, usually does go on a cruise. Is there nobody else? Nobody else, unless you have asked any one? Not a creature. Well, so much the better. I daresay Lady Resina will get on very well. You will have to talk to her, said the Duchess. I will do my best, said the Duke. Lady Resina came, and no doubt did think it odd. But she did not say so, and it really did seem to the Duchess, as though all her vengeance had been blown away by the winds. And she too laughed at the matter to herself, and began to feel less cross and less perverse. The world did not come to an end, because she and her husband were Lady Resina, and her boy and the private secretary sat down to dinner every day together. The parish clergyman with the neighbouring squire and his wife and daughter did come one day, to the relief of Monsieur Milpois, who had begun to feel that the world had collapsed. And every day at a certain hour the Duke and Lady Resina walked together for an hour and a half in the park. The Duchess would have enjoyed it, instead of suffering, could she only have had her friend, a Mrs. Finn, to hear her jokes. Now Plantagenet, she said, do tell me one thing. What does she talk about? The troubles of her family generally, I think. That can't last forever. She wears cork soles to her boots, and she thinks a good deal about them. And you listen to her? Why not? I can talk about cork soles as well as anything else. Anything that may do material good to the world at large, or even to yourself privately, is a fit subject for conversation to rational people. I suppose I never was one of them. But I can talk about anything, continued the Duke, as long as the talker talks in good faith and does not say things that should not be said or deal with matters that are offensive. I could talk for an hour about bankers' accounts, but I should not expect a stranger to ask me the state of my own. She has almost persuaded me to send a Mr. Sprout of Silver Bridge and get some cork soles myself. Don't do anything of the kind, said the Duchess with animation, as though she had secret knowledge that cork soles were specially fatal to the family of the palaces. Why not, my dear? He was the man who, especially above all the others, threw me over at Silver Bridge. Then again there came upon his brow that angry frown which during the last days had been so dissipated by the innocence of Lady Rezina's conversation. Of course I don't mean to ask you to take any interest in the borough again. You have said that you wouldn't, and you were always as good as your word. I hope so. But I certainly would not employ a tradesman just at your elbow who was directly opposed to what was generally understood in the town to be your interests. What did Mr. Sprout do? This is the first I have heard of it. He got Mr. Dubung to stand against Mr. Lopez. I am very glad for the sake of the borough that Mr. Lopez did not get in. So am I, but that is nothing to do with it. Mr. Sprout knew at any rate what my wishes were and went directly against them. You were not entitled to have wishes in the matter, Glancora. That's all very well, but I had, and he knew it. As for the future, of course, the thing is over, but you have done everything for the borough. You mean that the borough has done much for me. I know what I mean very well, and I shall take it very ill if his shilling out of the castle ever goes into Mr. Sprout's pocket again. It is needless to trouble the reader at length with the sermon which he preached her on the occasion, showing the utter corruption which must come from the mixing up of politics with trade, or with the scorn which she threw into the few words with which she interrupted him from time to time. Whether a man makes good shoes and at a reasonable price and charges for them honestly, that is what you have to consider, said the Duke impressively. I'd rather pay double for bad shoes to a man who did not thwart me. You should not condescend to be thwarted in such a matter. You lower yourself by admitting such a feeling, and yet he writhed himself under the lashes of Mr. Slide. I know an enemy when I see him, said the Duchess, and as long as I live I'll treat an enemy as an enemy. There was ever so much of it, in the course of which the Duke declared his purpose of sending it once to Mr. Sprout for ever so many quirk souls, and the Duchess, most imprudently, declared her purpose of ruining Mr. Sprout. There was something in this threat which grated terribly against the Duke's sense of honour, that his wife should threaten to ruin a poor tradesman, that she should do so in reference to the political affairs of the borough which he all but owned, that she should do so in declared opposition to him. Of course he ought to have known that her sin consisted simply in her determination to vex him at the moment. A more good-natured woman did not live, or one less prone to ruin any one, but any reference to the silver ridge election brought back upon him the remembrance of those cruel attacks which had been made upon him, and rendered him for the time moody, morose, and wretched, so they again parted ill friends, and hardly spoke when they met at dinner. The next morning they reached matching a letter which greatly added to his bitterness of spirit against the world in general, and against her in particular. The letter, though marked private, had been opened, as were all his letters, by Mr. Warburton, but the private secretary thought it necessary to show the letter to the Prime Minister. He, when he had read it, told Warburton that it did not signify, and maintained for half an hour an attitude of quiescence. Then he walked forth, having the letter hidden in his hand, and finding his wife alone gave it to her to read. See what you have brought upon me, he said, by your interference and disobedience. The letter was as follows. Manchester Square, August 3, 1870 Blank My Lord Duke, I consider myself entitled to complain to your grace of the conduct with which I was treated at the last election at Silverbridge, whereby I was led into very heavy expenditure without the least chance of being returned for the borough. I am aware that I had no direct conversation with your grace on the subject, and that your grace can plead that, as between man and man, I had no authority from yourself for supposing that I should receive your grace's support. But I was distinctly asked by the Duchess to stand, and was assured by her that if I did so I should have all the assistance that your grace's influence could procure for me, and it was also explained to me that your grace's official position made it inexperient that your grace on this special occasion should have any personal conference with your own candidate. Under these circumstances I submit to your grace that I am entitled to complain of the hardship I have suffered. I had not been long in the borough before I found that my position was hopeless. Several men in the town who had been represented to me as being altogether devoted to your grace's interests started a third candidate, a liberal as myself, and the natural consequence was that neither of us succeeded, though my return as your grace's candidate would have been certain had not this been done. That this was all pre-concerted there could be no doubt, but before the mine was sprung on me, immediately indeed on my arrival, if I remember rightly, an application was made to me for five hundred pounds so that the money might be exacted before the truth was known to me. Of course I should not have paid the five hundred pounds had I known that your grace's usual agents in the town, I may name Mr. Sprout especially, were prepared to act against me. But I did pay the money, and I think your grace will agree with me that a very appropriate term might be applied without injustice to the transaction. My Lord Duke, I am a poor man, ambitious I will own, whether that be a sin or a virtue, and willing perhaps to incur expenditure which can hardly be justified in pursuit of certain public objects. But I must say, with the most lively respect for your grace personally, that I do not feel inclined to sit down tamedly under such a loss as this. I should not have dreamed of interfering in the election at Silverbridge had not the Duchess exhorted me to do so. I would not even have run the risk of a doubtful contest. But I came forward at the suggestion of the Duchess, backed by her personal assurance that the seat was as certain as being in your grace's hands. It was no doubt understood that your grace would not yourself interfere, but it was equally well understood that your grace's influence was, for the time, deputed to the Duchess. The Duchess herself, will I am sure, confirm my statement that I had her direct authority for regarding myself as your grace's candidate. I can, of course, bring an action against Mr. Wise, the gentleman to whom I paid the money. But I feel that as a gentleman I should not do so without reference to your grace. The circumstances might possibly be brought out in evidence. I will not say prejudicial to your grace, but which would be unbecoming. I cannot, however, think that your grace will be willing that a poor man like myself, in his search for an entrance into public life, should be mulked to so heavy an extent in consequence of an error on the part of the Duchess. Should your grace be able to assist me in my view of getting into Parliament for any other seat, I shall be willing to abide the loss I have incurred. I hardly, however, dare to hope for such assistance. In this case I think your grace ought to see that I am reimbursed. I have the honor to be, my Lord Duke, your grace's very faithful servant, Ferdinand Lopez. The Duke stood over her in her own room upstairs with his back to the fireplace, and his eyes fixed upon her while she was reading this letter. He gave her ample time, and she did not read it very quickly. Much of it indeed she perused twice, turning very red in the face as she did so. She was thus studious, partly because the letter astounded even her, and partly because she wanted time to consider how she would meet his wrath. Well, said he, what do you say to that? The man is a blaggard, of course. He is so, though I do not know that I wish to hear him call such a name by your lips. Let him be what he may. He was your friend. He was my acquaintance. He was the man whom you selected to be your candidate for the borough in opposition to my wishes, and whom you continued to support and direct this obedience to my orders. Surely, Plantagenet, we have had all that about this obedience out before. You cannot have such things out as you call it. Evil doing will not bury itself out of the way and be done with. Do you feel no shame at having your name