But the reader should understand more than this, and may perhaps do so, if he has ever seen those former chronicles to which allusion has been made. The Duke, before he became a duke, had held very high office, having been Chancellor of the Exchequer. When he was transferred, perforce, to the House of Lords, he had,—as is not uncommon in such cases,—accepted a lower political station. This had displeased the Duchess, who was ambitious both on her own behalf and that of her lord,—and who thought that a Duke of Omnium should be nothing in the Government if not at any rate near the top. But after that, with the simple and single object of doing some special piece of work for the nation,—something which he fancied that nobody else would do if he didn't do it,—his Grace, of his own motion, at his own solicitation, had encountered further official degradation, very much to the disgust of the Duchess. And it was not the way with her Grace to hide such sorrows in the depth of her bosom. When affronted she would speak out, whether to her husband, or to another,—using irony rather than argument to support her cause and to vindicate her ways. The shafts of ridicule hurled by her against her husband in regard to his voluntary abasement had been many and sharp. They stung him, but never for a moment influenced him. And though they stung him, they did not even anger him. It was her nature to say such things,—and he knew that they came rather from her uncontrolled spirit than from any malice. She was his wife too, and he had an idea that of little injuries of that sort there should be no end of bearing on the part of a husband. Sometimes he would endeavour to explain to her the motives which actuated him; but he had come to fear that they were and must ever be unintelligible to her. But he credited her with less than her real intelligence. She did understand the nature of his work and his reasons for doing it; and, after her own fashion, did what she conceived to be her own work in endeavouring to create within his bosom a desire for higher things. "Surely," she said to herself, "if a man of his rank is to be a minister he should be a great minister;—at any rate as great as his circumstances will make him. A man never can save his country by degrading himself." In this he would probably have agreed; but his idea of degradation and hers hardly tallied.

When therefore she asked him what they were going to make him, it was as though some sarcastic housekeeper in a great establishment should ask the butler,—some butler too prone to yield in such matters,—whether the master had appointed him lately to the cleaning of shoes or the carrying of coals. Since these knots had become so very tight, and since the journeys to Windsor had become so very frequent, her Grace had asked many such questions, and had received but very indifferent replies. The Duke had sometimes declared that the matter was not ripe enough to allow him to make any answer. "Of course," said the Duchess, "you should keep the secret. The editors of the evening papers haven't known it for above an hour." At another time he told her that he had undertaken to give Mr. Gresham his assistance in any way in which it might be asked. "Joint Under-Secretary with Lord Fawn, I should say," answered the Duchess. Then he told her that he believed an attempt would be made at a mixed ministry, but that he did not in the least know to whom the work of doing so would be confided. "You will be about the last man who will be told," replied the Duchess. Now, at this moment, he had, as she knew, come direct from the house of Mr. Gresham, and she asked her question in her usual spirit. "And what are they going to make you now?"

But he did not answer the question in his usual manner. He would customarily smile gently at her badinage, and perhaps say a word intended to show that he was not in the least moved by her raillery. But in this instance he was very grave, and stood before her a moment making no answer at all, looking at her in a sad and almost solemn manner. "They have told you that they can do without you," she said, breaking out almost into a passion. "I knew how it would be. Men are always valued by others as they value themselves."

"I wish it were so," he replied. "I should sleep easier to-night."

"What is it, Plantagenet?" she exclaimed, jumping up from her chair.

"I never cared for your ridicule hitherto, Cora; but now I feel that I want your sympathy."

"If you are going to do anything,—to do really anything, you shall have it. Oh, how you shall have it!"

"I have received her Majesty's orders to go down to Windsor at once. I must start within half-an-hour."

"You are going to be Prime Minister!" she exclaimed. As she spoke she threw her arms up, and then rushed into his embrace. Never since their first union had she been so demonstrative either of love or admiration. "Oh, Plantagenet," she said, "if I can only do anything I will slave for you." As he put his arm round her waist he already felt the pleasantness of her altered way to him. She had never worshipped him yet, and therefore her worship when it did come had all the delight to him which it ordinarily has to the newly married hero.

"Stop a moment, Cora. I do not know how it may be yet. But this I know, that if without cowardice I could avoid this task, I would certainly avoid it."

"Oh no! And there would be cowardice; of course there would," said the Duchess, not much caring what might be the bonds which bound him to the task so long as he should certainly feel himself to be bound.

"He has told me that he thinks it my duty to make the attempt."

"Who is he?"

"Mr. Gresham. I do not know that I should have felt myself bound by him, but the Duke said so also." This duke was our duke's old friend, the Duke of St. Bungay.

"Was he there? And who else?"

"No one else. It is no case for exultation, Cora, for the chances are that I shall fail. The Duke has promised to help me, on condition that one or two he has named are included, and that one or two whom he has also named are not. In each case I should myself have done exactly as he proposes."

"And Mr. Gresham?"

"He will retire. That is a matter of course. He will intend to support us; but all that is veiled in the obscurity which is always, I think, darker as to the future of politics than any other future. Clouds arise, one knows not why or whence, and create darkness when one expected light. But as yet, you must understand, nothing is settled. I cannot even say what answer I may make to her Majesty, till I know what commands her Majesty may lay upon me."

"You must keep a hold of it now, Plantagenet," said the Duchess, clenching her own fist.

"I will not even close a finger on it with any personal ambition," said the Duke. "If I could be relieved from the burden this moment it would be an ease to my heart. I remember once," he said,—and as he spoke he again put his arm around her waist, "when I was debarred from taking office by a domestic circumstance."

"I remember that too," she said, speaking very gently and looking up at him.

"It was a grief to me at the time, though it turned out so well,—because the office then suggested to me was one which I thought I could fill with credit to the country. I believed in myself then as far as that work went. But for this attempt I have no belief in myself. I doubt whether I have any gift for governing men."

"It will come."

"It may be that I must try;—and it may be that I must break my heart because I fail. But I shall make the attempt if I am directed to do so in any manner that shall seem feasible. I must be off now. The Duke is to be here this evening. They had better have dinner ready for me whenever I may be able to eat it." Then he took his departure before she could say another word.

When the Duchess was alone she took to thinking of the whole thing in a manner which they who best knew her would have thought to be very unusual with her. She already possessed all that rank and wealth could give her, and together with those good things a peculiar position of her own, of which she was proud, and which she had made her own not by her wealth or rank, but by a certain fearless energy and power of raillery which never deserted her. Many feared her and she was afraid of none, and many also loved her,—whom she also loved, for her nature was affectionate. She was happy with her children, happy with her friends, in the enjoyment of perfect health, and capable of taking an exaggerated interest in anything that might come uppermost for the moment. One would have been inclined to say that politics were altogether unnecessary to her, and that as Duchess of Omnium, lately known as Lady Glencora Palliser, she had a wider and a pleasanter influence than could belong to any woman as wife of a Prime Minister. And she was essentially one of those women who are not contented to be known simply as the wives of their husbands. She had a celebrity of her own, quite independent of his position, and which could not be enhanced by any glory or any power added to him. Nevertheless, when he left her to go down to the Queen with the prospect of being called upon to act as chief of the incoming ministry, her heart throbbed with excitement. It had come at last, and he would be, to her thinking, the leading man in the greatest kingdom in the world.

But she felt in regard to him somewhat as did Lady Macbeth towards her lord.

"What thou would'st highly, That would'st thou holily."

