 62 The letter that was sent to Brighton. Monday morning came, and Madame Grisler had as yet written no answer to the Duke of Omnium. Had not Lady Glencora gone to Park Lane on the Sunday afternoon, I think the letter would have been written on that day. But whatever may have been the effect of Lady Glencora's visit, it so far disturbed Madame Grisler as to keep her from her writing-table. There was yet another night for thought, and then the letter should be written on the Monday morning. When Lady Glencora left Madame Grisler, she went at once to the Duke's house. It was her custom to see her husband's uncle on a Sunday, and she would most frequently find him just at this hour, before he went upstairs to dress for dinner. She usually took her boy with her, but on this occasion she went alone. She had tried what she could do with Madame Grisler, and she found that she had failed. She must now make her attempt upon the Duke. But the Duke, perhaps anticipating some attack of the kind, had fled. "'Where is his Grace, Parker?' said Lady Glencora to the porter. "'We do not know, your ladyship. His Grace went away yesterday evening, with nobody but La Poule.' La Poule was the Duke's French valet. Lady Glencora could only return home and consider in her own mind what batteries might yet be brought to bear upon the Duke, towards stopping the marriage, even after the engagement should have been made, if it were to be made. Lady Glencora felt that such batteries might still be brought up as would not improbably have an effect on a proud, weak old man. If all other resources failed, royalty in some of its branches might be induced to make a request, and every august relation in the peerage should interfere. The Duke, no doubt, might persevere and marry whom he pleased, if he were strong enough. But it requires much personal strength, that standing alone against the well-armed batteries of all one's friends. Lady Glencora had once tried such a battle on her own behalf, and had failed. She had wished to be imprudent when she was young, but her friends had been too strong for her. She had been reduced, and kept in order, and made to run in a groove, and was now, when she sat looking at her little boy with his bold face, almost inclined to think that the world was right, and that grooves were best. But if she had been controlled when she was young, so ought the Duke to be controlled now that he was old. It is all very well for a man or woman to boast that he or she may do what he likes with his own or with her own. But there are circumstances in which such self-action is ruinous to so many that coercion from the outside becomes absolutely needed. Nobody had felt the injustice of such coercion when applied to herself more sharply than had Lady Glencora. But she had lived to acknowledge that such coercion might be proper, and was now prepared to use it in any shape in which it might be made available. It was all very well for Madame Goesler to laugh and exclaim, pshaw, when Lady Glencora declared her real trouble. But should it ever come to pass that a black-browed baby with a yellow skin should be shown to the world as Lord Silverbridge, Lady Glencora knew that her peace of mind would be gone forever. She had begun the world desiring one thing, and had missed it. She had suffered much, and had then reconciled herself to other hopes. If those other hopes were also to be cut away from her, the world would not be worth a pinch of snuff to her. The Duke had fled, and she could do nothing to-day. But to-morrow she would begin with her batteries, and she herself had done the mischief. She had invited this woman down to matching heaven and earth, that such a man as the Duke should be such a fool, the widow of a Jew banker, he, the Duke of Omnium, and thus to cut away from himself for the rest of his life, all honor, all peace of mind, all the grace of a noble end to a career which, if not very noble in itself, had received the praise of nobility. And to do this for a thin, black-browed, yellow-visaged woman with ringlets and devil's eyes, and a beard on her upper lip, a Jewess, a creature of whose habits of life and manners of thought they all were absolutely ignorant, who drank, possibly, who might have been a forger for what anyone knew, an adventurous who had found her way into society by her art and perseverance, and who did not even pretend to have a relation in the world. But such a one should have influence enough to intrude herself into the house of Omnium, and blot the scotchen, and, what was worst of all, perhaps be the mother of future Dukes. Lady Glencora, in her anger, was very unjust to Madame Goesler, thinking all evil of her, accusing her in her mind of every crime, denying her all charm, all beauty. Had the Duke forgotten himself and his position, for the sake of some fair girl with a pink complexion and gray eyes, and smooth hair, and a father, Lady Glencora thought that she would have forgiven it better. It might be that Madame Goesler would win her way to the coronet, but, when she came to put it on, she should find that there were sharp thorns inside the lining of it. Not a woman worth the knowing in all London should speak to her, nor a man either of those men with whom a Duchess of Omnium would wish to hold converse. She should find her husband rated as a doting fool, and herself rated as a scheming female adventurous, and it should go hard with Lady Glencora if the Duke were not separated from his new Duchess before the end of the first year. Even her anger, Lady Glencora, was very unjust. The Duke, when he left his house without telling his household whither he was going, did send his address to the top brick of the chimney. His note, which was delivered at Madame Goesler's house late on the Sunday evening, was as follows. I am to have your answer on Monday. I shall be at Brighton. Send it by a private messenger to the Bedford Hotel there. I need not tell you with what expectation, with what hope, with what fear I shall await it. Oh! Poor old man! He had run through all the pleasures of life too quickly, and had not much left with which to amuse himself. At length he had set his eyes on a top brick, and being tired of everything else wanted it very sorely. Poor old man! How should it do him any good even if he got it? Madame Goesler, when she received the note, sat with it in her hand, thinking of his great want, and he would be tired of his new plaything after a month, she said to herself. But she had given herself to the next morning, and she would not make up her mind that night. She would sleep once more with the cornet of a duchess within her reach. She did do so, and woke in the morning with her mind absolutely in doubt. When she walked down to breakfast, all doubt was at an end. The time had come when it was necessary that she should resolve, and while her maid was brushing her hair for her, she did make her resolution. "'What a thing it is to be a great lady,' said the maid, who may probably have reflected that the Duke of Omnium did not come here so often for nothing.' "'What do you mean by that, Lotha?' The women I know, madam, talk so much of their countesses and ladyships and duchesses, I would never rest till I had a title in this country, if I were a lady, and rich, and beautiful. And can the countesses and the ladyships and the duchesses do as they please? Ah, madam, I know not that. But I know. That will do, Lotha. Now leave me.' Then madam Grisler had made up her mind. But I do not know whether that doubt as to having her own way had much to do with it. As the wife of an old man she would probably have had much of her own way. Immediately after breakfast she wrote her answer to the Duke, which was as follows. Park Lane Monday My dear Duke of Omnium I find so great a difficulty in expressing myself to your grace in a written letter that since you left me I have never ceased to wish that I had been less nervous, less doubting, and less foolish when you were present with me here in my room. I might then have said in one word what will take so many awkward words to explain. Great as is the honour you propose to confer on me, rich as is the gift you offer me, I cannot accept it. I cannot be your grace's wife. I may almost say that I knew it was so when you parted from me, but the surprise of the situation took away from me a part of my judgment, and made me unable to answer you as I should have done. My Lord, the truth is that I am not fit to be the wife of the Duke of Omnium. I should injure you, and though I should raise myself in name, I should injure myself in character. But you must not think, because I say this, that there is any reason why I should not be an honest man's wife. There is none. I have nothing on my conscience which I could not tell you or to another man, nothing that I need fear to tell to all the world. Indeed, my Lord, there is nothing to tell but this, that I am not fitted by birth and position to be the wife of the Duke of Omnium. You would have to blush for me, and that no man shall ever have to do on my account. I will own that I have been ambitious, too ambitious, and have been pleased to think that one so exalted as you are, one whose high position is so rife in the eyes of all men, should have taken pleasure in my company. I will confess to a foolish woman's silly vanity in having wished to be known to be the friend of the Duke of Omnium. I am like the other moths that flutter near the light, and have their wings burned. But I am wiser than they in this, that having been scorched, I know that I must keep my distance. You will easily believe that a woman, such as I am, does not refuse to ride in a carriage with your grace's arms on the panels, without a regret. I am no philosopher. I do not pretend to despise the rich things of the world or the high things. According to my way of thinking, a woman ought to wish to be Duchess of Omnium, but she ought to wish also to be able to carry her coronet with a proper grace. As Madame Gussler I can live, even among my superiors, at my ease. As your grace's wife, I should be easy no longer, nor would your grace. You will think perhaps that what I write is heartless, that I speak altogether of your rank, and not at all of the affection you have shown me, or of that which I might possibly bear towards you. I think that when the first flush of passion is over in early youth, men and women should strive to regulate their love, as they do their other desires, by their reason. I could love your grace fondly as your wife, if I thought it well for your grace or for myself, that we should be man and wife. As I think it would be ill for both of us, I will restrain that feeling, and remember your grace ever with the purest feeling of true friendship. Before I close this letter I must utter a word of gratitude. In the kind of life which I have led as a widow, a life which has been very isolated as regards true