mentioned a score of times with reprobation, as that man mentions it, of being written about by such a man as that? Do you want to make me roll in the gutter because I mistook him for a gentleman? That was not all, nor half, and your eagerness to serve such a miserable creature as this, you forgot my entreaties, my commands, my position. I explained to you why I, of all men, and you of all women, as a part of me, should not do this thing, and yet you did it, mistaking such a cur as that for a man. What am I to do? How am I to free myself from the impediments which you make for me? My enemies I can overcome, but I cannot escape the pitfalls which are made for me by my own wife. I can only retire into private life and hope to console myself with my children and my books. There was a reality of tragedy about him which for the moment overcame her. She had no joke ready, no sarcasm, no feminine counter-grumble, little as she agreed with him when he spoke of the necessity of retiring into private life, because a man had written to him such a letter as this, incapable as she was of understanding fully the nature of the irritation which tormented him, still she knew that he was suffering and acknowledged to herself that she had been the cause of the agony. I am sorry, she ejaculated at last. What more can I say? What am I to do? What can be said to that man? Warburton read the letter and gave it to me in silence. He could see the terrible difficulty. Tear it in pieces and let there be an end of it. I do not feel sure but that he is right on his side. He is, as you say, certainly a-blaggard, or he would not make such a claim. He is taking advantage of the mistake made by a good-natured woman through her folly and her vanity. As he said this the Duchess gave an absurd little pout, but luckily he did not see it. And he knows very well that he is doing so. But still he has a show of justice on his side. There was, I suppose, no chance for him at Silverbridge after I had made myself fully understood. The money was absolutely wasted. It was your persuasion and then your continued encouragement that led him on to spend the money. Pay it then. The loss will not hurt you. Ah, if we could but get out of our difficulties by paying. Suppose that I do pay it. I begin to think that I must pay it, that after all I cannot allow such a plea to remain unanswered. But when it is paid, what then? Do you think such a payment made by the Queen's Minister will not be known to all the newspapers, and that I shall escape the charge of having bribed the man to hold his tongue? It will be no bribe if you pay him, because you think you ought. But how shall I excuse it? There are things done which are holy as the heavens, which are clear before God as the light of the sun, which leave no stain on the conscience, and which yet the malignity of man can invest with the very blackness of hell. I shall know why I pay this five hundred pounds, because she who of all the world is the nearest and dearest to me, she looked up into his face with amazement, as he stood stretching out both his arms and his energy, has in her impetuous folly committed a grievous blunder from which she would not allow her husband to save her. As some must be paid to the wretched craven. But I cannot tell the world that. I cannot say abroad that this small sacrifice of money was the justice means of retrieving the injury which you had done. Say it abroad, say it everywhere. No, Glencora. Do you think that I would have you spare me if it was my fault? And how would it hurt me? Will it be you to any one that I have done a foolish thing? Will the newspapers disturb my peace? I sometimes think, Plantagenet, that I should have been the man, my skin is so thick, and that you should have been the woman, yours is so tender. But it is not so. Take the advantage nevertheless of my toughness, send him the five hundred pounds without a word, or make Warburton do so, or Mr. Morton make no secret of it, then if the papers talk about it. A question might be asked about it in the house. Or if questioned in any way, say that I did it. Tell the exact truth. You are always saying that nothing but truth ever serves. Let the truth serve now. I shall not blench. You are saying it all in the house of Lords won't wound me half so much as you are looking at me as you did just now. Did I wound you? God knows I would not hurt you willingly. Never mind. Go on. I know you think that I have brought it all on myself by my own wickedness. Pay this man the money, and then if anything be said about it, explain that it was my fault, and say that you paid the money because I had done wrong. When he came in she had been seated on a sofa, which she constantly used herself, and he had stood over her, masterful, imperious, and almost tyrannical. She had felt his tyranny, but had resented it less than usual, or rather had been less determined in holding her own against him and asserting herself as his equal, because she confessed to herself that she had injured him. She had, she thought, done but little, but that which she had done had produced this injury, so she had sat and endured the oppression of his standing posture. But now he sat down by her, very close to her, and put his hand upon her shoulder, almost round her waist. Quora, he said, you do not quite understand it. I never understand anything, I think, she answered. Not in this case, perhaps never, what it is that a husband feels about his wife. Do you think that I could say a word against you even to a friend? Why not? I never did, I never could. If my anger were at the hottest I would not confess to a human being that you were not perfect except to yourself. Oh, thank you, if you would have scold me vicariously I should feel it less. Do not joke with me now, for I am so much an earnest, and if I could not consent that your conduct should be called in question even by a friend, do you suppose it possible that I should contrive and escape from public censure by laying the blame publicly on you? Stick to the truth, that's what you always say. I certainly shall stick to the truth, the man at his wife or one, for what she does he is responsible. They couldn't hang you, you know, because I committed a murder. I should be willing that they should do so. No, if I pay this money I shall take the consequences, I shall not do it in any way under the rose, but I wish you would remember. Remember what? No, I shall never forget all this trouble about that dirty little town which I will never enter again as long as I live. I wish you would think that in all you do you are dealing with my feelings, with my heartstrings, with my reputation. You cannot divide yourself from me, nor for the value of it all would I wish that such division were possible. You say that I am thin skinned. Certainly you are, what people call a delicate organization, whereas I am rough and thick and monstrously commonplace. The new two should be thin skinned for my sake. I wish I could make you thick skinned for your own. It's the only way to be decently comfortable in such a course, rough and tumble world as this is. Let us both do our best, he said, now putting his arm around her and kissing her. I think I shall send the man his money at once. It is the least of two evils. And now let there never be a word more about it between us. Then he left her and went back, not to the study in which he was want when it matching to work with his private secretary, but to a small inner closet of his own in which many a bitter moment was spent while he thought over that abortive system of decimal coinage by which he had once hoped to make himself one of the great benefactors of his nation, revolving in his mind the troubles which his wife brought upon him and regretting the golden inanity of the coronet which in the very prime of life had expelled him from the House of Commons. Here he seated himself and for an hour neither stirred from his seat nor touched a pen nor opened a book. He was trying to calculate in his mind what might be the consequences of paying the money to Mr. Lopez. But when the calculation slipped from him, as it did, then he demanded of himself whether strict high-minded justice did not call upon him to pay the money, let the consequences be what they might. And here his mind was truer to him, and he was able to fix himself to a purpose, though the resolution to which he came was not perhaps wise. When the hour was over he went to his desk, drew a check for five hundred pounds in favor of Ferdinand Lopez, and then caused his secretary to send it in the following note. MATCHING August 14, 1870 Blank Sir, the Duke of Omnium has read the letter you have addressed to him, dated the third instant. The Duke of Omnium, feeling that you may have been induced to undertake the late contest at Silverbridge, by misrepresentations made to you at Gatherham Castle, directs me to enclose a check for five hundred pounds, that being the sum stated by you to have been expended in carrying on the contest at Silverbridge. I am, sir, your obedient servant, Arthur Warburton, Ferdinand Lopez Esquire. CHAPTER 43 OF THE PRIME MINISTER This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. CHAPTER 43 COWRY GUM The reader will no doubt think that Ferdinand Lopez must have been very hardly driven indeed by circumstances before he would have made such an appeal to the Duke as that given in the last chapter. But it was not what of money only that had brought it about. It may be remembered that the five hundred pounds had already been once repaid him by his father-in-law. That special sum having been given to him for that special purpose. And Lopez, when he wrote to the Duke, assured himself that if by any miracle his letter should produce pecuniary results in the shape of a payment from the Duke, he would refund the money so obtained to Mr. Warburton. But when he wrote the letter, he did not expect to get money. Nor indeed did he expect that aid towards another seat to which he eluded at the very close of his letter. He expected probably nothing but to vex the Duke and to drive the Duke into a correspondence with him. Though this man had lived nearly all his life in England, he had not quite acquired that knowledge of the way in which things are done, which is so general among men of a certain class, and so rare among those beneath them. He had not understood that the duchess's promise of her assistance at Silverbridge might be taken by him for what it was worth, and that her aid might be used as far as it went, but that in the event of its failing him he was bound and honored to take the result without complaining whatever the result might be. He felt that a grievous injury had been done him, and that it