She knew him to be full of scruples, unable to bend when aught was to be got by bending, unwilling to domineer when men might be brought to subjection only by domination. The first duty never could be taught to him. To win support by smiles when his heart was bitter within him would never be within the power of her husband. He could never be brought to buy an enemy by political gifts,—would never be prone to silence his keenest opponent by making him his right hand supporter. But the other lesson was easier and might she thought be learned. Power is so pleasant that men quickly learn to be greedy in the enjoyment of it, and to flatter themselves that patriotism requires them to be imperious. She would be constant with him day and night to make him understand that his duty to his country required him to be in very truth its chief ruler. And then with some knowledge of things as they are,—and also with much ignorance,—she reflected that he had at his command a means of obtaining popularity and securing power, which had not belonged to his immediate predecessors, and had perhaps never to the same extent been at the command of any minister in England. His wealth as Duke of Omnium had been great; but hers, as available for immediate purposes, had been greater even than his. After some fashion, of which she was profoundly ignorant, her own property was separated from his and reserved to herself and her children. Since her marriage she had never said a word to him about her money,—unless it were to ask that something out of the common course might be spent on some, generally absurd, object. But now had come the time for squandering money. She was not only rich but she had a popularity that was exclusively her own. The new Prime Minister and the new Prime Minister's wife should entertain after a fashion that had never yet been known even among the nobility of England. Both in town and country those great mansions should be kept open which were now rarely much used because she had found them dull, cold, and comfortless. In London there should not be a Member of Parliament whom she would not herself know and influence by her flattery and grace,—or if there were men whom she could not influence, they should live as men tabooed and unfortunate. Money mattered nothing. Their income was enormous, and for a series of years,—for half-a-dozen years if the game could be kept up so long,—they could spend treble what they called their income without real injury to their children. Visions passed through her brain of wondrous things which might be done,—if only her husband would be true to his own greatness.

The Duke had left her about two. She did not stir out of the house that day, but in the course of the afternoon she wrote a line to a friend who lived not very far from her. The Duchess dwelt in Carlton Terrace, and her friend in Park Lane. The note was as follows:—

DEAR M.,

Come to me at once. I am too excited to go to you.

Yours,

G.

This was addressed to one Mrs. Finn, a lady as to whom chronicles also have been written, and who has been known to the readers of such chronicles as a friend dearly loved by the Duchess. As quickly as she could put on her carriage garments and get herself taken to Carlton Terrace, Mrs. Finn was there. "Well, my dear, how do you think it's all settled at last?" said the Duchess. It will probably be felt that the new Prime Minister's wife was indiscreet, and hardly worthy of the confidence placed in her by her husband. But surely we all have some one friend to whom we tell everything, and with the Duchess Mrs. Finn was that one friend.

"Is the Duke to be Prime Minister?"

"How on earth should you have guessed that?"

"What else could make you so excited? Besides, it is by no means strange. I understand that they have gone on trying the two old stagers till it is useless to try them any longer; and if there is to be a fresh man, no one would be more likely than the Duke."

"Do you think so?"

"Certainly. Why not?"

"He has frittered away his political position by such meaningless concessions. And then he had never done anything to put himself forward,—at any rate since he left the House of Commons. Perhaps I haven't read things right,—but I was surprised, very much surprised."

"And gratified?"

"Oh yes. I can tell you everything, because you will neither misunderstand me nor tell tales of me. Yes,—I shall like him to be Prime Minister, though I know that I shall have a bad time of it myself."

"Why a bad time?"

"He is so hard to manage. Of course I don't mean about politics. Of course it must be a mixed kind of thing at first, and I don't care a straw whether it run to Radicalism or Toryism. The country goes on its own way, either for better or for worse, whichever of them are in. I don't think it makes any difference as to what sort of laws are passed. But among ourselves, in our set, it makes a deal of difference who gets the garters, and the counties, who are made barons and then earls, and whose name stands at the head of everything."

"That is your way of looking at politics?"

"I own it to you;—and I must teach it to him."

"You never will do that, Lady Glen."

"Never is a long word. I mean to try. For look back and tell me of any Prime Minister who has become sick of his power. They become sick of the want of power when it's falling away from them,—and then they affect to disdain and put aside the thing they can no longer enjoy. Love of power is a kind of feeling which comes to a man as he grows older."

"Politics with the Duke have been simple patriotism," said Mrs. Finn.

"The patriotism may remain, my dear, but not the simplicity. I don't want him to sell his country to Germany, or to turn it into an American republic in order that he may be president. But when he gets the reins in his hands, I want him to keep them there. If he's so much honester than other people, of course he's the best man for the place. We must make him believe that the very existence of the country depends on his firmness."

"To tell you the truth, Lady Glen, I don't think you'll ever make the Duke believe anything. What he believes, he believes either from very old habit, or from the working of his own mind."

"You're always singing his praises, Marie."

"I don't know that there is any special praise in what I say; but as far as I can see, it is the man's character."

"Mr. Finn will come in, of course," said the Duchess.

"Mr. Finn will be like the Duke in one thing. He'll take his own way as to being in or out quite independently of his wife."

"You'd like him to be in office?"

"No, indeed! Why should I? He would be more often at the House, and keep later hours, and be always away all the morning into the bargain. But I shall like him to do as he likes himself."

"Fancy thinking of all that. I'd sit up all night every night of my life.—I'd listen to every debate in the House myself,—to have Plantagenet Prime Minister. I like to be busy. Well now, if it does come off—"

"It isn't settled, then?"

"How can one hope that a single journey will settle it, when those other men have been going backwards and forwards between Windsor and London, like buckets in a well, for the last three weeks? But if it is settled, I mean to have a cabinet of my own, and I mean that you shall do the foreign affairs."

"You'd better let me be at the exchequer. I'm very good at accounts."

"I'll do that myself. The accounts that I intend to set a-going would frighten any one less audacious. And I mean to be my own home secretary, and to keep my own conscience,—and to be my own master of the ceremonies certainly. I think a small cabinet gets on best. Do you know,—I should like to put the Queen down."

"What on earth do you mean?"

"No treason; nothing of that kind. But I should like to make Buckingham Palace second-rate; and I'm not quite sure but I can. I dare say you don't quite understand me."

"I don't think that I do, Lady Glen."

"You will some of these days. Come in to-morrow before lunch. I suppose I shall know all about it then, and shall have found that my basket of crockery has been kicked over and every thing smashed."



CHAPTER VII

Another Old Friend

At about nine the Duke had returned, and was eating his very simple dinner in the breakfast-room,—a beefsteak and a potato, with a glass of sherry and Apollinaris water. No man more easily satisfied as to what he eat and drank lived in London in those days. As regarded the eating and drinking he dined alone, but his wife sat with him and waited on him, having sent the servant out of the room. "I have told her Majesty that I would do the best I could," said the Duke.

"Then you are Prime Minister."

"Not at all. Mr. Daubeny is Prime Minister. I have undertaken to form a ministry, if I find it practicable, with the assistance of such friends as I possess. I never felt before that I had to lean so entirely on others as I do now."

"Lean on yourself only. Be enough for yourself."

"Those are empty words, Cora;—words that are quite empty. In one sense a man should always be enough for himself. He should have enough of principle and enough of conscience to restrain him from doing what he knows to be wrong. But can a ship-builder build his ship single-handed, or the watchmaker make his watch without assistance? On former occasions such as this, I could say, with little or no help from without, whether I would or would not undertake the work that was proposed to me, because I had only a bit of the ship to build, or a wheel of the watch to make. My own efficacy for my present task depends entirely on the co-operation of others, and unfortunately upon that of some others with whom I have no sympathy, nor have they with me."

"Leave them out," said the Duchess boldly.

"But they are men who will not be left out, and whose services the country has a right to expect."

"Then bring them in, and think no more about it. It is no good crying for pain that cannot be cured."