fellowship, it has been my greatest effort to obtain the good opinion of those among whom I have attempted to make my way. I may perhaps own to you now that I have had many difficulties. A woman who is alone in the world is ever regarded with suspicion. In this country a woman with a foreign name, with means derived from foreign sources, with a foreign history, is specially suspected. I have striven to live that down, and I have succeeded. But in my wildest dreams I never dreamed of such success as this, that the Duke of Omnium should think me the worthiest of the worthy. You may be sure that I am not ungrateful, that I never will be ungrateful. And I trust it will not derogate from your opinion of my worth, that I have known what was due to your grace's highness. I have the honor to be, my lord Duke, your most obliged and faithful servant. Marie Max Goesler. How many unmarried women in England are there would do the same? She said to herself, as she folded the paper and put it into an envelope, and sealed the cover. The moment that the letter was completed she sent it off, as she was directed to send it, so that there might be no possibility of repentance and subsequent hesitation. She had at last made up her mind, and she would stand by the making. She knew that there would come moments in which she would deeply regret the opportunity that she had lost. The chance of greatness that she had flung away from her. But so would she have often regretted it also had she accepted the greatness. Her position was one in which there must be regret, let her decision have been what it might. But she had decided, and the thing was done. She would still be free, Marie Max Goesler, unless in abandoning her freedom she would obtain something that she might in truth prefer to it. When the letter was gone she sat to disconsolate, at the window of an upstairs room in which she had written, thinking much of the coronet, much of the name, much of the rank, much of that position in society which she had flattered herself, she might have won for herself as Duchess of Omnium, by her beauty, her grace, and her wit. It had not been simply her ambition to be a Duchess without further aim or object. She had fancied that she might have been such a Duchess as there is never another, so that her fame might have been great throughout Europe, as a woman charming at all points. And she would have had friends then, real friends, and would not have lived alone as it was now her fate to do. And she would have loved her ducal husband, old though he was, and stiff with pomp and ceremony. She would have loved him, and done her best to add something of brightness to his life. It was indeed true that there was one whom she loved better, but of what avail was it to love a man who, when he came to her, would speak to her of nothing but of the charms which he found in another woman. She had been sitting thus at her window, with a book in her hand at which she never looked, gazing over the park which was now beautiful with its May verder, when, on a sudden, a thought struck her. Lady Glencora Palliser had come to her, trying to enlist her sympathy for the little air, behaving, indeed, not very well as Madame Gisler had thought, but still with an earnest purpose which was, in itself, good. She would write to Lady Glencora and put her out of her misery. Perhaps there was some feeling of triumph in her mind, as she returned to the desk from which her epistle had been sent to the duke. Not of that triumph which would have found its gratification in boasting of the offer that had been made to her, but arising from a feeling that she could now show the proud mother of the bold-faced boy, that though she would not pledge herself to any woman as to what she might do or not do, she was nevertheless capable of resisting such a temptation as would have been irresistible to many. Of the duke's offer to her she would have spoken to no human being, had not this woman shown that the duke's purpose was known at least to her, and now, in her letter, she would write no plain word of that offer. She would not state, in words intelligible to any one who might read, that the duke had offered her his hand and his coronet, but she would write so that Lady Glencora should understand her, and she would be careful that there should be no word in the letter to make Lady Glencora think that she supposed herself to be unfit for the rank offered to her. She had been very humble in what she had written to the duke, but she would not be at all humble in what she was about to write to the mother of the bold-faced boy. And this was the letter when it was written. My dear Lady Glencora, I venture to send you a line to put you out of your misery, for you were very miserable when you were so good as to come here yesterday. Your dear little boy is safe from me. And what is more to the purpose? So are you and your husband, and your uncle whom, in truth, I love. You asked me a downright question, which I did not then choose to answer by a downright answer. The downright answer was not at that time due to you. It has since been given, and as I like you too well to wish you to be in torment, I send you a line to say that I shall never be in the way of you or your boy. And now, dear Lady Glencora, one word more, should it ever again appear to you to be necessary to use your zeal for the protection of your husband or your child, do not endeavor to dissuade a woman by trying to make her think that she, by her alliance, would bring degradation into any house or to any man. If there could have been an argument powerful with me to make me do that which you wished to prevent, it was the argument which you used. But my own comfort, and the happiness of another person whom I value almost as much as myself, were too important to be sacrificed even to a woman's revenge. I take mine by writing to you, and telling you that I am better and more rational and wiser than you took me to be. Love, after this, you choose to be on good terms with me, I shall be happy to be your friend. I shall want no further revenge. You owe me some little apology, but whether you make it or not, I will be contented, and will never do more than ask whether your darlings' prospects are still safe. There are more women than one in the world, you know, and you must not consider yourself to be out of the wood because you have escaped from a single danger. If there arise another, come to me, and we will consult together. Dear Lady Glencora, yours always sincerely, Mogi M.G. There was a thing or two besides which she longed to say, laughing as she thought of them, but she refrained, and her letter, when finished, was as it is given above. On the day following, Lady Glencora was again in Park Lane. When she first read M. Goessler's letter, she felt herself to be annoyed and angry, but her anger was with herself rather than with her correspondent. Ever since her last interview with the woman whom she had feared, she had been conscious of having been indiscreet. All her feelings had been too violent, and it might well have been that she should have driven this woman to do the very thing that she was so anxious to avoid. You owe me some little apology, M. Goessler had said. It was true, and she would apologize. Undue pride was not a part of Lady Glencora's character. Indeed, there was not enough of pride in her composition. She had been quite ready to hate this woman, and to fight her on every point, as long as the danger existed. But she was equally willing to take the woman to her heart, now that the danger was over. Apologize. Of course she would apologize. And she would make a friend of the woman if the woman wished it. And she would not have the woman and the Duke get matching together again, lest, after all, there might be a mistake. She did not show M. Goessler's letter to her husband, or tell him anything of the relief she had received. He had cared but little for the danger, thinking more of his budget than of the danger, and would be sufficiently at his ease if he heard no more rumors of his uncle's marriage. Lady Glencora went to Park Lane early on the Tuesday morning, but she did not take her boy with her. She understood that M. Goessler might, perhaps, indulge in a little gentle railery at the child's expense, and the mother felt that this might be borne the more easily if the child were not present. I have come to thank you for your letter, M. Goessler," said Lady Glencora, before she sat down. Oh, come ye in peace here, or come ye in war, or to dance at our bridle," said M. Goessler, standing up from her chair and laughing as she sang the lines. Certainly not to dance at your bridle, said Lady Glencora. Alas, no! You have forbidden the bands too effectually for that, and I sit here, wearing the billow, all alone. Why shouldn't I be allowed to get married as well as another woman, I wonder? I think you have been very hard upon me among you, but sit down, Lady Glencora, at any rate you come in peace. Certainly in peace, and with much admiration, and a great deal of love and affection, and all that kind of thing, if you will only accept it. I shall be too proud, Lady Glencora, for the Duke's sake, if for no other reason. And I have to make my apology. It was made as soon as your carriage stopped at my door with friendly wheels. Of course I understand. I can know how terrible it all was to you, even though the dear little Plantagenet might not have been in much danger. Fancy what it would be to disturb the career of a Plantagenet. I am far too well read in history. I can assure you. I said a word for which I am sorry, and which I should not have said. Never mind the word. After all, it was a true word. I do not hesitate to say so now myself, though I will allow no other woman to say it, and no man either. I should have degraded him, and disgraced him. Madame Gussler now had dropped the bantering tone which she had assumed, and was speaking in sober earnest. I, for myself, have nothing about me of which I am ashamed. I have no history to hide, no story to be brought to light to my discredit. But I have not been so born, or so placed by circumstances, as make me fit to be the wife of the Duke of Omnium. I should not have been happy, you know. You want nothing, dear Madame Gussler. You have all that society can give you. I do not know about that. I have much given to me by society. But there are many things that I want. A bright-faced little boy, for instance, to go about with me in my carriage. Why did you not bring him, Lady Glencora? I came out in my penitential sheet. And when one goes in that guise, one goes alone. I had half a mind to walk. You will bring him soon. Oh, yes! He was very anxious to know the other day who was the beautiful lady with the black hair. You did not tell him that the beautiful lady with the black hair was a possible aunt, was a possible—but we will not think any more of things