behooved him to resent that injury, even though it were against a woman. He just knew that he could not very well write to the duchess herself, though there was sometimes present to his mind a plan for attacking her in public and telling her what evil she had done him. He had half resolved that he would do so in her own garden at the horns, but on that occasion the apparition of Arthur Fletcher had disturbed him, and he had vented his anger in another direction. But still, his wrath against the Duke of the duchess remained, and he was wont to indulge it with very violent language as he sat upon one of the chairs in Sexty Parker's office, talking somewhat loudly of his own position of the things that he would do and of the injury done him. Sexty Parker sympathized with him to the full, especially as that first five hundred pounds, which he had received from Mr. Wharton, had gone into Sexty's coffers. At that time Lopez and Sexty were together committed to large speculations in the guano trade, and Sexty's mind was by no means easy in the early periods of the day. As he went into town by his train he would think of his wife and family and of the terrible things that might happen to them. But yet up to this period money had always been forthcoming from Lopez when absolutely wanted, and Sexty was quite alive to the fact that he was living with a freedom of expenditure in his own household that he had never known before, and that without apparent damage. Whenever, therefore, at some critical moment a much-needed sum of money was produced, Sexty would become light-hearted, triumphant, and very sympathetic. Well, I never heard such a story, he had said when Lopez was insisting on his wrongs. That's what the Dukes and Duchesses call honor among thieves. Well, Ferdy, my boy, if you stand that you'll stand anything. In these latter days Sexty had become very intimate indeed with his partner. I don't mean to stand it, Lopez had replied, and then on the spot had written the letter which he had dated from Manchester Square. He had certainly contrived to make that letter as oppressive as possible. He had been clever enough to put into words which were sure to wound the poor Duke and to confound the Duchess, and having written that he was very careful to keep the first draft, so that if occasion came he might use it again and push his vengeance farther. But he certainly had not expected such a result as it produced. When he received the private secretary's letter with the money, he was sitting opposite to his father-in-law at breakfast, while his wife was making the tea. Not many of his letters came to Manchester Square. Sexty Park's office or his club were more convenient addresses. But in this case he had thought that Manchester Square would have a better sound and appearance. When he opened the letter the check, of course, appeared bearing the Duke's own signature. He had seen that and the amount before he had read the letter, and as he saw it his eye travelled quickly across the table to his father-in-law's face. Mr. Wharton might certainly have seen the check and even the amount, probably also the signature, without the slightest suspicion as to the nature of the payment made. As it was he was eating his toast and had thought nothing about the letter. Lopez, having concealed the check, read the few words which the private secretary had written, and then put the document with its contents into his pocket. "'So you think, sir, of going down to Herefordshire on the fifteenth?' he said, in a very cheery voice. The cheery voice was still pleasant to the old man, but the young wife had already come to distrust it. She had learned, though she was hardly conscious how the lesson had come to her, that a certain tone of cheeriness indicated, if not the seat, at any rate the concealment of something. It grated against her spirit, and when this tone reached her ears a frown or look of sorrow would cross her brow. And her husband also had perceived that it was so, and knew at such times that he was rebuked. He was hardly aware what doings, and especially what feelings, were imputed to him as false, not understanding the lines which separated right from wrong, but he knew that he was often condemned by his wife, and he lived in fear that he should also be condemned by his wife's father. Had it been his wife only, he thought that he could soon have quenched her condemnation. He would soon have made her tired of showing her disapproval. But he had put himself into the old man's house, where the old man could see not only him, but his treatment of his wife, and the old man's good will and good opinion were essential to him. Yet he could not restrain one glance of anger at her when he saw that look upon her face. "'I suppose I shall,' said the barrister. "'I must go somewhere. My going need not disturb you.' "'I think we have made up our minds,' said Lopez, to take a cottage at Dovercourt. It is not a very lively place, nor yet fashionable, but it is very healthy, and I can run up to town easily. "'Unfortunately, my business won't let me be altogether away this autumn.' "'I wish my business would keep me,' said the barrister. "'I did not understand that you had made up your mind to go to Dovercourt,' said Emily. He had spoken to Mr. Wharton of their joint action in the matter, and as the place had only once been named by him to her, she resented what seemed to be a falsehood. She knew that she was to be taken or left as it suited him. If he had said boldly, we'll go to Dovercourt. That's what I've settled on. That's what will suit me. She would have been contented. She quite understood that he meant to have his own way in such things. But it seemed to her that he wanted to be a tyrant without having the courage necessary for tyranny. "'I thought you seemed to like it,' he said. "'I don't dislike it at all. Then as it suits my business, we might as well consider it settled.' So saying, he left the room and went off into the city. The old man was still sipping his tea and lingering over his breakfast in a way that was not usual with him. He was generally anxious to get away to Lincoln's inn, and on most mornings had left the house before his son-in-law. Emily, of course, remained with him, sitting silent in her place opposite to the teapot, meditating perhaps on her prospects of happiness at Dovercourt, a place of which she had never heard even the name two days ago, and in which it was hardly possible that she should find even an acquaintance. In former years these autumn months passed in Dovercourt had been the delight of her life. Mr. Wharton also had seen the cloud on his daughter's face, and had understood the nature of the little dialogue about Dovercourt. And he was aware, had been aware, since they had both come into his house, that the young wife's manner and tone to her husband was not that of perfect conjugal sympathy. He had already said to himself more than once that she had made her bed for herself and must lie upon it. She was the man's wife and must take her husband as he was. If she suffered under this man's mode and manner of life, he, as her father, could not assist her, could do nothing for her unless the man should become absolutely cruel. He had settled that within his own mind already, but yet his heart yearned towards her, and when he thought that she was unhappy, he longed to comfort her and tell her that she still had a father. But the time had not come as yet in which he could comfort her by sympathizing with her against her husband. There had never fallen from her lips a syllable of complaint. When she had spoken to him a chance word respecting her husband, it had always carried with it some tone of affection. But still he longed to say to her something which might tell her that his heart was soft towards her. Do you like the idea of going to this place, he said? I don't at all know what it will be like. Ferdinand says it will be cheap. Is that of such vital consequence? Ah, yes, I fear it is. This was very sad to him. Lopez had already had from him a considerable sum of money, having not yet been married twelve months, and was now living in London almost free of expense. Before his marriage he had always spoken of himself, and had contrived to be spoken of as a wealthy man, and now he was obliged to choose some small English seaside place to which to retreat, because thus he might live at a low rate. Had they married as poor people there would have been nothing to regret in this, there would be nothing that might not be done with entire satisfaction. But as it was it told a bad tale for the future. Do you understand his money-matters, Emily? Not at all, papa. I do not at the least mean to make inquiry. Perhaps I should have asked before, but if I did make inquiry now it would be of him. But I think a wife should know. I know nothing. What is his business? I have no idea. I used to think he was connected with Mr. Mills' Apperton and with Messer's hunky and sons. Is he not connected with hunky's house? I think not. He is a partner of the name of Parker, who is not, I think, quite a gentleman. I never saw him. What does he do with Mr. Parker? I believe they buy guano. Ah, that I fancy was only one affair. I'm afraid he lost money, papa, by that election at Silverbridge. I paid that, said Mr. Wharton sternly. Surely he should have told his wife that he had received that money from her family. Did you? That was very kind. I am afraid, papa, we are a great burden on you. I should not mind it, my dear, if there were confidence in happiness. What matter would it be to me whether you had your money now or hereafter so that you might have it in the manner that would be the most beneficial to you? I wish he would be open with me and tell me everything. Shall I let him know that you say so? He thought for a minute or two before he answered her. Perhaps the man would be more impressed if the message came to him through his wife. If you think that he will not be annoyed with you, you may do so. I don't know why he should, but if it be right that must be born, I am not afraid to say anything to him. Then tell him so. Tell him that it will be better that he should let me know the whole condition of his affairs. God bless you, dear. And he stooped over her, kissed her, and went on his way to stone buildings. It was not as he sat at the breakfast table that Ferdinand Lopez made up his mind to pocket the Duke's money and to say nothing about it to Mr. Wharton. He had been careful to conceal the check, but he had done so with the feeling that the matter was one to be considered in his own mind before he took any step. As he left the house already considering it, he was inclined to think that the money must be surrendered. Mr. Wharton