"Co-operation is difficult without community of feeling. I find myself to be too stubborn-hearted for the place. It was nothing to me to sit in the same Cabinet with a man I disliked when I had not put him there myself. But now—. As I have travelled up I have almost felt that I could not do it! I did not know before how much I might dislike a man."

"Who is the one man?"

"Nay;—whoever he be, he will have to be a friend now, and therefore I will not name him, even to you. But it is not one only. If it were one, absolutely marked and recognised, I might avoid him. But my friends, real friends, are so few! Who is there besides the Duke on whom I can lean with both confidence and love?"

"Lord Cantrip."

"Hardly so, Cora. But Lord Cantrip goes out with Mr. Gresham. They will always cling together."

"You used to like Mr. Mildmay."

"Mr. Mildmay,—yes! If there could be a Mr. Mildmay in the Cabinet, this trouble would not come upon my shoulders."

"Then I'm very glad that there can't be a Mr. Mildmay. Why shouldn't there be as good fish in the sea as ever were caught out of it?"

"When you've got a good fish you like to make as much of it as you can."

"I suppose Mr. Monk will join you."

"I think we shall ask him. But I am not prepared to discuss men's names as yet."

"You must discuss them with the Duke immediately."

"Probably;—but I had better discuss them with him before I fix my own mind by naming them even to you."

"You'll bring Mr. Finn in, Plantagenet?"

"Mr. Finn!"

"Yes;—Phineas Finn,—the man who was tried."

"My dear Cora, we haven't come down to that yet. We need not at any rate trouble ourselves about the small fishes till we are sure that we can get big fishes to join us."

"I don't know why he should be a small fish. No man has done better than he has; and if you want a man to stick to you—"

"I don't want a man to stick to me. I want a man to stick to his country."

"You were talking about sympathy."

"Well, yes;—I was. But do not name any one else just at present. The Duke will be here soon, and I would be alone till he comes."

"There is one thing I want to say, Plantagenet."

"What is it?"

"One favour I want to ask."

"Pray do not ask anything for any man just at present."

"It is not anything for any man."

"Nor for any woman."

"It is for a woman,—but one whom I think you would wish to oblige."

"Who is it?" Then she curtseyed, smiling at him drolly, and put her hand upon her breast. "Something for you! What on earth can you want that I can do for you?"

"Will you do it,—if it be reasonable?"

"If I think it reasonable, I certainly will do it."

Then her manner changed altogether, and she became serious and almost solemn. "If, as I suppose, all the great places about her Majesty be changed, I should like to be Mistress of the Robes."

"You!" said he, almost startled out of his usual quiet demeanour.

"Why not I? Is not my rank high enough?"

"You burden yourself with the intricacies and subserviences, with the tedium and pomposities of Court life! Cora, you do not know what you are talking about, or what you are proposing for yourself."

"If I am willing to try to undertake a duty, why should I be debarred from it any more than you?"

"Because I have put myself into a groove, and ground myself into a mould, and clipped and pared and pinched myself all round,—very ineffectually, as I fear,—to fit myself for this thing. You have lived as free as air. You have disdained,—and though I may have grumbled I have still been proud to see you disdain,—to wrap yourself in the swaddling bandages of Court life. You have ridiculed all those who have been near her Majesty as Court ladies."

"The individuals, Plantagenet, perhaps; but not the office. I am getting older now, and I do not see why I should not begin a new life." She had been somewhat quelled by his unexpected energy, and was at the moment hardly able to answer him with her usual spirit.

"Do not think of it, my dear. You asked whether your rank was high enough. It must be so, as there is, as it happens, none higher. But your position, should it come to pass that your husband is the head of the Government, will be too high. I may say that in no condition should I wish my wife to be subject to other restraint than that which is common to all married women. I should not choose that she should have any duties unconnected with our joint family and home. But as First Minister of the Crown I would altogether object to her holding an office believed to be at my disposal." She looked at him with her large eyes wide open, and then left him without a word. She had no other way of showing her displeasure, for she knew that when he spoke as he had spoken now all argument was unavailing.

The Duke remained an hour alone before he was joined by the other Duke, during which he did not for a moment apply his mind to the subject which might be thought to be most prominent in his thoughts,—the filling up, namely, of a list of his new government. All that he could do in that direction without further assistance had been already done very easily. There were four or five certain names,—names that is of certain political friends, and three or four almost equally certain of men who had been political enemies, but who would now clearly be asked to join the ministry. Sir Gregory Grogram, the late Attorney-General, would of course be asked to resume his place; but Sir Timothy Beeswax, who was up to this moment Solicitor-General for the Conservatives, would also be invited to retain that which he held. Many details were known, not only to the two dukes who were about to patch up the ministry between them, but to the political world at large,—and were facts upon which the newspapers were able to display their wonderful foresight and general omniscience with their usual confidence. And as to the points which were in doubt,—whether or not, for instance, that consistent old Tory Sir Orlando Drought should be asked to put up with the Post-office or should be allowed to remain at the Colonies,—the younger Duke did not care to trouble himself till the elder should have come to his assistance. But his own position and his questionable capacity for filling it,—that occupied all his mind. If nominally first he would be really first. Of so much it seemed to him that his honour required him to assure himself. To be a faineant ruler was in direct antagonism both to his conscience and his predilections. To call himself by a great name before the world, and then to be something infinitely less than that name, would be to him a degradation. But though he felt fixed as to that, he was by no means assured as to that other point, which to most men firm in their resolves as he was, and backed up as he had been by the confidence of others, would be cause of small hesitation. He did doubt his ability to fill that place which it would now be his duty to occupy. He more than doubted. He told himself again and again that there was wanting to him a certain noble capacity for commanding support and homage from other men. With things and facts he could deal, but human beings had not opened themselves to him. But now it was too late! and yet,—as he said to his wife,—to fail would break his heart! No ambition had prompted him. He was sure of himself there. One only consideration had forced him into this great danger, and that had been the assurance of others that it was his manifest duty to encounter it. And now there was clearly no escape,—no escape compatible with that clean-handed truth from which it was not possible for him to swerve. He might create difficulties in order that through them a way might still be opened to him of restoring to the Queen the commission which had been entrusted to him. He might insist on this or that impossible concession. But the memory of escape such as that would break his heart as surely as the failure.

When the Duke was announced he rose to greet his old friend almost with fervour. "It is a shame," he said, "to bring you out so late. I ought to have gone to you."

"Not at all. It is always the rule in these cases that the man who has most to do should fix himself as well as he can where others may be able to find him." The Duke of St. Bungay was an old man, between seventy and eighty, with hair nearly white, and who on entering the room had to unfold himself out of various coats and comforters. But he was in full possession not only of his intellects but of his bodily power, showing, as many politicians do show, that the cares of the nation may sit upon a man's shoulders for many years without breaking or even bending them. For the Duke had belonged to ministries for nearly the last half century. As the chronicles have also dealt with him, no further records of his past life shall now be given.

He had said something about the Queen, expressing gracious wishes for the comfort of her Majesty in all these matters, something of the inconvenience of these political journeys to and fro, something also of the delicacy and difficulty of the operations on hand which were enhanced by the necessity of bringing men together as cordial allies who had hitherto acted with bitter animosity one to another, before the younger Duke said a word. "We may as well," said the elder, "make out some small provisional list, and you can ask those you name to be with you early to-morrow. But perhaps you have already made a list."

"No indeed. I have not even had a pencil in my hand."

"We may as well begin then," said the elder, facing the table when he saw that his less-experienced companion made no attempt at beginning.

"There is something horrible to me in the idea of writing down men's names for such a work as this, just as boys at school used to draw out the elevens for a cricket match." The old stager turned round and stared at the younger politician. "The thing itself is so momentous that one ought to have aid from heaven."