so horrible. I told him nothing of my fears. You may be sure. One day, when I am a very old woman, and when his father is quite an old duke, and when he has a dozen little boys and girls of his own, you will tell him the story. Then he will reflect what a madman his great-uncle must have been, to have thought of making a duchess out of such a wizened old woman as that. They parted the best of friends. But Lady Glencora was still of opinion, that if the lady and the duke were to be brought together at matching, or elsewhere, there might still be danger. End of CHAPTER 62 CHAPTER 63 Showing how the duke stood his ground Mr. Lowe, the barrister who had given so many lectures to our friend, Daphineus Finn, lectures that ought to have been useful, was now himself in the House of Commons, having reached it in the legitimate course of his profession. At a certain point of his career, supposing his career to have been sufficiently prosperous, it becomes natural to a barrister to stand for some constituency, and natural for him also to form his politics at that period of his life with a view to his further advancements, looking as he does so carefully at the age and standing of the various candidates for high legal office. When a man has worked as Mr. Lowe had worked, he begins to regard the bench wistfully, and to calculate the profits of a two-year's run in the Attorney-Generalship. It is the way of the profession, and thus a proper and sufficient number of real barristers finds its way into the House. Mr. Lowe had been angry with Finneas, because he, being a barrister, had climbed into it after another fashion, having taken up politics, not in the proper way, as an assistance to his great profession, but as a profession in itself. Mr. Lowe had been quite sure that his pupil had been wrong in this, and that the error would at last show itself to his pupil's cost, and Mrs. Lowe had been more sure than Mr. Lowe, having not unnaturally been jealous that a young whipper snapper of a pupil, as she had once called Finneas, should become a Parliament man before her husband, who had worked his way up gallantly in the usual course. She would not give away a jot even now, not even when she heard that Finneas was going to marry this and that Ares. For at this period of his life such rumours were afloat about him, originating probably in his hopes as to violent effingham, and his intimacy with Madame Gersler. Oh, Ares's, so Mrs. Lowe, I don't believe in Ares's money till I see it, three or four hundred a year is a great fortune for a woman, but it don't go far in keeping a house in London. And when a woman has got a little money, she generally knows how to spend it. He has begun at the wrong end, and they who do that never get themselves right at the last, at this time Finneas has become somewhat of a fine gentleman, which made Mrs. Lowe the more angry with him. He showed himself willing enough to go to Mrs. Lowe's house, but when there he seemed to her to give himself Ares. I think that she was unjust to him, and that it was natural that he should not bear himself beneath her remarks exactly as he had done when he was nobody. He had certainly been very successful. He was always listened to in the house, and rarely spoke except on Sudricks which belonged to him, or had been allotted to him as part of his business. He lived quite a disease with people of the highest rank, and those of his own mode of life who disliked him did so simply because they regarded with envy his too rapid rise. He rode upon a pretty horse in the park, and was careful in his dress, and had about him an air of comfortable wealth which Mrs. Lowe thought he had not earned. When her husband told her of his sufficient salary, she would shake her head and express her opinion that a good time was coming, by which she perhaps meant to imply a belief that a time was coming in which her husband would have a salary much better than that now enjoyed by Phineas, and much more likely to be permanent. The radicals were not to have office for ever, and when they were gone what then? I don't suppose he saves as shelling, said Mrs. Lowe. How can he keep a horse in the park and hunting down on the country and living with lords? I shouldn't wonder if he isn't found to be overhead and ears in debt when things come to be looked into. Mrs. Lowe was fond of an assured prosperity of money and the funds, and was proud to think that her husband lived in a house of his own. Nineteen pounds tensioning's ground rent to the Portman estate date is what we pay, Mr. Muntz, she once said, to that gallant radical, and that comes of beginning at the right end. Mr. Lowe had nothing when he began the world, and I had just what made us decent to the day we married. But he began at the right end, and let things go as they may, he can't get a fall. Mr. Muntz and Mrs. Lowe, though they differed much in politics, sympathised in reference to Phineas. I never believes, ma'am, in nobody doing any good by getting a place, said Mr. Muntz. Of course I don't mean judges on them like, which must be, but when a young man has ever so much a year of us sitting in a big room down at Whitehall and reading a newspaper with his feet up on a chair, I don't think it's honest whether he's a parliament man or whether he ain't. Whence Mr. Muntz had got his notions as to the way in which officials at Whitehall passed their time, I cannot say, but his notions are very common notions. The British world at large is slow to believe that the great British housekeeper keeps no more cats than what kill mice. Mr. Lowe, who is now frequently in the habit of seeing Phineas at the house, had somewhat changed his opinions and was not so eager in condemning Phineas as was his wife. He had begun to think that perhaps Phineas had shown some knowledge of his own aptitude in the career which he had sought, and was aware at any rate that his late pupil was somebody in the House of Commons. A man will almost always respect him whom those around him respect, and will generally look up to one who is evidently above himself in his own daily avocation. Now Phineas was certainly above Mr. Lowe in parliamentary reputation. He sat on a front bench. He knew the leaders of parties. He was at home amidst the forms of the House. He enjoyed something of the prestige of government power. And he walked about familiarly with the sons of Dukes and the brothers of Arles in a manner which had its effect even on Mr. Lowe. Given these things, Mr. Lowe could not maintain his old opinion as stoutly as did his wife. It was almost a privilege to Mr. Lowe to be intimate with Phineas Finn. How then could he look down upon him? He was surprised there for one day when Phineas discussed the matter with him fully. Phineas had asked him what would be his chance of success if, even now, he would give up politics and take it to the bar as the means of earning his livelihood. He would have uphill work at first, as a matter of course. Said Mr. Lowe. But it might be done, I suppose, to have been in office would not be fatal to me? No, not fatal. Nothing of the kind need be fatal. Men have succeeded and have sat on the bench afterwards who did not begin till they were past forty. You would have to live down a prejudice to create it against yourself. That's all. The attorneys do not like barristers or anything else but barristers. The attorneys are very arbitrary, I know, said Phineas. Yes, and there would be this against you, that it is so difficult for a man to go back to the verge of a malleability of Pupilton, who has once escaped from the necessary humility of its conditions. You will find it difficult to sit and wait for business in a vice-chancellor's court after having had vice-chancellors or men as big as vice-chancellors to wait upon you. I do not think much of that. But others would think of it, and you would find that there were difficulties. But you are not thinking of it in earnest. Yes, in earnest. Why so? I should have thought that every day had removed you further and further from any such idea. The ground I am on at present is so slippery. Well, yes, I can understand that, but yet it is less slippery than it used to be. Ha! You do not exactly see. What if I were to lose my seat? You are safe at least for the next four years, I should say. Ah! No one can tell. And suppose I took it into my head to differ from the government. You must not do that. You have put yourself into a boat with these men, and you must remain in the boat. I should have thought all that was easy to you. It's not so easy as it seems. The very necessity of sitting still in the boat is in itself irksome—very irksome. And then there comes some crisis in which a man cannot sit still. Is there any such crisis at hand now? I cannot say that, but I am beginning to find that sitting still is very disagreeable to me. When I hear those fellows below having their own way and saying just what they like, it makes me furious. There's Robson. He tried office for a couple of years and has broken away, and now by chance there is no man they think so much of as they do of Robson. He's twice the man he was when he sat on the treasury bench. He is a man of fortune, is he not? I suppose so. Of course he is, because he lives. He never earns anything. His wife had money. My dear Finn, that makes all the difference. When a man has means of his own, he can please himself. Do you marry a wife with money, and then you may kick up your heels and do as you like about the colonial office. When a man hasn't money, of course he must fit himself into the circumstances of a profession, though his profession may require him to be dishonest. I did not say that. But I say, my dear Lo, a man who is ready to vote black-white because somebody tells him is dishonest. Never mind, old fellow, I shall pull through, I dare say. Don't go and tell your wife all this, or she'll be harder upon me than ever when she sees me. After that Mr. Lo began to think that his wife's judgment in this matter had been better than his own. Robson could do as he liked, because he married a woman with money. Phineas told himself that the game was also open to him. He, too, might marry money, while Defingham have money, quite enough to make him independent where he married to her, and Madam Gersler have money, plenty of money, and an idea had begun to creep upon him that Madam Gersler would take him where he to offer himself. But he would soon go back to the bar as the lowest people soon had clean boots for barristers, so he told himself, that marry a woman simply because she had money, that marry any other woman as long as there was a chance that violent might be one. But it was very desirable that she should know whether violent might be one or not. It was now July, and everybody would be gone in another month. Before August would be over, he was to start for Ireland with Mr. Monk, and he knew that words would be spoken