had very generously paid his electioneering expenses, but had not done so simply with the view of making him a present of the money. He wished the Duke had not taken him at his word. In handing this check over to Mr. Wharton, he would be forced to tell the story of his letter to the Duke, and he was sure that Mr. Wharton would not approve of his having written such a letter. How could anyone approve of his having applied for a sum of money which had already been paid to him? How could such a one as Mr. Wharton, an old-fashioned English gentleman, approve of such an application being made under any circumstances? Mr. Wharton would very probably insist on having the check sent back to the Duke, which would be a sorry end to the triumph as it present achieved. And the more he thought of it, the more sure he was that it would be imprudent to mention to Mr. Wharton his application to the Duke. The old men of the present day were, he said to himself, such fools that they understood nothing. And then the money was very convenient to him. He was intent on obtaining Sexty Park his consent to a large speculation and knew that he could not do so without a show of funds. By the time, therefore, that he had reached the city, he had resolved that at any rate for the present he would use the money and say nothing about it to Mr. Wharton. Was it not spoil got from the enemy by his own courage and cleverness? When he was writing his acknowledgment for the money to Warburton, he had taught himself to look upon the sum extracted from the Duke as a matter quite distinct from the payment made to him by his father-in-law. It was evident on that day to Sexty Parker that his partner was a man of great resources. Though things sometimes looked very bad, yet money always turned up. Some of their buyings and sellings had answered pretty well. Some had been great failures. No great stroke had been made as yet. But then the great stroke was always being expected. Sexty's fears were greatly exaggerated by the feeling that the coffee and guano were not always real coffee and guano. His partner, indeed, was of opinion that in such a trade as this they were following, there was no need at all of real coffee and real guano, and explained his theory with considerable eloquence. If I buy a ton of coffee and keep it six weeks, why do I buy and keep it? And why does the seller sell it instead of keeping it? The seller sells it because he thinks he could do best by parting with it now at a certain price. I buy it because I think I can make money by keeping it. It is just the same as though we were to back our opinions. He backs the fall, I back the rise. You needn't have coffee and you needn't have guano to do this. Indeed, the possession of the coffee or the guano is only a very clumsy addition to the trouble of your profession. I make it my study to watch the markets, but I needn't buy everything I see in order to make money by my labor and intelligence. Sexty Parker, before his lunch, always thought that his partner was wrong, but after that ceremony he almost daily became a convert to the great doctrine. Coffee and guano still had to be bought because the world was dull and would not learn the tricks of the trade as taught by Ferdinand Lopez, also possibly because somebody might want such articles, but our enterprising hero looked for a time in which no such dull burden should be imposed on him. On this day, when the Duke's five hundred pounds was turned into the business, Sexty yielded in a large matter which his partner had been pressing upon him for the last week. They bought a cargo of cowery gum coming from New Zealand. Lopez had reasons for thinking that cowery gum must have a great rise. There was an immense demand for amber, and cowery gum might be used as a substitute, and in six months' time would be double its present value. This, unfortunately, was a real cargo. He could not find an individual so enterprising as to venture to deal in a cargo of cowery gum after his fashion. But the next best thing was done. The real cargo was bought, and his name and Sexty's name were on the bills given for the goods. On that day he returned home in high spirits, for he did believe in his own intelligence and good fortune. CHAPTER 44 Mr. Wharton intends to make a new will. On that afternoon immediately on the husband's return to the house his wife spoke to him as her father had desired. On that evening Mr. Wharton was dining at his club, and therefore there was the whole evening before them. But the thing to be done was disagreeable, and therefore she did it at once, rushing into the matter almost before he had seated himself in the armchair which he had appropriated to his use in the drawing-room. Papa was talking about her affairs after you left this morning, and he thinks it would be so much better if you would tell him all about them. What made him talk of that to-day, he said, turning at her almost angrily and thinking at once of the Duke's check. I suppose it is natural that he should be anxious about his Ferdinand, and the more natural is he his money to give if he chooses to give it. I have asked him for nothing lately, though by George I intend to ask him in that very roundly. Three thousand pounds isn't much of a sum of money for your father to have given you. And he paid the election bill, didn't he? He has been complaining of that behind my back, has he? I didn't ask him for it. He offered it. I wasn't such a fool as to refuse, but he needn't bring that up as a grievance to you. It wasn't brought up as a grievance. I was saying that your standing had been a very heavy expenditure. Why did you say so? What made you talk about it at all? Why should you be discussing my affairs behind my back? To my own father, and that too when you were telling me every day that I am to induce him to help you? Not by complaining that I am poor, but how did it all begin? She had to think for a moment before she could recollect how it did begin. There has been something, he said, which you are ashamed to tell me. There is nothing that I am ashamed to tell you. There never has been and never will be anything. And she stood up as she spoke with open eyes and extended nostrils. Whatever may come, however wretched it may be, I shall not be ashamed of myself. But of me, why do you say so? Why do you try to make unhappiness between us? You have been talking of my poverty. My father asked why you should go to Dovercourt, and whether it was because it would save expense. You want to go somewhere? Not at all. I am contented to stay in London. But I said that I thought the expense had a good deal to do with it. Of course it has. Where do you want to be taken? I suppose Dovercourt is not fashionable. I want nothing. If you were thinking of travelling abroad, I can't spare the time. It isn't an affair of money, and you had no business to say so. I thought of the place because it is quiet, and because I can get up and down easily. I am sorry that I ever came to live in this house. Why do you say that, Ferdinand? Because you and your father make cabals behind my back. If there is anything I hate, it is that kind of thing. You are very unjust, she said to him, sobbing. I have never cabaled. I have never done anything against you. Of course, papa ought to know. Why ought he to know? Why is your father to have the right of inquiry into all my private affairs? Because you want his assistance. It is only natural. You always tell me to get him to assist you. He spoke most kindly, saying that he would like to know how the things are. Then he won't know. As for wanting his assistance, of course I want the fortune which he ought to give you. He is man of the world enough to know that as I am in business, capital must be useful to me. I should have thought that you would understand as much as that yourself. But I do understand it, I suppose. Then why don't you act as my friend rather than his? Why don't you take my part? It seems to me that you are much more his daughter than my wife. That is most unfair. If you had any pluck, you would make him understand that for your sake he ought to say what he means to do so that I might have the advantage of the fortune which I suppose he means to give you some day. If you had the slightest anxiety to help me, you could influence him. Instead of that, you talk to him about my poverty. I don't want him to think that I am a pauper. That's not the way to get round a man like your father, who is rich himself, and who thinks that a disgrace and other men not to be rich too. I can't tell him in the same breath that you are rich and that you want money. Money is the means by which men make money. If he was confident in my business, he'd shell out his cash quick enough. It is because he has been taught to think that I am in a small way. He'll find his mistake some day. You won't speak to him then? I don't say that at all. If I find that it will answer my own purpose, I shall speak to him. But it would be very much easier to me if I could get you to be cordial in helping me. Emily by this time quite knew what such cordiality meant. He had been so free in his words to her that there could be no mistake. He had instructed her to get round her father, and now again he spoke of her influence over her father. Although her illusions were all melting away, oh, so quickly vanishing, still she knew that it was her duty to be true to a husband and to be his wife rather than her father's daughter. But what could she say on his behalf, knowing nothing of his affairs? She had no idea what was his business, what was his income, what amount of money she ought to spend as his wife. As far as she could see, and her common sense in seeing such things was good, he had no regular income and was justified in no expenditure. On her own account she would ask for no information. She was too proud to request that from him, which should be given to her without any request. But in her own defense she must tell him that she could use no influence with her father, as she knew none of the circumstances by which her father would be guided. I cannot help you in the manner you mean, she said, because I know nothing myself. You know that you can trust me to do the best with your money if I could get hold of it, I suppose. She certainly did not know this and held her tongue. You could assure him of that. I could only tell him to judge for himself. What you mean is that you'd see me before you would open your mouth for me to the old man? He had never sworn at her before, and now she burst out in a flood of tears. It was to her a terrible outrage. I do not know that a woman is very much the worst, because a husband may forget himself on an occasion and wrap out an