Plantagenet Palliser was the last man from whom the Duke of St. Bungay would have expected romance at any time, and, least of all, at such a time as this. "Aid from heaven you may have," he said, "by saying your prayers; and I don't doubt you ask it for this and all other things generally. But an angel won't come to tell you who ought to be Chancellor of the Exchequer."

"No angel will, and therefore I wish that I could wash my hands of it." His old friend still stared at him. "It is like sacrilege to me, attempting this without feeling one's own fitness for the work. It unmans me,—this necessity of doing that which I know I cannot do with fitting judgment."

"Your mind has been a little too hard at work to-day."

"It hasn't been at work at all. I've had nothing to do, and have been unable really to think of work. But I feel that chance circumstances have put me into a position for which I am unfit, and which yet I have been unable to avoid. How much better would it be that you should do this alone,—you yourself."

"Utterly out of the question. I do know and think that I always have known my own powers. Neither has my aptitude in debate nor my capacity for work justified me in looking to the premiership. But that, forgive me, is now not worthy of consideration. It is because you do work and can work, and because you have fitted yourself for that continued course of lucid explanation which we now call debate, that men on both sides have called upon you as the best man to come forward in this difficulty. Excuse me, my friend, again, if I say that I expect to find your manliness equal to your capacity."

"If I could only escape from it!"

"Psha;—nonsense!" said the old Duke, getting up. "There is such a thing as a conscience with so fine an edge that it will allow a man to do nothing. You've got to serve your country. On such assistance as I can give you you know that you may depend with absolute assurance. Now let us get to work. I suppose you would wish that I should take the chair at the Council."

"Certainly;—of course," said the Duke of Omnium, turning to the table. The one practical suggestion had fixed him, and from that moment he gave himself to the work in hand with all his energies. It was not very difficult, nor did it take them a very long time. If the future Prime Minister had not his names at his fingers' ends, the future President of the Council had them. Eight men were soon named whom it was thought well that the Duke of Omnium should consult early in the morning as to their willingness to fill certain places.

"Each one of them may have some other one or some two whom he may insist on bringing with him," said the elder Duke; "and though of course you cannot yield to the pressure in every such case, it will be wise to allow yourself scope for some amount of concession. You'll find they'll shake down after the usual amount of resistance and compliance. No;—don't you leave your house to-morrow to see anybody unless it be Mr. Daubeny or her Majesty. I'll come to you at two, and if her Grace will give me luncheon, I'll lunch with her. Good night, and don't think too much of the bigness of the thing. I remember dear old Lord Brock telling me how much more difficult it was to find a good coachman than a good Secretary of State." The Duke of Omnium, as he sat thinking of things for the next hour in his chair, succeeded only in proving to himself that Lord Brock never ought to have been Prime Minister of England after having ventured to make so poor a joke on so solemn a subject.



CHAPTER VIII

The Beginning of a New Career

By the time that the Easter holidays were over,—holidays which had been used so conveniently for the making of a new government,—the work of getting a team together had been accomplished by the united energy of the two dukes and other friends. The filling up of the great places had been by no means so difficult or so tedious,—nor indeed the cause of half so many heartburns,—as the completion of the list of the subordinates. Noblesse oblige. The Secretaries of State, and the Chancellors, and the First Lords, selected from this or the other party, felt that the eyes of mankind were upon them, and that it behoved them to assume a virtue if they had it not. They were habitually indifferent to self-exaltation, and allowed themselves to be thrust into this or that unfitting role, professing that the Queen's Government and the good of the country were their only considerations. Lord Thrift made way for Sir Orlando Drought at the Admiralty, because it was felt on all sides that Sir Orlando could not join the new composite party without high place. And the same grace was shown in regard to Lord Drummond, who remained at the Colonies, keeping the office to which he had been lately transferred under Mr. Daubeny. And Sir Gregory Grogram said not a word, whatever he may have thought, when he was told that Mr. Daubeny's Lord Chancellor, Lord Ramsden, was to keep the seals. Sir Gregory did, no doubt, think very much about it; for legal offices have a signification differing much from that which attaches itself to places simply political. A Lord Chancellor becomes a peer, and on going out of office enjoys a large pension. When the woolsack has been reached there comes an end of doubt, and a beginning of ease. Sir Gregory was not a young man, and this was a terrible blow. But he bore it manfully, saying not a word when the Duke spoke to him; but he became convinced from that moment that no more inefficient lawyer ever sat upon the English bench, or a more presumptuous politician in the British Parliament, than Lord Ramsden.

The real struggle, however, lay in the appropriate distribution of the Rattlers and the Robys, the Fitzgibbons and the Macphersons among the subordinate offices of State. Mr. Macpherson and Mr. Roby, with a host of others who had belonged to Mr. Daubeny, were prepared, as they declared from the first, to lend their assistance to the Duke. They had consulted Mr. Daubeny on the subject, and Mr. Daubeny told them that their duty lay in that direction. At the first blush of the matter the arrangement took the form of a gracious tender from themselves to a statesman called upon to act in very difficult circumstances,—and they were thanked accordingly by the Duke, with something of real cordial gratitude. But when the actual adjustment of things was in hand, the Duke, having but little power of assuming a soft countenance and using soft words while his heart was bitter, felt on more than one occasion inclined to withdraw his thanks. He was astounded not so much by the pretensions as by the unblushing assertion of these pretensions in reference to places which he had been innocent enough to think were always bestowed at any rate without direct application. He had measured himself rightly when he told the older duke in one of those anxious conversations which had been held before the attempt was made, that long as he had been in office himself he did not know what was the way of bestowing office. "Two gentlemen have been here this morning," he said one day to the Duke of St. Bungay, "one on the heels of the other, each assuring me not only that the whole stability of the enterprise depends on my giving a certain office to him,—but actually telling me to my face that I had promised it to him!" The old statesman laughed. "To be told within the same half-hour by two men that I had made promises to each of them inconsistent with each other!"

"Who were the two men?"

"Mr. Rattler and Mr. Roby."

"I am assured that they are inseparable since the work was begun. They always had a leaning to each other, and now I hear they pass their time between the steps of the Carlton and Reform Clubs."

"But what am I to do? One must be Patronage Secretary, no doubt."

"They're both good, men in their way, you know."

"But why do they come to me with their mouths open, like dogs craving a bone? It used not to be so. Of course men were always anxious for office as they are now."

"Well; yes. We've heard of that before to-day, I think."

"But I don't think any man ever ventured to ask Mr. Mildmay."

"Time had done much for him in consolidating his authority, and perhaps the present world is less reticent in its eagerness than it was in his younger days. I doubt, however, whether it is more dishonest, and whether struggles were not made quite as disgraceful to the strugglers as anything that is done now. You can't alter the men, and you must use them." The younger Duke sat down and sighed over the degenerate patriotism of the age.

But at last even the Rattlers and Robys were fixed, if not satisfied, and a complete list of the ministry appeared in all the newspapers. Though the thing had been long a-doing, still it had come suddenly,—so that at the first proposition to form a coalition ministry, the newspapers had hardly known whether to assist or to oppose the scheme. There was no doubt, in the minds of all these editors and contributors, the teaching of a tradition that coalitions of this kind have been generally feeble, sometimes disastrous, and on occasions even disgraceful. When a man, perhaps through a long political life, has bound himself to a certain code of opinions, how can he change that code at a moment? And when at the same moment, together with the change, he secures power, patronage, and pay, how shall the public voice absolve him? But then again men, who have by the work of their lives grown into a certain position in the country, and have unconsciously but not therefore less actually made themselves indispensable either to this side in politics or to that, cannot free themselves altogether from the responsibility of managing them when a period comes such as that now reached. This also the newspapers perceived; and having, since the commencement of the Session, been very loud in exposing the disgraceful collapse of government affairs, could hardly refuse their support to any attempt at a feasible arrangement. When it was first known that the Duke of Omnium had consented to make the attempt, they had both on one side and the other been loud in his praise, going so far as to say that he was the only man in England who could do the work. It was probably this encouragement which had enabled the new Premier to go on with an undertaking which was personally distasteful to him, and for which from day to day he believed himself to be less and less fit. But when the newspapers told him that he was the only man for the occasion, how could he be justified in crediting himself in preference to them?