in Ireland, which might make it indispensable for him to be, at any rate, able to throw up his office. In these days he became more anxious than he used to be about Miss Effingham's fortune. He had never spoken as yet to Lord Brentford since the day on which the Earl had quarrelled with him, nor had he ever been at the house in Portman Square. Lady Laura he met occasionally, and had always spoken to her. She was gracious to him, but there had been no renewal of their intimacy. Others had reached him, but things were going badly with her and her husband. But when men repeated such rumours in his presence, he said little or nothing on the subject. It was not for him at any rate to speak of Lady Laura's unhappiness. Lord Chilton he'd seen once or twice during the last month and they had met cordially as friends. Of course he could ask no question from Lord Chilton as to Violet, but he did learn that his friend had again patched up some reconciliation with his father. He is quarrelled with me, you know, said Phineas. I'm very sorry, but what could I do? As things went, I was obliged to tell him. I do not suppose from him that I am blaming you. It is no doubt much better than she should know it all. And it cannot make much difference to you, I should say. One doesn't like to quarrel with those who have been kind to one, said Phineas. But it isn't your doing. You'll come right about again after a time. When I get my own affairs settled, you may be sure I'll do my best to bring him round. But what's the reason you never see Laura now? What's the reason that everything goes awry? said Phineas Bitterly. When I mentioned your name to Kennedy the other day, he looked as black as thunder. But is it not odd that anyone should quarrel with him? I can't stand him. But, you know, I sometimes think that Laura will have to give it up. Then there will be another mess in the family. This is all very well as coming from Lord Chilton, but there was no word about Violet, and Phineas did not know how to get a word from any one. Lady Laura could have told him everything, but he could not go to Lady Laura. He did go to Lady Baldock's house as often as he thought he could with propriety, and occasionally he saw Violet. But he could do no more than see her, and the days and weeks were passing by, and the time was coming in which he would have to go away and be with her no more. The end of the season, which was always to other men, to other working men, such as Ahira, a period of pleasurable anticipation, to him was a time of sadness, in which he felt that he was not exactly like to, or even equal to, the men with whom he lived in London. In the old days, in which he was allowed to go to Loch Linter or to Salisbury, when all men and women were going to their Loch Linter's and their Salisbury's, he was very well with him. But there was something melancholy to him in his yearly journey to Ireland. He loved his father and mother and sisters as well to other men, but there was a falling off from the man of his life which made him feel that he had been in some sort of his own element in London. He would like to have shot grouse at Loch Linter or pheasants at Salisbury, or to have hunted down at Willingford, or better still, to have made love to Violet Effingham, wherever Violet Effingham might have placed herself. But all this was closed to him now, and there would be nothing for him but to remain at Killaloe, or to return to his work in Dining Street, from August to February. Mr. Munkendee was going with him for a few weeks, but even this association did not make up for that sort of society which he would have preferred. The session went on very quietly. The question of the Irish Reform Bill was postponed till the next year, which was a great thing gained. He carried his bill about the Canada Railway with sundry other small bills appertaining to it through the house in a manner which redound it infinitely to his credit. There was just enough of opposition to give a zest to the work, and to make the affair conspicuous among the affairs of the year. As his chief was in the other house, the work fell all together to his hands, so that he came to be conspicuous among under-secretaries. It was any when he said a word to any leaders of his party about other matters, about Irish tenet right, for instance, which was beginning to loom very large, that he found himself to be snubbed. But there was no room for action this year in reference to Irish tenet right, and therefore any deeper consideration of that discomfort might be legitimately postponed. If he did by chance open his mouth on the subject to Mr. Munk, even Mr. Munk discouraged him. In the early days of July, when the weather was very hot and people were beginning to complain of the Thames and members were becoming thirsty after gross, and the remaining days of parliamentary work were being counted up, there came to him news, news that was soon known throughout the fashionable world, that the Duke of Omnium was going to give a garden-party at a certain villa residence on the banks of the Thames above Richmond. It was to be such a garden-party as had never been seen before, and it would be the more remarkable because the Duke had never been known to do such a thing. The villa was called the Horns, and had indeed been given by the Duke to Lady Glencora on her marriage. But the party was to be the Duke's party, and the Horns, with all its gardens, conservatories, lawns, shrubberies, paddocks, boat houses and boats, was to be made bright and beautiful for the occasion. Scores of workmen were about the place through the first three weeks of July. The world at large did not at all know why the Duke was doing so unwonted a thing, why he should undertake so new a trouble. But Lady Glencora knew, and Madame Gersler strudely guessed the riddle. When Madame Gersler's unexpected refusal had reached his grace, he felt that he must either accept the lady's refusal or persevere. After a day's consideration he resolved that he would accept it. The top brick of the chimney was very desirable, but perhaps it might be well that he should endeavour to live without it. When accepting this refusal he must either stand his ground and bear the blow, or he must run away to that villa at Como elsewhere. The running away seemed to him at first to be the better, or at least the more pleasant, of course, but at last he determined that he would stand his ground and bear the blow. Therefore he gave his garden party at the Horns. Who was to be invited? Before the first week in June I was over, many a bosom in London was fluttering with anxiety on that subject. The Duke, in giving his short word of instruction to Lady Glencora, made her understand that he would wish her to be particular in her invitations. Her Royal Highness the Princess and his Royal Highness the Prince have both been so gracious to say that they would honour his fate. The Duke himself had made out a short list with not more than a dozen names. Lady Glencora was employed to select the real crowd of the five hundred out of the ten thousand who were to be blessed. On the Duke's own private list was the name of Madame Gersler. Lady Glencora understood it all. When Madame Gersler got her card she thought that she understood it too, and she thought also that the Duke was behaving in a gallant way. There was, no doubt, much difficulty about the invitations and a considerable amount of ill-will was created, and they who considered themselves entitled to be asked, and were not asked, were full of wrath against their more fortunate friends, instead of being angry with the Duke or with Lady Glencora who had neglected them. It was soon known that Lady Glencora was the real dispenser of the favours, and I fancy that her ladyship was tired of her task before it was completed. The party was to take place on Wednesday the 27th of July, and before the day had come men had been able to come so hard in the combat, the personal applications were made with unflinching opportunity, and letters were written to Lady Glencora putting forth this claim and that claim with a piteous clamour. "'No, that is too bad,' Lady Glencora said to her particular friend, Mrs. Gray, when a letter came from Mrs. Bonteen, stating all that her husband had ever done towards supporting Mr. Paniccer in Parliament, and all that he would ever would do. She shan't have it, even though she could put Plantagenet into a minority to borrow. Mrs. Bonteen did not get a card, and when she heard that Phineas Finn had received one, her wrath against Phineas was very great. He was an Irish adventurer, and she regretted deeply that Mr. Bonteen had ever interested himself in bringing such an upstart forward in the world of politics. But as Mr. Bonteen never had done anything towards bringing Phineas forward, there was not much cause for regret on this head. Phineas, however, got his card, and, of course, accepted the invitation. The grounds were opened at four. There was to be an early dinner out in tents at five, and after dinner men and women were to walk about, or dance, or make love, or hay, as suited them. The hay-cocks, however, were ready prepared, while it was expected that they should bring the love with them. Phineas, knowing that he would meet Violet Effingham, took a great deal with him, ready-made. For an hour-and-a-half Lady Delencora kept her position in a saloon through which the guests passed to the grounds, and to every comeer she imparted the information that the duke was on the lawn. To every comeer but one. To Madame Gersler she said no such word. "'So glad to see you, my dear,' she said, as she pressed her friend's hand. "'If I am not killed by this work, I'll make you out again by-and-by.' Then Madame Gersler passed on, and soon found herself amidst a throng of acquaintance. After a few minutes she saw the duke seated in an arm-chair close to the river-bank, and she bravely went up to him and thanked him for the invitation. "'Thanks are due to you for gracing our entertainment,' said the duke, rising to greet her. There were a dozen people standing round, and so the thing was done without difficulty. At that moment they came and noticed that their royal Highnesses were on the ground, and the duke, of course, went off to meet them. There was not a word more spoken between the duke and Madame Gersler on that afternoon. Phineas did not come till late—till seven when the banquet was over. I think he was right in this, as the banqueting intense loses its comfort almost more than it gains in romance. A small picnic may be very well, and the distance previously travelled may give to a dinner on the ground the seeming excuse of necessity. Frail human nature must be supported. And human nature, having gone so far in pursuit of the beautiful, is entitled to what best support the unaccustomed circumstances will allow, therefore out with the cold pies, out with the salads, and