oath at her, as he would call it when making the best of his own sin. Such an offense is compatible with uniform kindness and most affectionate consideration. I have known ladies who would think little or nothing about it, who would go no farther than the mildest protest, do remember where you are, or, my dear John, if no stranger were present. But then wife should be initiated into it by degrees, and there are different tones of bad language, of which by far the most general is the good-humored tone. We all of us know men who never damned their servants or any inferiors or strangers or women who, in fact, keep it all for their bosom friends, and if a little does sometimes flow over in the freedom of domestic life, the wife is apt to remember that she is the bosomest of her husband's friends, and so to pardon the transgression. But here the word had been uttered with all its foulest violence, with virulence and vulgarity. It seemed to the victim to be the sign of a terrible crisis in her early married life, as though the man who had so spoken to her could never again love her, never again be kind to her, never again be sweetly gentle and like a lover. As he spoke it he looked at her as though he would like to tear her limbs asunder. She was frightened, as well as horrified and astounded. She had not a word to say to him. She did not know in what language to make a complaint of such treatment. She burst into tears and, throwing herself on the sofa, hid her face in her hands. You've provoked me to be violent, he said, but still she could not speak to him. I come away from the city tired with work and troubled with a thousand things, and you have not a kind word to say to me. Then there was a pause, during which she still sobbed. If your father has anything to say to me, let him say it. I shall not run away, but as to going to him of my own accord, with a story as long as my arm about my own affairs, I don't mean to do it. Then he paused a moment again. Come, old girl, cheer up. Don't pretend to be broken-hearted, because I used a hard word. There were worse things than that to be born in the world. I was so startled for an end. A man can't always remember that he isn't with another man. Don't think anything more about it, but do bear this in mind, that situated as we are, your influence with your father may be the making or the marring of me. And so he left the room. She sat for the next 10 minutes, thinking of it all. The words which he had spoken were so horrible that she could not get them out of her mind, could not bring herself to look upon them as a trifle, the darkness of his countenance still dwelt with her, and that absence of all tenderness, that coarse unmarital and yet marital roughness, which should not at any rate have come to him so soon. The whole man, too, was so different from what she had thought him to be. Before their marriage no word as to money had ever reached her ears from his lips. He had talked to her of books and especially of poetry. Shakespeare and Molière, Dante and Goethe, had been or had seemed to be dear to him, and he had been full of fine ideas about women and about men and their intercourse with women. For his sake she had separated herself from all her old friends. For his sake she had hurried into a marriage altogether distasteful to her father. For his sake she had closed her heart against that other lover. Trusting altogether in him she had ventured to think that she had known what was good for her better than all those who had been her counsellors and had given herself to him utterly. Now she was awake, her dream was over, and the natural language of the man was still ringing in her ears. They met together at dinner and passed the evening without a further allusion to the scene which had been acted. He sat with the magazine in his hand every now and then making some remark intended to be pleasant, but which grated on her ears as being fictitious. She would answer him, because it was her duty to do so, and because she would not condescend to sult, but she could not bring herself even to say to herself that all should be with her as though that horrid word had not been spoken. She sat over her work till ten, answering him when he spoke in a voice which was also fictitious, and then took herself off to bed that she might weep alone. He would, he knew, be late before he would come to her. On the next morning there came a message to him as he was dressing. Mr. Wharton wished to speak to him. Would he come down before breakfast, or would he call on Mr. Wharton in stone buildings? He sent down word that he would do the latter at an hour he fixed, and then did not show himself in the breakfast room till Mr. Wharton was gone. I have got to go to your father today, he said to his wife, When I thought it best not to begin till we come to the regular business, I hope it does not mean to be unreasonable. To this you made no answer. Of course you think the want of reason will be all on my side. I don't know why you should say so. Because I can read your mind. You do think so. You have been in the same boat with your father all your life, and you can't get out of the boat and get into mine. I was wrong to come and live here. Of course it was not the way to withdraw you from his influence. She had nothing to say that would not anger him, and therefore was silent. Well, I must do the best I can by myself, I suppose. Goodbye. And so he was off. I want to know, said Mr. Wharton, on whom was thrown by premeditation on the part of Lopez, the task of beginning the conversation, I want to know what is the nature of your operation. I have never been quite able to understand it. I do not know that I quite understand it myself, said Lopez, laughing. No man alive, continued the old barrister almost solemnly, has a greater objection to thrust himself into another man's affairs than I have. And as I didn't ask the question before your marriage, as perhaps I ought to have done, I should not do so now, were it not that the disposition of some part of the earnings of my life must depend on the condition of your affairs. Lopez immediately perceived that it behooved him to be very much on the alert. It might be that if he showed himself to be very poor, his father-in-law would see the necessity of assisting him at once, or it might be that unless he could show himself to be in prosperous circumstances, his father-in-law would not assist him at all. To tell you the plain truth, I am minded to make a new will. I had, of course, made arrangements as to my property before Emily's marriage. Those arrangements I think I shall now alter. I am greatly distressed with Everett, and from what I see, and from a few words which have dropped from Emily, I am not, to tell you the truth, quite happy as to your position. If I understand rightly you are a general merchant buying and selling goods in the market? That's about it, sir. What capital have you in the business? What capital? Yes, how much did you put into it at starting? Lopez paused a moment. He had got his wife. The marriage could not be undone. Mr. Wharton had money enough for them all, and would not certainly discard his daughter. Mr. Wharton could place him on a really firm footing, and might not, improbably, do so if he could be made to feel some confidence in his son-in-law. At this moment there was much doubt with the son-in-law, whether he had better not tell the simple truth. It has gone in by degrees, he said, altogether I have had about eight thousand pounds in it. In truth he had never been possessed of a shilling. Does that include the three thousand pounds you had for me? Yes, it does. Then you have married my girl, and started into the world with a business based on five thousand pounds, and which in so far miscarried within a month or two after your marriage that you were driven to apply to me for funds? I wanted money for a certain purpose. Have you any partner, Mr. Lopez? This address was felt to be very ominous. Yes, I have a partner who was possessed of capital. His name is Parker. Then his capital is your capital. Well, I can't explain it, but it is not so. What is the name of your firm? We haven't a registered name. Have you a place of business? Parker has a place of business in little tankered yard. Mr. Wharton turned to a directory and found out Parker's name. Mr. Parker is a stockbroker. Are you also a stockbroker? No, I am not. Then, sir, it seems to me that you are a commercial adventurer. I am not at all ashamed of the name, Mr. Wharton. According to your manner of reckoning, half the business in the City of London is done by commercial adventurers. I watch the markets and buy goods and sell them at a profit. Mr. Parker is a moneyed man who happens also to be a stockbroker. We can very easily call ourselves merchants and put up the names of Lopez and Parker over the door. Do you sign bills together? Yes. As Lopez and Parker? No, I sign them and he signs them. I trade also by myself and so, I believe, does he? One other question, Mr. Lopez. On what income have you paid income tax for the last three years? On two thousand pounds a year, said Lopez, this was a direct lie. Can you make out any schedule showing your exact assets and liabilities at the present time? Certainly, I can. Then do so and send it to me before I go to Harafordshire. My will as it stands at present would not be to your advantage, but I cannot change it till I know more of your circumstances than I do now. And so the interview was over. Chapter 45 of the Prime Minister. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org, recording by Nicholas Clifford. The Prime Minister by Anthony Trollop, Chapter 45, Mrs. Sexty Parker. Though Mr. Wharton and Lopez met every day for the next week, nothing more was said about the schedule. The old man was thinking about it every day, and so also was Lopez. But Mr. Wharton had made his demand, and, as he thought, nothing more was to be said on the subject. He could not continue the subject as he would have done with his son. But as day after day passed by, he became more and more convinced that his son-in-law's affairs were not in the state which could bear to see the light. He had declared his purpose of altering his will in the man's favour, if the man would satisfy him, and yet nothing was done and nothing was said. Lopez had come among them and robbed him of his daughter. Since the man had become intimate in his house, he had not known an hour's happiness. The man had destroyed all the plans of his life, broken through into his castle, and violated his very heart. No doubt he himself had vacillated. He was aware of that, and in his present mood was severe enough in judging himself. In his desolation he had tried to take the man to his heart, had been kind to him, and had even opened his house to him. He had told himself that, as the man was the husband of his daughter, he had better make the best of it. He had endeavored to make the best of it, but between him and the man there were such differences that they were poles asunder, and now it became clear to him that the man was, as he had declared to the man's face, no better than an adventurer. By his will, as it at present stood, he had left two-thirds of his property to Everett, and one-third to his daughter, with arrangements for settling her share on her children, should she be married and have children at the time of his death. This will had been made many years ago, and he had long since determined to alter it in order that he might divide his property equally between his children, but he had postponed the matter, intending to give a large portion of Emily's share to her directly on her marriage with Arthur Fletcher. She had not married Arthur Fletcher, but still it was necessary that a new will should be made. When he left town for Herefordshire, he had not yet made up his mind how this should be done. He had at one time thought that he would give some considerable sum to Lopez at once, knowing that to a man of business such assistance would be useful, and he had not altogether abandoned that idea, even when he had asked for the schedule. He did not relish the thought of giving his hard-earned money to Lopez, but still the man's wife was his daughter, and he must do the best he could for her. Her taste in marrying the man was inexplicable to him, but that was done, and now how might he best arrange his affairs so as to serve her interests? About the middle of August he went to Herefordshire, and she to the seaside in Essex, to the little place which Lopez had selected. Before the end of the month the father-in-law wrote a line to his son-in-law. Dear Lopez, not without premeditation had he departed from the sternness of that Mr. Lopez, which in his anger he had used at his chambers. When we were discussing your affairs I asked you for a schedule of your assets and liabilities. I could make no new arrangement of my property till I received this. Should I die leaving my present will is the instrument under which my property would be conveyed to my heirs. Emily's share would go into the hands of trustees for the use of herself and her possible children. I tell you this that you may understand that it is for your own interest to comply with my requisition. Yours, A. Wharton. Of course questions were asked him as to how the newly married couple were getting on. At Wharton these questions were mild and easily put off. Sir Allured was contented with a slight shake of his head, and Lady Wharton only remarked for the fifth or sixth time that it was a pity. But when they all went to Long Barns the difficulty became greater. Arthur was not there, and old Mrs. Fletcher was in full strength. So the Lopez's have come to live with you in Manchester Square. Mr. Wharton acknowledged that it was so with an affirmative grunt. I hope he's a pleasant inmate. There was a scorn in the old woman's voice as she said this, which ought to or provoked any man. More so than most men would be, said Mr. Wharton. Oh, indeed! He is courteous and forebearing and does not think that everything around him should be suited to his own peculiar fancies. I am glad that you are contented with the marriage, Mr. Wharton. Who has said that I am contented with it? No one ought to understand or to share my discontent so cordially as yourself, Mrs. Fletcher, and no one ought to be more cherry of speaking of it. You and I had hoped other things, and old people do not like to be disappointed. But I needn't paint the devil blacker than he is. I am afraid that, as usual, he is rather black. Mother, said John Fletcher, the thing has been done, and you might as well let it be. We are all sorry that Emily has not come nearer to us. But she has had a right to choose for herself, and I for one wish, as does my brother also, that she may be happy with the lot she has chosen. His conduct to Arthur and Silverbridge was so nice, said the pertenacious old woman. Never mind his conduct, mother. What is it to us? That's all very well, John, but according to that nobody is to talk about anybody. I would much prefer at any rate, said Mr. Wharton, that you would not talk about Mr. Lopez in my hearing. Oh, if that is to be so, let it be so, and now I understand where I am. Then the old woman shook herself, and endeavored to look as though Mr. Wharton's soreness on the subject were an injury to her as robbing her of a useful topic. I don't like Lopez, you know, Mr. Wharton said to John Fletcher afterwards. How would it be possible that I should like such a man? But there can be no good by complaints. It is not what your mother suffers, or what even I may suffer, or worse again what Arthur may suffer that makes the sadness of all this. What will be her life? That is the question. And it is too near me, too important to me, for the endurance either of scorn or pity. I was glad that you asked your mother to be silent. I can understand it, said John. I do not think that she will trouble you again. In the meantime, Lopez received Mr. Wharton's letter at Dovercourt, and had to consider what answer he should give to it. No answer could be satisfactory, unless he could impose a false answer on his father-in-law so as to make it credible. The more he thought of it, the more he believed that this would be impossible. The cautious old lawyer would not accept unverified statements. A certain sum of money, by no means illiberal as a present, he had already extracted from the old man. What he wanted was a further and a much larger grant. Though Mr. Wharton was old, he did not want to have to wait for the death even of an old man. The next two or three years, probably the very next year, might be the turning point of his life. He had married the girl and ought to have the girl's fortune down on the nail. That was his idea, and the old man was robbing him and not acting up to it. As he thought of this, he cursed his ill luck. The husbands of other girls had their fortunes conveyed to them immediately on their marriage. What would not twenty thousand pounds do for him if he could get it into his hand? And so he taught himself to regard the old man as a robber and himself as a victim. Who among us is there that does not teach himself the same lesson? And then, too, how cruelly, how damnably he had been used by the Duchess of Omnium. And now Sexty Parker, whose fortune he was making for him, whose fortune he had any rate intended to make, was troubling him in various ways. We're in a boat together, Sexty had said. You've had the use of my money, and by heaven's use you'll have it still. I don't see why you should be so stiff. Do you bring your Mrs. to Dovercourt, and I'll take mine, and let him know each other? There was a little argument on the subject, but Sexty Parker had the best of it, and in this way the tripped Dovercourt was arranged. Lopez was in a very good humor when he took his wife down, and he walked around the terraces and esplanades of that not sufficiently well-known marine paradise, now bidding her admire the sea and now laughing at the finery of the people till she became gradually filled with an idea that as he was making himself pleasant, she also ought to do the same. Of course she was not happy. The gilding had so completely and so rapidly been washed off her idol that she could not be very happy. But she also could be good-humored. And now, said he, smiling, I have got something for you to do for me, something that you will find very disagreeable. What is it? It won't be very bad, I'm sure. It will be very bad, I'm afraid. My excellent but horribly vulgar partner, Mr. Sexty Parker, when he found out that I was coming here insisted on bringing his wife and children here also, I want you to know them. Is that all? She must be very bad indeed, if I can't put up with that. In one sense she isn't bad at all. I believe her to be an excellent woman, intent on spoiling her children and giving her husband a good dinner every day. But I think you'll find that she is, well, not quite what you'd call a lady. I shan't mind that in the least. I'll help her to spoil her children. You can get a lesson there, you know, he said, looking into her face. The little joke was one which a young wife might take with pleasure from her husband, but her life had already been too much embittered for any such delight. Yes, the time was coming when that trouble also would be added to her. She dreaded she knew not what, and had often told herself that it would be better that she should be childless. Do you like him, she said? Like him? No, I can't say that I like him. He is useful, and in one sense honest. Is he not honest in all senses? That's a large order. To tell you the truth, I don't know any man who is. Ever it is honest. He loses money at play, which he can't pay without assistance from his father. If his father had refused, where then would have been his honesty? Sexty is as honest as others, I dare say, but I shouldn't like to trust him much farther than I can see him. I shan't go up to town to-morrow, and we'll both look in on them after luncheon. In the afternoon the call was made. The parkers, having children, had dined early, and he was sitting out in the little porch smoking his pipe, drinking whiskey and water, and looking at the sea. His eldest girl was standing between his legs, and his wife with the other three children round her was sitting on the doorstep. I brought my wife to see you, said Lopez, holding out his hand to Mrs. Parker, as she rose from the ground. I told her that you'd be coming, said Sexty, and she wanted me to put off my pipe and little drop of drink, but I said that if Mrs. Lopez was the lady I took her to be, she wouldn't begrudge a hard-working fellow, his pipe and glass, on a holiday. There was a soundness of sense in this which mollified any feeling of disgust which Emily might have felt at the man's vulgarity. I think you were quite right, Mr. Parker. I should be very sorry if I was to put my pipe out. Well, I won't. You'll take a glass of sherry Lopez, though I'm drinking spirits myself. I brought down a hamper of sherry wine. Oh, nonsense. You must take something. That's right, Jane. Let us have the stuff in the glasses, and then they can do as they like. Lopez lit a cigar, and allowed his host to pour out for him a glass of sherry wine, while Mrs. Lopez went into the house with Mrs. Parker and the children. Mrs. Parker opened herself out to her new friend immediately. She hoped that they too might see a