The work in Parliament began under the new auspices with great tranquillity. That there would soon come causes of hot blood,—the English Church, the county suffrage, the income tax, and further education questions,—all men knew who knew anything. But for the moment, for the month even, perhaps for the Session, there was to be peace, with full latitude for the performance of routine duties. There was so to say no opposition, and at first it seemed that one special bench in the House of Commons would remain unoccupied. But after a day or two,—on one of which Mr. Daubeny had been seen sitting just below the gangway,—that gentleman returned to the place usually held by the Prime Minister's rival, saying with a smile that it might be for the convenience of the House that the seat should be utilised. Mr. Gresham at this time had, with declared purpose, asked and obtained the Speaker's leave of absence and was abroad. Who should lead the House? That had been a great question, caused by the fact that the Prime Minister was in the House of Lords;—and what office should the Leader hold? Mr. Monk had consented to take the Exchequer, but the right to sit opposite to the Treasury Box and to consider himself for the time the principal spirit in that chamber was at last assigned to Sir Orlando Drought. "It will never do," said Mr. Rattler to Mr. Roby. "I don't mean to say anything against Drought, who has always been a very useful man to your party;—but he lacks something of the position."

"The fact is," said Roby, "that we've trusted to two men so long that we don't know how to suppose any one else big enough to fill their places. Monk wouldn't have done. The House doesn't care about Monk."

"I always thought it should be Wilson, and so I told the Duke. He had an idea that it should be one of your men."

"I think he's right there," said Roby. "There ought to be something like a fair division. Individuals might be content, but the party would be dissatisfied. For myself, I'd have sooner stayed out as an independent member, but Daubeny said that he thought I was bound to make myself useful."

"I told the Duke from the beginning," said Rattler, "that I didn't think that I could be of any service to him. Of course, I would support him, but I had been too thoroughly a party man for a new movement of this kind. But he said just the same!—that he considered I was bound to join him. I asked Gresham, and when Gresham said so too, of course I had no help for it."

Neither of these excellent public servants had told a lie in this. Some such conversations as those reported had passed;—but a man doesn't lie when he exaggerates an emphasis, or even when he gives by a tone a meaning to a man's words exactly opposite to that which another tone would convey. Or, if he does lie in doing so, he does not know that he lies. Mr. Rattler had gone back to his old office at the Treasury and Mr. Roby had been forced to content himself with the Secretaryship at the Admiralty. But, as the old Duke had said, they were close friends, and prepared to fight together any battle which might keep them in their present position.

Many of the cares of office the Prime Minister did succeed in shuffling off altogether on to the shoulders of his elder friend. He would not concern himself with the appointment of ladies, about whom he said he knew nothing, and as to whose fitness and claims he professed himself to be as ignorant as the office messenger. The offers were of course made in the usual form, as though coming direct from the Queen, through the Prime Minister;—but the selections were in truth effected by the old Duke in council with—an illustrious personage. The matter affected our Duke,—only in so far that he could not get out of his mind that strange application from his own wife. "That she should have even dreamed of it!" he would say to himself, not yet having acquired sufficient experience of his fellow creatures to be aware how wonderfully temptations will affect even those who appear to be least subject to them. The town horse, used to gaudy trappings, no doubt despises the work of his country brother; but yet, now and again, there comes upon him a sudden desire to plough. The desire for ploughing had come upon the Duchess, but the Duke could not understand it.

He perceived, however, in spite of the multiplicity of his official work, that his refusal sat heavily on his wife's breast, and that, though she spoke no further word, she brooded over her injury. And his heart was sad within him when he thought that he had vexed her,—loving her as he did with all his heart, but with a heart that was never demonstrative. When she was unhappy he was miserable, though he would hardly know the cause of his misery. Her ridicule and raillery he could bear, though they stung him; but her sorrow, if ever she were sorrowful, or her sullenness, if ever she were sullen, upset him altogether. He was in truth so soft of heart that he could not bear the discomfort of the one person in the world who seemed to him to be near to him. He had expressly asked her for her sympathy in the business he had on hand,—thereby going much beyond his usual coldness of manner. She, with an eagerness which might have been expected from her, had promised that she would slave for him, if slavery were necessary. Then she had made her request, had been refused, and was now moody. "The Duchess of —— is to be Mistress of the Robes," he said to her one day. He had gone to her, up to her own room, before he dressed for dinner, having devoted much more time than as Prime Minister he ought to have done to a resolution that he would make things straight with her, and to the best way of doing it.

"So I am told. She ought to know her way about the place, as I remember she was at the same work when I was a girl of eleven."

"That's not so very long ago, Cora."

"Silverbridge is older now than I was then, and I think that makes it a very long time ago." Lord Silverbridge was the Duke's eldest son.

"But what does it matter? If she began her career in the time of George the Fourth, what is it to you?"

"Nothing on earth,—only that she did in truth begin her career in the time of George the Third. I'm sure she's nearer sixty than fifty."

"I'm glad to see you remember your dates so well."

"It's a pity she should not remember hers in the way she dresses," said the Duchess.

This was marvellous to him,—that his wife, who as Lady Glencora Palliser had been so conspicuous for a wild disregard of social rules as to be looked upon by many as an enemy of her own class, should be so depressed by not being allowed to be the Queen's head servant as to descend to personal invective! "I'm afraid," said he, attempting to smile, "that it won't come within the compass of my office to effect or even to propose any radical change in her Grace's apparel. But don't you think that you and I can afford to ignore all that?"

"I can certainly. She may be an antiquated Eve for me."

"I hope, Cora, you are not still disappointed because I did not agree with you when you spoke about the place for yourself."

"Not because you did not agree with me,—but because you did not think me fit to be trusted with any judgment of my own. I don't know why I'm always to be looked upon as different from other women,—as though I were half a savage."

"You are what you have made yourself, and I have always rejoiced that you are as you are, fresh, untrammelled, without many prejudices which afflict other ladies, and free from bonds by which they are cramped and confined. Of course such a turn of character is subject to certain dangers of its own."

"There is no doubt about the dangers. The chances are that when I see her Grace I shall tell her what I think about her."

"You will I am sure say nothing unkind to a lady who is supposed to be in the place she now fills by my authority. But do not let us quarrel about an old woman."

"I won't quarrel with you even about a young one."

"I cannot be at ease within myself while I think you are resenting my refusal. You do not know how constantly I carry you about with me."

"You carry a very unnecessary burden then," she said. But he could tell at once from the altered tone of her voice, and from the light of her eye as he glanced into her face, that her anger about "The Robes" was appeased.

"I have done as you asked about a friend of yours," he said. This occurred just before the final and perfected list of the new men had appeared in all the newspapers.

"What friend?"

"Mr. Finn is to go to Ireland."

"Go to Ireland!—How do you mean?"

"It is looked upon as being very great promotion. Indeed I am told that he is considered to be the luckiest man in all the scramble."

"You don't mean as Chief Secretary?"

"Yes, I do. He certainly couldn't go as Lord Lieutenant."