the chickens, and the champagne. Since no better may be, let us recruit human nature sitting upon this moss, and forget our discomforts in the glory of the verdure around us. And dear Mary, seeing that the cushion from the wagonette is small and not wishing to accept the too-generous offer that she should take it all for her own use, will a bit of contact somewhat closer than the ordinary chairs of a dining-room render necessary. That in its way is very well, but I hold that a banquet on narrow tables in a tent is displeasing. Phineas strolled into the grounds when the tent was nearly empty, and when Lady Glencora, almost sinking beneath her exertions, was taking rest in an inner room. The duke at this time was dining with their royal hoinesses and three or four others, specially selected, very comfortably within doors. Out of doors the world had begun to dance, and the world was beginning to say that it would be much nicer to go and dance upon the boards inside as soon as possible. For though of all parties a garden party is the nicest, everybody is always anxious to get out of the garden as quick as may be. A few ardent lovers of suburban picturesque effect were sitting beneath the hay-cocks, and four forlorn damsels were vainly endeavouring to excite the sympathy of manly youth by playing croaking in a corner. I am not sure, however, that the lovers beneath the hay-cocks and the players at croaky were not actors hard by Lady Glencora for the occasion. Phineas had not been long on the lawn before he saw Lady Laura Kennedy. She was standing with another lady, and Barrington Earl was with them. So you've been successful, said Barrington, greeting him. Successful in what? In what in getting a ticket? I've had to promise three tide-waiterships and to give deep hints about a bishopry expected to be vacant before I got in. But what matters? Success pays for everything. My only trouble now is I am to get back to London. Lady Laura shook hands with Phineas, and then as he was passing on followed him for a step and whispered a word to him. Mr. Finn, she said, if you are not going back yet, come back to me presently, I have something to say to you. I shall not be far from the river, and shall stay here about an hour." Phineas said that he would, and then went on, not knowing exactly where he was going. He had one desire to find Valet Ethium, but when he should find her he could not carry her off and sit with her beneath the hay-cock. CHAPTER 64 THE HORNS While looking for Valet Ethium, Phineas encountered Madame Gosler, among a crowd of people who were watching the adventurous embarkation of certain daring spirits in a pleasure-boat. There were watermen there in the Duke's library ready to take such spirits down to Richmond or up to Teddington Lock, and many daring spirits did take such trips to the great peril of muslins, ribbons, and starch, to the peril also of ornamental summer white garments, so that when the thing was over the boats were boated to have been a bore. Are you going to venture, said Phineas, to the lady? I should like it of all things, if I were not afraid, for my clothes. Will you come? I was never very good on the water. I should be seasick to a certainty. They are going down beneath the bridge, too, and we should be splashed by the steamers. I don't think my courage is high enough. Thus Phineas excused himself, being still intent on prosecuting his search for Valet. Then neither will I, said Madame Gosler. One dash from a peckant oar would destroy the whole symmetry of my dress. Look! That green young lady has already been sprinkled. But the blue young gentleman has been sprinkled also, said Phineas, and they will be happy in a joint baptism. Then they stroll along the river path together, and were soon alone. You will be leaving town soon, Madame Gosler. Almost immediately. And where do you go? Oh, to Vienna. I am there for a couple of months every year, minding my business. I wonder whether you would know me if you saw me. Sometimes, sitting on a stool in a counting-house, going out about among old houses, settling what must be done to save them from tumbling down, I dress so differently at such times, and talk so differently, and look so much older that I almost fancy myself to be another person. Is it a great trouble to you? No, I rather like it. It makes me feel that I do something in the world. Do you go alone? Quite alone. Take a German maid with me, and never speak a word to anyone else on the journey. That must be very bad, said Phineas. Yes, it is the worst of it. But then I am so much accustomed to being alone. You see me in society, and in society only, and therefore naturally look upon me as one of a gregarious herd, but I am, in truth, an animal that feeds alone, and lives alone. Take the hours of the year all through, and I am solitary during four-fifths of them. And what do you intend to do? I go to Ireland, home to your own people. How nice! I have no people to go to. I have one sister, who lives with her husband in Riga. She is my only relation, and I never see her. But you have thousands of friends in England. Yes, as you see them. And she turned and spread out her hands towards the crowded lawn which was behind them. What are friends worth? What would they do for me? I do not know that the Duke would do much, said Phineas, laughing. Madam Gossler laughed also. Ah, Duke! It's not so bad, she said. The Duke would do as much as anyone else. I won't have the Duke abused. He may be your particular friend for what I know, said Phineas. Ah, no. I have no particular friend. And were I to wish to choose one, I should think the Duke a little above me. Oh, yes. And too stiff, and too old, and too pompous, and too cold, and too make-believe, and too gingerbread. Mr. Phine! The Duke is all buck room, you know. Then why do you come to his house? To see you, Madam Gossler. Is that true, Mr. Phineas? Yes. It is true in its way. One goes about to meet those whom one likes, not always for the pleasure of the host society. I hope I am not wrong, because I go to houses at which I like neither the host nor the hostess. Phineas, as he said this, was thinking of Lady Balduk, to whom of late he had been exceedingly civil. But he certainly did not like Lady Balduk. I think you have been too hard upon the Duke of Omnion. Do you know him well? Personally? Certainly not, do you? Does anybody? I think he is a gracious gentleman, said Madam Gossler. And though I cannot boast of knowing him well, I do not like to hear him called a buck room. I do not think he is a buck room. It is not very easy for a man in his position to live so as to please all people. He has to maintain the prestige of the highest aristocracy in Europe. Look at his nephew. Who will be the next Duke, and who works as hard as any man in the country? Will he not maintain it better? What good did the present man ever do? You believe only in motion, Mr. Phine, and not at all in quiescence. An express train at full speed is grander to you than a mountain with heaps of snow. I own that to me there is something glorious in the dignity of a man too high to do anything. If only he knows how to carry the dignity with a proper grace I think that there should be breasts made to carry stars. Stars which they have never earned, said Phineas, ah, well, we will not fight about it. Go and earn your star, and I will say that it becomes you better than any glitter on the coat of the Duke of Omnium. As she said with an earnestness which he could not pretend, not to notice, or not to understand, I too may be able to see that express train is really greater than the mountain. Though for your own life you would prefer to sit and gaze upon the snowy peaks, no, that is not so. For myself I would prefer to be of use somewhere, to someone, if it were possible. I strive sometimes, and I am sure successfully never mind. I hate to talk about myself. You and the Duke are fair subjects for conversation. You as the express train, who will probably do your sixty miles an hour in safety, but may possibly go down a bank with a crash. Certainly I may, said Phineas, and the Duke as the mountain, which is fixed in its stateliness, short of the power of some earthquake which shall be grander and more terrible than any earthquake yet known. Here we are at his house again. I will go in and sit down for a while. If I leave you, Madame Gosler, I will say goodbye till next winter. I shall be in town again before Christmas, you know. You will come and see me. Of course I will. And then this love trouble, of course, will be over. One way or the other, will it not? Ah, who can say? Faint heart, never one fair lady. But your heart is never faint. Farewell. Then he left her. Up to this moment he had not seen Violet, and yet he knew that she was to be there. She had herself told him that she was to accompany Lady Laura, whom he had already met. Lady Balduk had not been invited and had expressed great animosity against the Duke in consequence. She had gone so far as to say that the Duke was a man at whose house, a young lady, such as her niece, ought not to be seen. But Violet had laughed at this, and declared her intention of accepting the invitation. Go, she had said, of course I shall go. I should have broken my heart if I could not have got there. Phineas therefore was sure that she must be in the place. He had kept his eyes ever on the alert, and yet he had not found her, and now he must keep his appointment with Lady Laura Kennedy. So he went down to the path by the river, and there he found her, seated close by the water's edge. Her cousin, Barrington Earl, was still with her. But as soon as Phineas joined them, Earl went away. I had told him, said Lady Laura, that I wished to speak to you, and he stayed with me till you came. There are worse men than Barrington a great deal. I am sure of that. Are you and he still friends, Mr. Phine? I hope so. I do not see so much of him as I did, when I had less to do. He says that you have got into altogether a different set. I don't know that. I've gone as circumstances have directed me, but I have certainly not intended to throw over so old and good a friend as Barrington Earl. No, he does not blame you. He tells me that you have found your way among what he calls the working men of the party, and he thinks you will do very well if you can only be patient enough. We all expected a different line from you, you know, more of words and less of deeds if I may say so, more of liberal oratory and less of government action, but I do not doubt that you are right. I think that I have been wrong, said Phineas. I am becoming heartily sick of officialities. That comes from fickleness about which Papa is so fond of quoting his Latin. The ox desires the saddle, the charger wants to plow, and which am I? Your career may combine the dignity of the one with the utility of the other. At any rate, you must not think of changing