deal of each other, that is, if you don't think be too pushing. Sextus, she said, was so much away coming down to Dovercourt only every other day, and then within the half hour, which was consumed by Lopez with this cigar, the poor woman got upon the general troubles of her life. Did Mrs. Lopez think that all this speculation was just the right thing? I don't think that I know anything about it, Mrs. Parker. But you ought, oughtn't you now? Don't you think that a wife ought to know what it is that her husband is after, especially if there's children? A good bit of the money was mine, Mrs. Lopez, and though I don't begrudge it, not one bit, if any good is to come out of it to him or to them, a woman doesn't like what her father has given her should be made ducks and drakes of. But are they making ducks and drakes? When he don't tell me, I'm always afeard, and I'll tell you what I know just as well as two and two. When he comes home a little flustered, and then takes more than his regular allowance, he's been at something as don't quite satisfy him. He's never that way when he's done a good day's work at his regular business. He takes to the children then and has one glass after his dinner and tells me all about it, down to the shillings and pence. But it's very seldom he's that way now. You may think it very odd, Mrs. Parker, but I don't in the least know what my husband is in business. And you never ask. I haven't been very long married, you know, only about 10 months. I'd had my first by that time. Only nine months, I think, indeed. Well, I wasn't very long after that. But I took care to know what it was he was adoring of in the city long before that time, and I did used to know everything till, she was going to say, till Lopez had come upon the scene, but she did not wish at any rate as yet to be harsh to her new friend. I hope it is all right, said Emily. Sometimes he's as though the Bank of England was all his own, and there's been more money come into the house, that I must say, and there isn't an open-handed or one-than-sexty anywhere. He'd like to see me in a silk gown every day of my life, and as for the children, there's nothing smart enough for them. Only I'd sooner have a little and safe than anything ever so fine and never be sure whether it wasn't going to come to an end. There I agree with you quite. I don't suppose men feels it as we do, but oh, Mrs. Lopez, give me a little, safe, so that I may know that I shan't see my children want. When I think what it would be to have them darling's little bellies empty and nothing in the cupboard, I get that low that I'm nigh fit for bedlam. In the meantime the two men outside the porch were discussing their affairs in somewhat the same spirit. At last Lopez showed his friend Wharton's letter and told him of the expected schedule. "'Schedule be debt, you know,' said Lopez. "'How am I to put down a rise of twelve shilling sixpence a ton on cowry gum in a schedule? But when you come to two thousand tons, it's twelve hundred and fifty pounds.' "'He's very old, isn't he? But strong as a horse. He's got the money?' "'Yes, he's got it safe enough. There's no doubt about the money.' "'What he talks about is only a will. Now you want the money at once.' "'Of course I do, and he talks to me as if I were some old phogy within a state of my own. I must concoct a letter and explain my views, and the more I can make him understand how things really are the better. I don't suppose he wants to see his daughter come to grief.' "'Then the sooner you write it the better,' said Mr. Parker.' CHAPTER XIV As they strolled home, Lopez told his wife that he had accepted an invitation to dine the next day at the Parker's cottage. In doing this his manner was not quite so gentle as when he had asked her to call on them. He had been a little ruffled by what had been said and now exhibited his temper. "'I don't suppose it will be very nice,' he said, but we may have to put up with worse things than that.' "'I have made no objection. But you don't seem to take to it very cordially.' "'I had thought that I got on very well with Mrs. Parker. If you can eat your dinner with them, I'm sure that I can. You do not seem to like him altogether, and I wish you would got a partner more to your taste.' "'Taste, indeed. When you come to this kind of thing it isn't a matter of taste. The fact is that I am in that fellow's hands to an extent I don't like to think of, and don't see my way out of it unless your father will do as he ought to do. You altogether refuse to help me with your father, and you must therefore put up with Sexty Parker and his wife. It is quite on the cards that worse things may come even than Sexty Parker. To this she made no immediate answer, but walked on, increasing her pace, not only unhappy, but also very angry. It was becoming a matter of doubt to her whether she could continue to bear these repeated attacks about her father's money. "'I see how it is,' he continued, "'you think that a husband should bear all the troubles of life and that a wife should never be made to hear of them.' Ferdinand, she said, I declare I did not think that any man could be so unfair to a woman as you are to me. Of course, because I haven't got thousands a year to spend on you, I am unfair. I am content to live in any way that you may direct. If you are poor, I am satisfied to be poor. If you are even ruined, I am content to be ruined.' "'Who is talking about ruin?' If you are in want of everything, I also will be in want and will never complain. Whatever our joint lot may bring to us, I will endure and will endeavour to endure with cheerfulness, but I will not ask my father for money either for you or for myself. He knows what he ought to do. I trust him implicitly. And me not at all. He is, I know, in communication with you about what should be done. I can only say, tell him everything. My dear, that is a matter in which it may be possible that I understand my own interest best. Very likely I certainly understand nothing, for I do not even know the nature of your business. How can I tell him that he ought to give you money? You might ask him for your own. I have got nothing. Did I ever tell you that I had? You ought to have known. Do you mean that when you asked me to marry you I should have refused you, because I did not know what money papa would give me? Why did you not ask papa? Had I known him then, as well as I do now, you may be quite sure that I should have done so. Ferdinand, it will be better that we should not speak about my father. I will in all things strive to do as you would have me, but I cannot hear him abused. If you have anything to say, go to Everett. Yes, when he is such a gambler that your father won't even speak to him, your father will be found dead in his bed some day, and all his money will have been left to some cursed hospital. They were at their own door when this was said, and she, without further answer, went up to her bedroom. All these bitter things had been said, not because Lopez had thought that he could further his own views by saying them. He knew indeed that he was injuring himself by every display of ill temper. But she was in his power, and Sexty Parker was rebelling. He thought a good deal that day on the delight he would have in kicking that ill-conditioned cur. If only he could afford to kick him. But his wife was his own, and she must be taught to endure his will, and must be made to know that though she was not to be kicked, yet she was to be tormented and ill-used. And it might be possible that he should so cow her spirit as to bring her to act as he should direct. Still, as he walked alone along the seashore, he knew that it would be better for him to control his temper. On that evening he did write to Mr. Wharton, as follows, and he dated his letter from Little Tankard Yard, so that Mr. Wharton might suppose that that really was his own place of business, and that he was there at his work. My dear sir, you have asked for a schedule of my affairs, and I have found it quite impossible to give it. As it was with the merchants whom Shakespeare and the other dramatists described, so it is with me, my cowerels are out at sea and will not always come home in time. My property at the moment consists of certain shares of cargoes of jute, cowry gum, guano, and sulfur, worth altogether at the present moment something over 26,000 pounds, of which Mr. Parker possesses the half. But then of this property only a portion is paid for, perhaps something more than half. For the other half our bills are in the market, but in February next these articles will probably be sold for considerably more than 30,000 pounds. If I had 5,000 pounds placed in my credit now, I should be worth about 15,000 pounds by the end of next February. I am engaged in sundry other small adventures, all returning profits, but in such a condition of things it is impossible that I should make a schedule. I am undoubtedly in the condition of a man trading beyond his capital. I have been tempted by fair offers and what I think I may call something beyond an average understanding of such matters to go into ventures beyond my means. I have stretched my arm out too far. In such a position it is not perhaps unnatural that I should ask a wealthy father-in-law to assist me. It is certainly not unnatural that I should wish him to do so. I do not think that I am a mercenary man. When I married your daughter, I raised no question as to her fortune. Being embarked in trade, I no doubt thought that her means, whatever they might be, would be joined to my own. I know that a sum of 20,000 pounds with my experience in the use of money would give us a noble income, but I would not condescend to ask a question which might lead to a supposition that I was marrying her for her money and not because I loved her. You know now, I think, all that I can tell you. If there be any other questions, I would willingly answer them. It is certainly the case that Emily's fortune, whatever you may choose to give her, would be of infinitely greater use to me now and consequently to her than at a future date which I sincerely pray may be very long deferred. Believe me to be your affectionate son-in-law, Ferdinand Lopez, A. Wharton Esquire. This letter he himself took up to town on the following day and there posted addressing it to Wharton Hall. He did not expect very great results from it. As he read it over, he was painfully aware that all his trash about caravals and cargos of sulfur would not go far with Mr. Wharton, but it might go farther than nothing. He was bound not to neglect Mr. Wharton's letter to him. When a man is in difficulty about money, even a lie, even a lie that is sure to be found out to be a