"But they said that Barrington Erle was going to Ireland."

"Well; yes. I don't know that you'd be interested by all the ins and outs of it. But Mr. Erle declined. It seems that Mr. Erle is after all the one man in Parliament modest enough not to consider himself to be fit for any place that can be offered to him."

"Poor Barrington! He does not like the idea of crossing the Channel so often. I quite sympathise with him. And so Phineas is to be Secretary for Ireland! Not in the Cabinet?"

"No;—not in the Cabinet. It is not by any means usual that he should be."

"That is promotion, and I am glad! Poor Phineas! I hope they won't murder him, or anything of that kind. They do murder people, you know, sometimes."

"He's an Irishman himself."

"That's just the reason why they should. He must put up with that of course. I wonder whether she'll like going. They'll be able to spend money, which they always like, over there. He comes backwards and forwards every week,—doesn't he?"

"Not quite that, I believe."

"I shall miss her, if she has to stay away long. I know you don't like her."

"I do like her. She has always behaved well, both to me and to my uncle."

"She was an angel to him,—and to you too, if you only knew it. I dare say you're sending him to Ireland so as to get her away from me." This she said with a smile, as though not meaning it altogether, but yet half meaning it.

"I have asked him to undertake the office," said the Duke solemnly, "because I am told that he is fit for it. But I did have some pleasure in proposing it to him because I thought that it would please you."

"It does please me, and I won't be cross any more, and the Duchess of —— may wear her clothes just as she pleases, or go without them. And as for Mrs. Finn, I don't see why she should be with him always when he goes. You can quite understand how necessary she is to me. But she is in truth the only woman in London to whom I can say what I think. And it is a comfort, you know, to have some one."

In this way the domestic peace of the Prime Minister was readjusted, and that sympathy and co-operation for which he had first asked was accorded to him. It may be a question whether on the whole the Duchess did not work harder than he did. She did not at first dare to expound to him those grand ideas which she had conceived in regard to magnificence and hospitality. She said nothing of any extraordinary expenditure of money. But she set herself to work after her own fashion, making to him suggestions as to dinners and evening receptions, to which he objected only on the score of time. "You must eat your dinner somewhere," she said, "and you need only come in just before we sit down, and go into your own room if you please without coming upstairs at all. I can at any rate do that part of it for you." And she did do that part of it with marvellous energy all through the month of May,—so that by the end of the month, within six weeks of the time at which she first heard of the Coalition Ministry, all the world had begun to talk of the Prime Minister's dinners, and of the receptions given by the Prime Minister's wife.



CHAPTER IX

Mrs. Dick's Dinner Party.—No. I

Our readers must not forget the troubles of poor Emily Wharton amidst the gorgeous festivities of the new Prime Minister. Throughout April and May she did not see Ferdinand Lopez. It may be remembered that on the night when the matter was discussed between her and her father, she promised him that she would not do so without his permission,—saying, however, at the same time very openly that her happiness depended on such permission being given to her. For two or three weeks not a word further was said between her and her father on the subject, and he had endeavoured to banish the subject from his mind,—feeling no doubt that if nothing further were ever said it would be so much the better. But then his daughter referred to the matter,—very plainly, with a simple question, and without disguise of her own feeling, but still in a manner which he could not bring himself to rebuke. "Aunt Harriet has asked me once or twice to go there of an evening, when you have been out. I have declined because I thought Mr. Lopez would be there. Must I tell her that I am not to meet Mr. Lopez, papa?"

"If she has him there on purpose to throw him in your way, I shall think very badly of her."

"But he has been in the habit of being there, papa. Of course if you are decided about this, it is better that I should not see him."

"Did I not tell you that I was decided?"

"You said you would make some further inquiry and speak to me again." Now Mr. Wharton had made inquiry, but had learned nothing to reassure himself;—neither had he been able to learn any fact, putting his finger on which he could point out to his daughter clearly that the marriage would be unsuitable for her. Of the man's ability and position, as certainly also of his manners, the world at large seemed to speak well. He had been blackballed at two clubs, but apparently without any defined reason. He lived as though he possessed a handsome income, and yet was in no degree fast or flashy. He was supposed to be an intimate friend of Mr. Mills Happerton, one of the partners in the world-famous commercial house of Hunky and Sons, which dealt in millions. Indeed there had been at one time a rumour that he was going to be taken into the house of Hunky and Sons as a junior partner. It was evident that many people had been favourably impressed by his outward demeanour, by his mode of talk, and by his way of living. But no one knew anything about him. With regard to his material position Mr. Wharton could of course ask direct questions if he pleased, and require evidence as to alleged property. But he felt that by doing so he would abandon his right to object to the man as being a Portuguese stranger, and he did not wish to have Ferdinand Lopez as a son-in-law, even though he should be a partner in Hunky and Sons, and able to maintain a gorgeous palace at South Kensington.

"I have made inquiry."

"Well, papa?"

"I don't know anything about him. Nobody knows anything about him."

"Could you not ask himself anything you want to know? If I might see him I would ask him."

"That would not do at all."

"It comes to this, papa, that I am to sever myself from a man to whom I am attached, and whom you must admit that I have been allowed to meet from day to day with no caution that his intimacy was unpleasant to you, because he is called—Lopez."

"It isn't that at all. There are English people of that name; but he isn't an Englishman."

"Of course, if you say so, papa, it must be so. I have told Aunt Harriet that I consider myself to be prohibited from meeting Mr. Lopez by what you have said; but I think, papa, you are a little—cruel to me."

"Cruel to you!" said Mr. Wharton, almost bursting into tears.

"I am as ready to obey as a child;—but, not being a child, I think I ought to have a reason." To this Mr. Wharton made no further immediate answer, but pulled his hair, and shuffled his feet about, and then escaped out of the room.

A few days afterwards his sister-in-law attacked him. "Are we to understand, Mr. Wharton, that Emily is not to meet Mr. Lopez again? It makes it very unpleasant, because he has been intimate at our house."

"I never said a word about her not meeting him. Of course I do not wish that any meeting should be contrived between them."

"As it stands now it is prejudicial to her. Of course it cannot but be observed, and it is so odd that a young lady should be forbidden to meet a certain man. It looks so unpleasant for her,—as though she had misbehaved herself."

"I have never thought so for a moment."

"Of course you have not. How could you have thought so, Mr. Wharton?"

"I say that I never did."

"What must he think when he knows,—as of course he does know,—that she has been forbidden to meet him? It must make him fancy that he is made very much of. All that is so very bad for a girl! Indeed it is, Mr. Wharton." Of course there was absolute dishonesty in all this on the part of Mrs. Roby. She was true enough to Emily's lover,—too true to him; but she was false to Emily's father. If Emily would have yielded to her she would have arranged meetings at her own house between the lovers altogether in opposition to the father. Nevertheless there was a show of reason about what she said which Mr. Wharton was unable to overcome. And at the same time there was a reality about his girl's sorrow which overcame him. He had never hitherto consulted any one about anything in his family, having always found his own information and intellect sufficient for his own affairs. But now he felt grievously in want of some pillar,—some female pillar,—on which he could lean. He did not know all Mrs. Roby's iniquities; but still he felt that she was not the pillar of which he was in need. There was no such pillar for his use, and he was driven to acknowledge to himself that in this distressing position he must be guided by his own strength, and his own lights. He thought it all out as well as he could in his own chamber, allowing his book or his brief to lie idle beside him for many a half-hour. But he was much puzzled both as to the extent of his own authority and the manner in which it should be used. He certainly had not desired his daughter not to meet the man. He could understand that unless some affront had been offered such an edict enforced as to the conduct of a young lady would induce all her acquaintance to suppose that she was either very much in love or else very prone to misbehave herself. He feared, indeed, that she was very much in love, but it would not be prudent to tell her secret to all the world. Perhaps it would be better that she should meet him,—always with the understanding that she was not to accept from him any peculiar attention. If she would be obedient in one particular, she would probably be so in the other;—and, indeed, he did not at all doubt her obedience. She would obey, but would take care to show him that she was made miserable by obeying. He began to foresee that he had a bad time before him.