now. Have you seen Mr. Kennedy lately? She asked the question abruptly, showing that she was anxious to get to the matter respecting which she had summoned him to her side, and that all that she had said hitherto had been uttered as it were in preparation of that subject. You mean him? Yes, I see him daily, but we hardly do more than speak. Why not? Phineas stood for a moment in silence, hesitating, why is it that he and you do not speak? How can I answer that question, Lady Laura? Do you know any reason? Sit down, or if you please, I will get up and walk with you. He tells me that you have chosen to quarrel with him, and that I have made you do so. He says that you have confessed to him that I have asked you to quarrel with him. He can hardly have said that. But he has said it, in so many words. Do you think that I would tell you such a story falsely? Is he here now? No. He is not here. He would not come. I came alone. Is not Miss Effingham with you? No. She is to come with my father later. She is here, no doubt, now. But answer my question, Mr. Phine. Unless you find that you cannot answer it, what was it that you did say to my husband? Nothing. Nothing to justify what he has told you. Do you mean to say that he has spoken falsely? I mean to use no harsh word, but I think that Mr. Kennedy, when troubled in his spirit, talks at things gloomily and puts meaning upon words which they should not bear. And what has troubled his spirit? You must know better than I can do, Lady Laura. I will tell you all that I can tell you. He invited me to his house, and I would not go, because you had forbidden me. Then he asked me some questions about you. Did I refuse because of you, or of anything that you had said? If I remember right, I told him that I did fancy that you would not be glad to see me, and that therefore I would rather stay away. What was I to say? You should have said nothing. Nothing with him would have been worse than what I did say. Remember that he asked me the question point blank, and that no reply would have been equal to an affirmation. I should have confessed that his suggestion was true. He could not then have twitted me with your words. If I have erred, Lady Laura, and brought any sorrow on you, I am indeed grieved. It is all sorrow. There is nothing but sorrow. I have made up my mind to leave him. Oh, Lady Laura, it is very bad. But not so bad, I think, as the life I am now leading. He has accused me of what do you think? He says that you are my lover. He did not say that. In those words he said it in words which made me feel that I must part from him. And how did you answer him? I would not answer him at all. If he had come to me like a man, not accusing me, but asking me, I would have told him everything. And what was there to tell? I should have broken my faith to you in speaking of that scene at Lothlinter. But women always tell such stories to their husbands, when their husbands are good to them, and true, and just, and it is well that they should be told. But to Mr. Kennedy I can tell nothing. He does not believe my word. Not believe you, Lady Laura? No. Because I did not blurt out to him all that story about your foolish duel. Because I thought it best to keep my brother's secret. As long as there was a secret to be kept, he told me that I had lied to him. What? That word? Yes, with that very word. He is not particular about his words, when he thinks it necessary to express himself strongly, and he has told me since that because of that he could never believe me again. How is it possible that a woman should live with such a man? But why did she come to him with this story, to him whom she had been accused of entertaining as a lover, to him who of all her friends was the last whom she should have chosen as the recipient for such a tale? Phineas, as he thought how he might best answer her, with what words he might try to comfort her, could not but ask himself this question. The moment that the word was out of his mouth, she went on to say, I resolve that I would tell you. The accusation is against you, as it is against me, and is equally false to both. I have written him, and there is my letter. But you will see him again. No. I will go to my father's house. I have already arranged it. Mr. Kennedy has my letter by this time, and I go from hence home with my father. Do you wish that I should read the letter? Yes. Certainly. I wish that you should read it. Should I ever meet him again, I shall tell him that you saw it. They were now standing close upon the river's bank, at a corner of the grounds, and though the voices of people sounded near to them, they were alone. Phineas had no alternative but to read the letter, which was as follows. After what you have said to me, it is impossible that I should return to your house. I shall meet my father at the Duke of Omniums and have already asked him to give me an asylum. It is my wish to remain wherever he may be, either in town or in the country. Should I change my purpose in this and change my residence, I will not fail to let you know where I go and what I propose to do. You, I think, must have forgotten that I was your wife, but I will never forget it. You have accused me of having a lover. You cannot have expected that I should continue to live with you after such an accusation. For myself I cannot understand how any man can have brought himself to bring such a charge against his wife. Even had it been true, the accusation should not have been made by your mouth to my ears. That it is untrue, I believe you must be as well aware as I am myself. How intimate I was with Mr. Finn and what were the limits of my intimacy with him you knew before I married you. After our marriage I encouraged his friendship till I found that there was something in it that displeased you, and after learning that I discouraged it. You have said that he is my lover, but you have probably not defined for yourself that word very clearly. You have felt yourself slighted, because his name has been mentioned with praise and your jealousy has been wounded because you have thought that I have regarded him as in some way superior to yourself. You have never really thought that he was my lover, that he spoke words to me which others might not hear, that he claimed from me ought that a wife may not give, that he received ought which a friend should not receive. The accusation has been a coward's accusation. I shall be at my father's tonight and tomorrow. I will get you to let my servant bring to me such things as are my own, my clothes namely and desk and a few books. She will know what I want. I trust you may be happier without a wife than ever you have been with me. I have felt almost daily since we were married that you were a man who would have been happier without a wife than with one. Yours affectionately, Laura Kennedy. It is at any rate true, she said, when Phineas had read the letter. True. Doubtless it is true, said Phineas, except that I do not suppose he was ever really angry with me or jealous or anything of this sort because I got on well. It seems absurd even to think of it. There is nothing too absurd for some men. I remember your telling me that he was weak and poor and unworthy. I remember your saying so when I first thought that he might become my husband. I wish I had believed you when you told me so. I should not have made such a shipwreck of myself as I have done. That is all I had to say to you. After what has passed between us, I did not choose that you should hear how I was separated from my husband, from any lips but my own. I will go now and find Papa. Do not come with me. I prefer being alone. Then he was left standing by himself, looking down upon the river as it glided by. How would it have been with both of them if Lady Laura had accepted him three years ago when she consented to join her lot with that of Mr. Kennedy and had rejected him? As he stood he heard the sound of music from the house and remembered that he had come there with the one soul object of seeing violet effingham. He had known that he would meet Lady Laura, and it had been in his mind to break through the law of silence which she had imposed upon him, and once more to ask her to assist him, to implore her for the sake of their old friendship to tell him whether there might yet be for him any chance of success. But in the interview which had just taken place it had been impossible for him to speak a word of himself or of violet. To her, in her great desolation, he could address himself on no other subject other than that of her own misery. But not the less when she was talking to him of her own sorrow, of her regret that she had not listened to him, when in years past he had spoken slidingly of Mr. Kennedy, was he thinking of violet effingham? Mr. Kennedy had certainly mistaken the signs of things when he had accused his wife by saying that Phineas was her lover. Phineas had soon got over that early feeling, and as far as he himself was concerned had never regretted Lady Laura's marriage. He remained down by the water for a few minutes, giving Lady Laura time to escape, and then he wandered across the grounds towards the house. It was now about nine o'clock, and though there were still many walking about the grounds, the crowd of people were in the rooms. The musicians were ranged out on a veranda so that their music might have been available for dancing within or without. But the dancers had found the boards pleasanter than the lawn, and the Duke's Garden Party was becoming a mere ball, with privilege for the dancers to stroll about the lawn between the dances. And in disrespect the fun was better than at a ball, that let the engagements made per partners be what they might, they could always be broken with ease. No Lady felt herself bound to dance with a cavalier who was displeasing to her, and some gentlemen were left sadly in the lurch. Phineas felt himself to be very much in the lurch, even after he had discovered Violet Effingham standing up to dance with Lord Faun. He bided his time patiently, and at last he found his opportunity. Would she dance with him? She declared that she intended to dance no more, and that she had promised to be ready to return home with Lord Brentford before ten o'clock. I have pledged myself not to be after ten. She said, laughing, then she put her hand upon his arm, and they stepped out upon the terrace together. Have you heard anything? She asked him, almost in a whisper. Yes, he said, I have heard what you mean. I have heard it all. Is it not dreadful? I fear it is the best thing she can do. She has never been happy with him. But to be accused after that fashion by her husband, said Violet, one can hardly believe it in these days, and of all women she is the last to deserve such accusation. The very last, said Phineas, feeling that the subject was one upon which it was not easy for him to speak. I cannot conceive to whom he