lie, will serve his immediate turn better than silence. There is nothing that the courts hate so much as contempt, not even perjury. And Lopez felt that Mr. Wharton was the judge before whom he was bound to plead. He returned to Dovercourt on that day and he and his wife dined with the parkers. No woman of her age had known better what were the manners of ladies and gentlemen than Emily Wharton. She had thoroughly understood that when in herraffiture she was surrounded by people of that class and that when she was with her aunt, Mrs. Robie, she was not quite so happily placed. No doubt she had been terribly deceived by her husband, but the deceit had come from the fact that his manners gave no indication of his character. When she found herself in Mrs. Parker's little sitting-room with Mr. Parker making florid speeches to her, she knew that she had fallen among people for whose society she had not been intended. But this was a part and only a very trifling part of the punishment which she felt that she deserved. If that and all things like that were all, she could bear them all without a murmur. Now I called Dovercourt a deuce-nice little place, said Mr. Parker, as he helped her to the bit of fish which he told her he had brought down with him from London. It is very healthy, I should think. Just a thing for the children, ma'am. You've none of your own, Mrs. Lopez, but there's a good time coming. You were up to-day, weren't you, Lopez? Any news? Things seem to be very quiet in the city. Too quiet, I'm afraid. I hate having them quiet. You must come and see me in a little tankard yard some of these days, Mrs. Lopez. We can give you a glass of sham and the wing of a chicken, can't we, Lopez? I don't know, it's more than you ever gave me, said Lopez, trying to look good-humored. But you ain't a lady. Or me, said Mrs. Parker. You're only a wife. If Mrs. Lopez will make a day of it, we'll treat her well in the city, won't we, Ferdinand? A black cloud came across Ferdinand's face, but he said nothing. Emily of a sudden drew herself up unconsciously, then at once relaxed her features and smiled. If her husband chose that it should be so, she would make no objection. Upon my honor, Sexty, you are very familiar, said Mrs. Parker. It's a way we have in the city, said Sexty. Sexty knew what he was about. His partner called him Sexty, and why shouldn't he call his partner Ferdinand? He'll call you Emily before long, said Lopez. When you call my wife Jane, I shall, and I have no objection in life. I don't see why people ain't to call each other by their Christian names. Take a glass of champagne, Mrs. Lopez. I brought down half a dozen today so that we might be jolly. Care killed a cat. Whatever we call each other, I'm very glad to see you here, Mrs. Lopez. And I hope it's the first of a great many. Here's your health. It was all his ordering. And if he bade her nine with a crossing sweeper, she would do it. But she could not but remember that not long since, he had told her that his partner was not a person with whom she could fitly associate. And she did not fail to perceive that he must be going down in the world to admit such association for her after he had so spoken. And as she sipped the mixture, which Sexty called champagne, she thought of Herefordshire and the banks of the Y, and alas, alas, she thought of Arthur Fletcher. Nevertheless, come what might she would do her duty, even though it might call upon her to sit at dinner with Mr. Parker three days in the week. Lopez was her husband and would be the father of her child. And she would make herself one with him. It mattered not what people might call him or even her. She had acted on her own judgment in marrying him and had been a fool. And now she would bear the punishment and out-complaint. When dinner was over Mrs. Parker helped the servant to remove the dinner things from the single sitting room and the two men went out to smoke their cigars in the covered porch. Mrs. Parker herself took out the whiskey and hot water and sugar and lemons and then returned to have a little matronly discourse with her guest. Does Mr. Lopez ever take a drop too much? She asked. Never said Mrs. Lopez. Perhaps it don't affect him as a due sexy. He ain't a drinker, certainly not. And he's one that works hard every day of his life. But he's getting fond of it these last 12 months. And though he don't take very much it hurries him and flurries him. If I speaks at night he gets cross and in the morning when he gets up which you always do regular though it's ever so bad with him then I haven't the heart to scold him. It's very hard sometimes for a wife to know what to do, Mrs. Lopez. Yes, indeed. Emily could not but think how soon she herself had learned that lesson. Of course I do anything for sexy. The father of my bairns and has always been a good husband to me. You don't know him, of course, but I do. A right good man at bottom, but so weak. If he injures his health shouldn't you talk to him quietly about it? It isn't the drinkers as the evil Mrs. Lopez but that which makes him drink. He's not one as goes a mucker merely for the pleasure. When things are going right he'll sit out in our arbor at home and smoke pipe after pipe playing with the children and one glass of gin and water cold we'll see him to bed. Tobacco, dry, do agree with him, I think. But when he comes to three or four goes of hot toddy I know it's not as it should be. You should restrain him, Mrs. Parker. Of course I should, but how? Am I to walk off with a bottle and disgrace him before the servant girl? Or am I to let the children know as their father takes too much? If I was as much as to make one fight of it it would be all over ponders end that he's a drunkard which he ain't. Restrain him, oh yes. If I could restrain that gambling instead of regular business that's what I'd like to restrain. Does he gamble? What is it but gambling that he and Mr. Lopez is adoring together? Of course, ma'am, I don't know you and you are different from me. I ain't foolish enough not to know all that. My father stood in Smithfield and sold hay and your father is a gentleman as has been high up in the courts all his life but it's your husband is doing this. Oh, Mrs. Parker, he is then and if he brings Sexty and my little ones to the workhouse what'll be the good then of his guano and his gum? Is it not all in the fair way of commerce? I'm sure I don't know about commerce, Mrs. Lopez because I'm only a woman but it can't be fair. They goes and buys things they haven't got the money to pay for and then waits to see if they'll turn up Trump's. Isn't that gambling? I cannot say, I do not know. She felt now that her husband had been accused and that part of the accusation had been leveled at herself. There was something in her manner of saying these few words which the poor complaining woman perceived feeling immediately that she had been inhospitable and perhaps unjust. She put out her hand softly touching the other woman's arm and looking up into her guest's face. If this is so it is terrible said Emily. Perhaps I oughtn't to speak so free. Oh yes for your children and yourself and your husband. It's them and him. Of course it's not your doing and Mr. Lopez I'm sure is a very fine gentleman and if he gets wrong one way he'll get himself right in another. Upon hearing this Emily shook her head. Your papa is a rich man and won't see you and yours come to want. There's nothing more to come to me or Sexty let it be ever so. Why does he do it? Why does who do it? Your husband. Why don't you speak to him as you do to me and tell him to mind only his proper business? Now you are angry with me. Angry? No indeed I am not angry. Every word that you say is good and true and just what you ought to say. I am not angry but I am terrified. I know nothing of my husband's business. I cannot tell you that you should trust to it. He is very clever but what ma'am? Perhaps I should say that he is ambitious. You mean he wants to get rich too quick ma'am? I'm afraid so. That it's just the same with Sexty, he's ambitious too. But what's the good of being ambitious Mrs. Lopez if you never know whether you're on your head or your heels? And what's the good of being ambitious if you're to get sent into the workhouse? I know what that means. There's one or two of them sort of men gets into parliament and as houses as big as the Queen's Palace while hundreds of them has their wives and children in the gutter. Whoever hears of them, nobody. They don't become any man to be ambitious who has got a wife and family. If he's a bachelor, why of course he can go to the colonies. There's Mary Jane and the two little ones right down on the sea with their feet in the salt water. Shall we put on our hats Mrs. Lopez and go and look after them? To this proposition Emily assented and the two ladies went out after the children. Mix yourself another glass, said Sexty to his partner. I'd rather not, don't ask me again. You know I never drink and I don't like being pressed. By George you are particular. What's the use of teasing a fellow to do a thing he doesn't like? You won't mind me having another. 50 if you please so that I'm not forced to join you. Forced, it's liberty all here and you can do as you please. Only when a fellow will take a drop with me he's better company. Then I'm bad company and you'd better get somebody else to be jolly with. To tell you the truth Sexty, I suit you better at business than at this sort of thing. I'm like Shylock you know. I don't know about Shylock but I'm blessed if I think you suit me very well at anything. I'm putting up with a deal of ill usage and when I try to be happy with you you won't drink and you tell me about Shylock. He was a Jew wasn't he? That is the general idea. Then you ain't very much like him for there are sort of people that always have money about him. How do you suppose he made his money to begin with? What an ass you are. That's true I am. Ever since I began putting my name on the same bit of paper with yours I've been an ass. You'll have to be one a bit longer yet unless you mean to throw up everything at this present moment you were six or 7,000 pounds richer than you were before you first met me. I wish I could see the money. That's like you. What's the use of money you can see? How are you to make money out of money by looking at it? I like to know that my money is fructifying. I like to know that it's all there and I did know it before I ever saw you. I'm blessed if I know it now. Go down and join the ladies will you? You ain't much of a companion up here. Shortly after that Lopez told Mrs. Parker that he had already bade a Jew to her husband and then he took his wife to their own lodgings. End of chapter 46.