And then as he still sat idle, thinking of it all, his mind wandered off to another view of the subject. Could he be happy, or even comfortable, if she were unhappy? Of course he endeavoured to convince himself that if he were bold, determined, and dictatorial with her, it would only be in order that her future happiness might be secured. A parent is often bound to disregard the immediate comfort of a child. But then was he sure that he was right? He of course had his own way of looking at life, but was it reasonable that he should force his girl to look at things with his eyes? The man was distasteful to him as being unlike his idea of an English gentleman, and as being without those far-reaching fibres and roots by which he thought that the solidity and stability of a human tree should be assured. But the world was changing around him every day. Royalty was marrying out of its degree. Peers' sons were looking only for money. And, more than that, peers' daughters were bestowing themselves on Jews and shopkeepers. Had he not better make the usual inquiry about the man's means, and, if satisfied on that head, let the girl do as she would? Added to all this there was growing on him a feeling that ultimately youth would as usual triumph over age, and that he would be beaten. If that were so, why worry himself, or why worry her?

On the day after Mrs. Roby's attack upon him he again saw that lady, having on this occasion sent round to ask her to come to him. "I want you to understand that I put no embargo on Emily as to meeting Mr. Lopez. I can trust her fully. I do not wish her to encourage his attentions, but I by no means wish her to avoid him."

"Am I to tell Emily what you say?"

"I will tell her myself. I think it better to say as much to you, as you seemed to be embarrassed by the fear that they might happen to see each other in your drawing-room."

"It was rather awkward;—wasn't it?"

"I have spoken now because you seemed to think so." His manner to her was not very pleasant, but Mrs. Roby had known him for many years, and did not care very much for his manner. She had an object to gain, and could put up with a good deal for the sake of her object.

"Very well. Then I shall know how to act. But, Mr. Wharton, I must say this, you know Emily has a will of her own, and you must not hold me responsible for anything that may occur." As soon as he heard this he almost resolved to withdraw the concession he had made;—but he did not do so.

Very soon after this there came a special invitation from Mr. and Mrs. Roby, asking the Whartons, father and daughter, to dine with them round the corner. It was quite a special invitation, because it came in the form of a card,—which was unusual between the two families. But the dinner was too, in some degree, a special dinner,—as Emily was enabled to explain to her father, the whole speciality having been fully detailed to herself by her aunt. Mr. Roby, whose belongings were not generally aristocratic, had one great connexion with whom, after many years of quarrelling, he had lately come into amity. This was his half-brother, considerably older than himself, and was no other than that Mr. Roby who was now Secretary to the Admiralty, and who in the last Conservative Government had been one of the Secretaries to the Treasury. The oldest Mr. Roby of all, now long since gathered to his fathers, had had two wives and two sons. The elder son had not been left as well off as friends, or perhaps as he himself, could have wished. But he had risen in the world by his wits, had made his way into Parliament, and had become, as all readers of these chronicles know, a staff of great strength to his party. But he had always been a poor man. His periods of office had been much shorter than those of his friend Rattler, and his other sources of income had not been certain. His younger half-brother, who, as far as the great world was concerned, had none of his elder brother's advantages, had been endowed with some fortune from his mother, and,—in an evil hour for both of them,—had lent the politician money. As one consequence of this transaction, they had not spoken to each other for years. On this quarrel Mrs. Roby was always harping with her own husband,—not taking his part. Her Roby, her Dick, had indeed the means of supporting her with a fair comfort, but had, of his own, no power of introducing her to that sort of society for which her soul craved. But Mr. Thomas Roby was a great man,—though unfortunately poor,—and moved in high circles. Because they had lent their money,—which no doubt was lost for ever,—why should they also lose the advantages of such a connexion? Would it not be wiser rather to take the debt as a basis whereon to found a claim for special fraternal observation and kindred social intercourse? Dick, who was fond of his money, would not for a long time look at the matter in this light, but harassed his brother from time to time by applications which were quite useless, and which by the acerbity of their language altogether shut Mrs. Roby out from the good things which might have accrued to her from so distinguished a brother-in-law. But when it came to pass that Thomas Roby was confirmed in office by the coalition which has been mentioned, Mrs. Dick became very energetic. She went herself to the official hero and told him how desirous she was of peace. Nothing more should be said about the money,—at any rate for the present. Let brothers be brothers. And so it came to pass that the Secretary to the Admiralty with his wife were to dine in Berkeley Street, and that Mr. Wharton was asked to meet them.

"I don't particularly want to meet Mr. Thomas Roby," the old barrister said.

"They want you to come," said Emily, "because there has been some family reconciliation. You usually do go once or twice a year."

"I suppose it may as well be done," said Mr. Wharton.

"I think, papa, that they mean to ask Mr. Lopez," said Emily demurely.

"I told you before that I don't want to have you banished from your aunt's home by any man," said the father. So the matter was settled, and the invitation was accepted. This was just at the end of May, at which time people were beginning to say that the coalition was a success, and some wise men to predict that at last fortuitous parliamentary atoms had so come together by accidental connexion, that a ministry had been formed which might endure for a dozen years. Indeed there was no reason why there should be any end to a ministry built on such a foundation. Of course this was very comfortable to such men as Mr. Roby, so that the Admiralty Secretary when he entered his sister-in-law's drawing-room was suffused with that rosy hue of human bliss which a feeling of triumph bestows. "Yes," said he, in answer to some would-be facetious remark from his brother, "I think we have weathered that storm pretty well. It does seem rather odd, my sitting cheek by jowl with Mr. Monk and gentlemen of that kidney; but they don't bite. I've got one of our own set at the head of our own office, and he leads the House. I think upon the whole we've got a little the best of it." This was listened to by Mr. Wharton with great disgust,—for Mr. Wharton was a Tory of the old school, who hated compromises, and abhorred in his heart the class of politicians to whom politics were a profession rather than a creed.

Mr. Roby senior, having escaped from the House, was of course the last, and had indeed kept all the other guests waiting half-an-hour,—as becomes a parliamentary magnate in the heat of the Session. Mr. Wharton, who had been early, saw all the other guests arrive, and among them Mr. Ferdinand Lopez. There was also Mr. Mills Happerton,—partner in Hunky and Sons,—with his wife, respecting whom Mr. Wharton at once concluded that he was there as being the friend of Ferdinand Lopez. If so, how much influence must Ferdinand Lopez have in that house! Nevertheless, Mr. Mills Happerton was in his way a great man, and a credit to Mrs. Roby. And there were Sir Damask and Lady Monogram, who were people moving quite in the first circles. Sir Damask shot pigeons, and so did also Dick Roby,—whence had perhaps arisen an intimacy. But Lady Monogram was not at all a person to dine with Mrs. Dick Roby without other cause than this. But a great official among one's acquaintance can do so much for one! It was probable that Lady Monogram's presence was among the first fruits of the happy family reconciliation that had taken place. Then there was Mrs. Leslie, a pretty widow, rather poor, who was glad to receive civilities from Mrs. Roby, and was Emily Wharton's pet aversion. Mrs. Leslie had said impertinent things to her about Ferdinand Lopez, and she had snubbed Mrs. Leslie. But Mrs. Leslie was serviceable to Mrs. Roby, and had now been asked to her great dinner party.