can have alluded, said Violet. Then Phineas began to understand that Violet had not heard the whole story, but the difficulty of speaking was still very great. It has been the result of an ungovernable temper, he said. But a man does not usually strive to dishonor himself because he is in a rage, and this man is incapable of rage. He must be cursed with one of those dark gloomy minds in which love always leads to jealousy. She will never return to him. One cannot say. In many respects it would be better that she should, said Phineas. She will never return to him, repeated Violet never. Would you advise her to do so? How can I say? If one were called upon for advice, one would think so much more before one spoke. I would not. Not for a minute. What? To be accused of that? How are a man and a woman to live together after there have been such words between them? Poor Laura! What a terrible end to all her high hopes! Do you not grieve for her? They were now at some distance from the house, and Phineas could not but feel that Chance had been very good to him in giving him this opportunity. She was leaning on his arm, and they were alone, and she was speaking to him with all the familiarity of old friendship. I wonder whether I may change the subject, said he, and ask you a word about yourself. What word? She said sharply. I have heard. What have you heard? Simply this, that you are not now as you were six months ago. Your marriage was then fixed for June. It has been unfixed since then, she said. Yes, it has been unfixed. I know it, Miss Heffingen. She will not be angry with me if I say that when I heard it was so, something of a hope, no, I must not call it a hope, something that longed to form itself into hope, returned to my breast, and from that hour to this has been the only subject on which I have cared to think. Lord Chiltern is your friend, Mr. Phin. He is so, and I do not think that I have ever been untrue to my friendship for him. He says that no man has ever had a truer friend. He will swear to that in all companies, and I, when it was allowed to me to swear with him, swore it too. As his friend, let me tell you one thing, one thing which I would never tell to any other man. One thing which I know I may tell you in confidence. You are a gentleman, and will not break my confidence. I think I will not. I know you will not, because you are a gentleman. I told Lord Chiltern in the autumn of last year that I loved him, and I did love him. I shall never have the same confession to make to another man, that he and I are not now, on those loving terms which once existed, can make no difference in that. A woman cannot transfer her heart. There have been things which have made me feel that I was perhaps mistaken in saying that I would be his wife, but I said so, and cannot now give myself to another. Here is Lord Brentford, and we will join him. There was Lord Brentford with Lady Laura in his arm, very gloomy, resolving on what way he might be avenged on the man who had insulted his daughter. He took but little notice of Phineas, as he resumed his charge of Miss Effingham, but the two ladies wished him good night. Good night, Lady Laura, said Phineas, standing with his hat in his hand. Good night, Miss Effingham. Then he was alone. Quite alone. Would it not be well for him to go down to the bottom of the garden, and fling himself into the quiet river, so that there might be an end of him? Or would it not be better still that he should create for himself some quiet river of life, away from London, away from politics, away from lords, entitled ladies, and fashionable squires, and parties given by dukes, and a disappointments incident to a small man in attempting to make for himself a career among big men? There had frequently been in the mind of this young man an idea that there was something almost false in his own position, that his life was a pretense, and that he would ultimately be subject to that ruin which always comes sooner or later on things which are false. And now, as he wandered alone about Lady Glencora's gardens, this feeling was very strong within his bosom, and robbed him altogether of the honor and glory of having been one of the Duke of Omnium's guests. CHAPTER 65 The Cabinet Minister at Kililoy Phineas did not throw himself into the river from the Duke's garden, and was ready, in spite of Violet effing him, to start for Ireland with Mr. Monk at the end of the first week in August. The close of that season in London certainly was not a happy period of his life. Violet had spoken to him, after such a fashion, that he could not bring himself not to believe her. She had given him no hint, whether it was likely or unlikely, that she and Lord Chiltern would be reconciled. But she had convinced him that he could not be allowed to take Lord Chiltern's place. A woman cannot transfer her heart, she had said. Phineas was well aware that many women do transfer their hearts, but he had gone to this woman too soon after the wrench which her love had received. He had been too sudden with his proposal for a transfer, and the punishment for such ill judgment must be that success would now be impossible to him. And yet how could he have waited, feeling that Miss Effingham, if she were at all like other girls whom he had known, might have promised herself to some other lover before she would return within his reach in the succeeding spring. But she was not like some other girls. Ah, he knew that now, and repented him of his haste. But he was ready for Mr. Monk on the 7th of August, and they started together. Something less than twenty hours took them from London to Kililoy, and during four or five of those twenty hours Mr. Monk was unfitted for any conversation by the uncomfortable feelings incidental to the passage from Holy Head to Kingstown. Nevertheless, there was a great deal of conversation between them during the journey. Mr. Monk had almost made up his mind to leave the cabinet. It is sad to me to have to confess it, he said, but the truth is that my old rival Turnbull is right. A man who begins his political life as I began mine is not the man of whom a minister should be formed. I am inclined to think that ministers of government require as much education in their trade as shoemakers or tallow-chandlers. I doubt whether you can make a good public servant of a man simply because he has got the ear of the House of Commons. Can you mean to say, said Phineas, that we are altogether wrong from beginning to end in our way of arranging these things? I do not say that at all. Look at the men who have been leading statesmen since our present mode of government was formed, from the days in which it was forming itself, say, from Walpole down, and you will find that all who have been of real use had early training as public servants. Are we never to get out of the old groove? Not if the groove is good, said Mr. Monk. Those who have been efficient as ministers sucked in their efficacy with their mother's milk. Lord Brock did so, and Lord Deterrier, and Mr. Mildmay. They seated themselves in office chairs the moment they left college. Mr. Gresham was in office before he was eight and twenty. The Duke of St. Bungay was at work as a private secretary when he was three and twenty. You luckily for yourself have done the same. And regret it every hour of my life. You have no cause for regret, but it is not so with me. If there be any man unfitted by his previous career for office, it is he who has become or who has endeavored to become a popular politician, an exponent, if I may say so, of public opinion. As far as I can see, office is offered to such men with one view only, that of clipping their wings. And of obtaining their help, it is the same thing. Help from Turnbull would mean the withdrawal of all power of opposition from him. He could not give other help for any long term, as the very fact of his accepting power and patronage would take from him his popular leadership. The masses outside required to have their minister as the Queen has hers. But the same man cannot be ministered to both. If the people's minister chooses to change his master and to take the Queen's shilling, something of temporary relief may be gained by government in the fact that the other place will for a time be vacant. But there are candidates enough for such places. And the vacancy is not a vacancy long. Of course the crown has this pull, that it pays wages, and the people do not. I do not think that that influenced you, said Phineas. It did not influence me. To you I will make bold to state so much positively, though it would be foolish perhaps to do so to others. I did not go for the shilling, though I am so poor a man that the shilling is more to me than it would be to almost any man in the house. I took the shilling, much doubting, but guided in my part by this, that I was ashamed of being afraid to take it. They told me, Mr. Milmay and the Duke, that I could earn it to the benefit of the country. I have not earned it, and the country has not been benefited, unless it be for the good of the country that my voice in the house should be silenced. If I believe that, I ought to hold my tongue without taking a salary for holding it. I have made a mistake, my friend. Such mistakes made at my time of life cannot be wholly rectified. But being convinced of my error, I must do the best in my power to put myself right again. So is a bitterness in all this to Phineas himself, of which he could not but make plain to his companion. The truth is, he said, that a man in office must be a slave, and that slavery is distasteful. There I think you are wrong. If you mean that you cannot do joint work with other men altogether after your own fashion, the same may be said of all work. If you had stuck to the bar, you must have pleaded your causes in conformity with instructions from the attorneys. I should have been guided by my own lights in advising those attorneys. I cannot see that you suffer anything that ought to go against the grain with you. You are beginning young, and it is your first adopted career. With me it is otherwise. If by my telling you this I shall have led you astray, I shall regret my openness with you, could I begin again, I would willingly begin as you began. It was a great day in Kililoy, that on which Mr. Monk arrived with Phineas at the doctor's house. In London perhaps a bishop inspires more awe than a cabinet minister. In Kililoy, where a bishop might be seen walking about every day, the metric dignitary of the church, though much-loved, was thought of, I fear, but lightly, whereas a cabinet minister coming to stay in the house of a townsman was a thing to be wondered at, to be talked about, to be afraid of, to be a fruitful source of conversation for a year to come. There were many in Kililoy, especially among the elder ladies, who had shaken their heads and expressed the saddest doubts when young Phineas Phine had first become a Parliament man. And though by degrees they had been half-brought around, having been driven to acknowledge that he had been wonderfully successful as a Parliament man, still they had continued to shake their heads among themselves and to fear something in the future. Still he appeared at his old home, leading a cabinet minister by the hand. There was such assurance in this that even old Mrs. Calligan, at the brewery, gave way, and began to say all manner of good things, and to praise the doctor's luck in that he had a son gifted with parts so excellent. There was a great desire to see the cabinet minister in the flesh, to be with him when he ate and drank, to watch the gate and countenance of the man, and to drink water from this fountain of state lore which had been so wonderfully brought among them by their young townsmen. Mrs. Phine was aware that it behooved her to be cherry of her invitations, but the lady from the brewery had said such good things of Mrs. Phine's black swan that she carried her point and was invited to meet the cabinet minister at dinner on the day after his arrival. Mrs. Flood Jones and her daughter were invited also to be of the party. When Phineas had been last at Kililoy, Mrs. Flood Jones, as the reader may remember, had remained with her daughter at Flood Burrow, feeling it to be her duty to keep her daughter away from the danger of an unrequited attachment. But it seemed that her purpose was changed now, or that she no longer feared the danger, for both Mary and her mother were now again living in Kililoy, and Mary was at the doctor's house as much as ever. A day or two before the coming of the god and the demigod to the little town, Barbara Phine and her friend had thus come to understand each other as they walked along the Shannon side. I am sure, my dear, that he is engaged to nobody," said Barbara Phine. And I am sure, my dear, said Mary, that I do not care whether he is or is not. What do you mean, Mary? I mean what I say. Why should I care? Five years ago I had a foolish dream, and now I am awake again. Think how old I have got to be! Yes, you are twenty-three. What has that to do with it? It has this to do with it, that I am old enough to know better. Mama and I quite understand each other. She used to be angry with him, but she has got over all that foolishness now. It always made me so vexed, the idea of being angry with a man, because—because, you know, one can't talk about it. It is so foolish. But that is all over now. What do you mean to say you don't care for him, Mary? Do you remember what you used to swear to me less than two years ago? I remember it all very well, and I remember what a goose I was. As for caring for him, of course I do, because he is your brother, and because I have known him all my life. But if he were to be married to-morrow, you would see that it would make no difference to me. Remember a Finn walked on for a couple of minutes in silence before she replied, Mary, she said at last, I don't believe a word of it. Very well, then all that I shall ask of you is, that we may not talk about him any more. Mama believes it, and that is enough for me. Nevertheless, they did talk about Phineas during the whole of that day, and very often talked about him afterwards, as long as Mary remained at Killilloy. There was a large dinner party at the doctors on the day after Mr. Monk's arrival. The bishop was not there, though he was on terms sufficiently friendly with the doctor's family, to have been invited on so grand an occasion. But he was not there, because Mrs. Finn was determined that she would be taken out to dinner by a cabinet minister in the face of all her friends. She was aware that had the bishop been there, she must have taken the bishop's arm. And though there would have been glory in that, the other glory was more to her taste. It was the first time in her life that she had ever seen a cabinet minister, and I think she was a little disappointed at finding him so like other middle-aged gentlemen. She had hoped that Mr. Monk would have assumed something of the dignity of his position. But he assumed nothing. Now the bishop, though he was a very mild man, did assume something by the very facts of his apron and knee-breaches. "'I am sure, sir, it is very good of you to come and put up with our humble way of living,' said Mrs. Finn to her guest, as they sat down at the table. And yet she had resolved that she would not make any speech of the kind, that she would condescend to no apology, that she would bear herself as though a cabinet minister dined with her at least once a year. But when the moment came, she broke down and made this apology with almost abject meekness, and then hated herself because she had done so. "'My dear madam,' said Mr. Monk, "'I live myself so much like a hermit that your house is a palace of luxury to me.' Then he felt that he had made a foolish speech, and he also hated himself. He found it very difficult to talk to his hostess upon any subject, until by chance he mentioned his young friend Phineas. Then her tongue was unloosed. "'Your son, madam,' he said, "'is going with me to Limerick and back to Dublin. It is a shame, I know, taking him so soon away from home. But I should not know how to get on without him. "'Oh, Mr. Monk, it is such a blessing for him, and such an honour for us, that you should be so good to him.' Then the mother spoke out all her past fears and all her present hopes, and acknowledged the great glory which it was to her to have a son sitting in Parliament, holding an office with a stately name and a great salary, and blessed with the friendship of such a man as Mr. Monk. After that Mr. Monk got on better with her. "'I don't know any young man,' said he, "'in whose career I have taken so strong an interest.' "'He was always good,' said Mrs. Phine, with the tear forcing itself into the corner of each eye. I am his mother, and of course I ought not to say so. Not in this way, but it is true, Mr. Monk.' And then the poor lady was obliged to raise her handkerchief and wipe away the drops. Phineas, on this occasion, had taken out to dinner the mother of his devoted Mary, Mrs. Flood Jones. What a pleasure it must be to the doctor and Mrs. Phine to see you come back in this way,' said Mrs. Flood Jones. "'With all my bones unbroken?' said he, laughing. "'Yes, with all your bones unbroken. You know, Phineas, when we first heard that you were to sit in Parliament, we were afraid that you might break a rib or two, since you choose to talk about the breaking of bones.' "'Yes, I know. Everybody thought I should come to grief, but nobody felt so sure of it as I did myself.' "'But you have not come to grief.' "'I am not out of the wood yet, you know, Mrs. Flood Jones. There is plenty of possibility for grief in my way still.' "'As far as I can understand it, you are out of the wood. All that your friends here want to see now is that you should marry some nice English girl with a little money, if possible. Rumors have reached us, you know.' "'Rumors always lie,' said Phineas. "'Sometimes they do, of course. But I am not going to ask any indiscreet questions. But that is what we all hope. Mary was saying, only the other day, that if you were once married we should all feel quite safe about you. You know we all take the most lively interest in your welfare. It is not every day that a man from county Clare gets on as you have done, and therefore we are bound to think of you.' Thus Mrs. Flood Jones signified to Phineas Finn that she had forgiven him the thoughtlessness of his early youth, even though there had been something of treachery in that thoughtlessness to her own daughter, and showed him also that whatever Mary's feelings might have been once they were not now of a nature to trouble her. "'Of course you will, Mary,' said Mrs. Flood Jones. "'I should think very likely not,' said Phineas, who perhaps looked farther into the mind of the lady than the lady intended. "'Oh, do,' said the lady, every man should marry as soon as he can, and especially a man in your position.' When the ladies met together in the drawing-room after dinner it was impossible but that they should discuss Mr. Monk. There was Mrs. Caligan from the brewery there, and old lady Blood of Bloodstone, who on ordinary occasions would hardly admit that she was on dining-out terms with any one in Kililoy except the bishop, but who had found it impossible to decline to meet a cabinet-minister. And there was Mrs. Dachpool from Six-Mile Town, and a faraway cousin of the Finns, who hated Lady Blood with the true provincial hatred. "'I don't see anything particularly uncommon in him, after all,' said Lady Blood. "'I think he is very nice indeed,' said Mrs. Flood Jones. "'So very quiet, my dear, and just like other people,' said Mrs. Caligan, meaning to pronounce a strong eulogym on the cabinet-minister. "'Very like other people indeed,' said Lady Blood. "'And what would you expect, Lady Blood?' said Mrs. Dachpool. Men and women in London walk upon two legs just as they do in Ennis. Now Lady Blood herself had been born and bred in Ennis, whereas Mrs. Dachpool had come from Limerick, which is a much more considerable town, and therefore there was a satire in this allusion to the habits of the men of Ennis, which Lady Blood understood thoroughly. "'My dear, Mrs. Dachpool, I know how the people walk in London quite as well as you do.' Lady Blood had once passed three months in London, while Sir Patrick had been alive, whereas Mrs. Dachpool had never done more than visit the metropolis for a day or two. "'Oh, no doubt,' said Mrs. Dachpool, "'but I never can understand what it is that people expect. I suppose Mr. Monk ought to have come with his stars on the breast of his coat, to have pleased Lady Blood. "'My dear, Mrs. Dachpool, Cabinet Ministers don't have stars,' said Lady Blood. "'I never said they did,' said Mrs. Dachpool. "'He is so nice and gentle to talk to,' said Mrs. Finn. "'You may say what you will, but men who are high up do very often give themselves airs. Now I must say that this friend of my son's does not do anything of that kind.' "'Not the least,' said Mrs. Calligan. "'Quite the contrary,' said Mrs. Dachpool. "'I dare say he is a wonderful man,' said Lady Blood. "'All I say is that I didn't hear anything wonderful come out of his mouth. And as for people in Ennis walking on two legs, I have seen donkeys and limerick doing just the same thing.' Now it was well known that Mrs. Dachpool had two sons living in limerick, as to neither of whom was it expected that he would set the Shannon on fire. After this little speech there was no further mention of Mr. Monk, as it became necessary that all the good nature of Mrs. Finn, and all the tact of Mrs. Flood-Jones, and all the energy of Mrs. Calligan, should be used to prevent the raging of an internecine battle between Mrs. Dachpool and Lady Blood.