But the two most illustrious guests have not yet been mentioned. Mrs. Roby had secured a lord,—an absolute peer of Parliament! This was no less a man than Lord Mongrober, whose father had been a great judge in the early part of the century, and had been made a peer. The Mongrober estates were not supposed to be large, nor was the Mongrober influence at this time extensive. But this nobleman was seen about a good deal in society when the dinners given were supposed to be worth eating. He was a fat, silent, red-faced, elderly gentleman, who said very little, and who when he did speak seemed always to be in an ill-humour. He would now and then make ill-natured remarks about his friends' wines, as suggesting '68 when a man would boast of his '48 claret; and when costly dainties were supplied for his use, would remark that such and such a dish was very well at some other time of the year. So that ladies attentive to their tables and hosts proud of their cellars would almost shake in their shoes before Lord Mongrober. And it may also be said that Lord Mongrober never gave any chance of retaliation by return dinners. There lived not the man or woman who had dined with Lord Mongrober. But yet the Robys of London were glad to entertain him; and the Mrs. Robys, when he was coming, would urge their cooks to superhuman energies by the mention of his name.

And there was Lady Eustace! Of Lady Eustace it was impossible to say whether her beauty, her wit, her wealth, or the remarkable history of her past life, most recommended her to such hosts and hostesses as Mr. and Mrs. Roby. As her history may be already known to some, no details of it shall be repeated here. At this moment she was free from all marital persecution, and was very much run after by a certain set in society. There were others again who declared that no decent man or woman ought to meet her. On the score of lovers there was really little or nothing to be said against her; but she had implicated herself in an unfortunate second marriage, and then there was that old story about the jewels! But there was no doubt about her money and her good looks, and some considered her to be clever. These completed the list of Mrs. Roby's great dinner party.

Mr. Wharton, who had arrived early, could not but take notice that Lopez, who soon followed him into the room, had at once fallen into conversation with Emily, as though there had never been any difficulty in the matter. The father, standing on the rug and pretending to answer the remarks made to him by Dick Roby, could see that Emily said but little. The man, however, was so much at his ease that there was no necessity for her to exert herself. Mr. Wharton hated him for being at his ease. Had he appeared to have been rebuffed by the circumstances of his position the prejudices of the old man would have been lessened. By degrees the guests came. Lord Mongrober stood also on the rug, dumb, with a look of intense impatience for his food, hardly ever condescending to answer the little attempts at conversation made by Mrs. Dick. Lady Eustace gushed into the room, kissing Mrs. Dick and afterwards kissing her great friend of the moment, Mrs. Leslie, who followed. She then looked as though she meant to kiss Lord Mongrober, whom she playfully and almost familiarly addressed. But Lord Mongrober only grunted. Then came Sir Damask and Lady Monogram, and Dick at once began about his pigeons. Sir Damask, who was the most good-natured man in the world, interested himself at once and became energetic; but Lady Monogram looked round the room carefully, and seeing Lady Eustace, turned up her nose, nor did she care much for meeting Lord Mongrober. If she had been taken in as to the Admiralty Robys, then would she let the junior Robys know what she thought about it. Mills Happerton, with his wife, caused the frown on Lady Monogram's brow to loosen itself a little, for, so great was the wealth and power of the house of Hunky and Sons, that Mr. Mills Happerton was no doubt a feature at any dinner party. Then came the Admiralty Secretary with his wife, and the order for dinner was given.



CHAPTER X

Mrs. Dick's Dinner Party.—No. II

Dick walked downstairs with Lady Monogram. There had been some doubt whether of right he should not have taken Lady Eustace, but it was held by Mrs. Dick that her ladyship had somewhat impaired her rights by the eccentricities of her career, and also that she would amiably pardon any little wrong against her of that kind,—whereas Lady Monogram was a person to be much considered. Then followed Sir Damask with Lady Eustace. They seemed to be paired so well together that there could be no doubt about them. The ministerial Roby, who was really the hero of the night, took Mrs. Happerton, and our friend Mr. Wharton took the Secretary's wife. All that had been easy,—so easy that fate had good-naturedly arranged things which are sometimes difficult of management. But then there came an embarrassment. Of course it would in a usual way be right that a married man as was Mr. Happerton should be assigned to the widow Mrs. Leslie, and that the only two "young" people,—in the usual sense of the word,—should go down to dinner together. But Mrs. Roby was at first afraid of Mr. Wharton, and planned it otherwise. When, however, the last moment came she plucked up courage, gave Mrs. Leslie to the great commercial man, and with a brave smile asked Lopez to give his arm to the lady he loved. It is sometimes so hard to manage these "little things," said she to Lord Mongrober as she put her hand upon his arm. His lordship had been kept standing in that odious drawing-room for more than half-an-hour waiting for a man whom he regarded as a poor Treasury hack, and was by no means in a good humour. Dick Roby's wine was no doubt good, but he was not prepared to purchase it at such a price as this. "Things always get confused when you have waited an hour for any one," he said. "What can one do, you know, when the House is sitting?" said the lady apologetically. "Of course you lords can get away, but then you have nothing to do." Lord Mongrober grunted, meaning to imply by his grunt that any one would be very much mistaken who supposed that he had any work to do because he was a peer of Parliament.

Lopez and Emily were seated next to each other, and immediately opposite to them was Mr. Wharton. Certainly nothing fraudulent had been intended on this occasion,—or it would have been arranged that the father should sit on the same side of the table with the lover, so that he should see nothing of what was going on. But it seemed to Mr. Wharton as though he had been positively swindled by his sister-in-law. There they sat opposite to him, talking to each other apparently with thoroughly mutual confidence, the very two persons whom he most especially desired to keep apart. He had not a word to say to either of the ladies near him. He endeavoured to keep his eyes away from his daughter as much as possible, and to divert his ears from their conversation;—but he could not but look and he could not but listen. Not that he really heard a sentence. Emily's voice hardly reached him, and Lopez understood the game he was playing much too well to allow his voice to travel. And he looked as though his position were the most commonplace in the world, and as though he had nothing of more than ordinary interest to say to his neighbour. Mr. Wharton, as he sat there, almost made up his mind that he would leave his practice, give up his chambers, abandon even his club, and take his daughter at once to—to;—it did not matter where, so that the place should be very distant from Manchester Square. There could be no other remedy for this evil.

Lopez, though he talked throughout the whole of dinner,—turning sometimes indeed to Mrs. Leslie who sat at his left hand,—said very little that all the world might not have heard. But he did say one such word. "It has been so dreary to me, the last month!" Emily of course had no answer to make to this. She could not tell him that her desolation had been infinitely worse than his, and that she had sometimes felt as though her very heart would break. "I wonder whether it must always be like this with me," he said,—and then he went back to the theatres, and other ordinary conversation.

"I suppose you've got to the bottom of that champagne you used to have," said Lord Mongrober, roaring across the table to his host, holding his glass in his hand, and with strong marks of disapprobation on his face.

"The very same wine as we were drinking when your lordship last did me the honour of dining here," said Dick. Lord Mongrober raised his eyebrows, shook his head and put down the glass.

"Shall we try another bottle?" asked Mrs. Dick with solicitude.

"Oh, no;—it'd be all the same, I know. I'll just take a little dry sherry if you have it." The man came with the decanter. "No, dry sherry;—dry sherry," said his lordship. The man was confounded, Mrs. Dick was at her wits' ends, and everything was in confusion. Lord Mongrober was not the man to be kept waiting by a government subordinate without exacting some penalty for such ill-treatment.

"'Is lordship is a little out of sorts," whispered Dick to Lady Monogram.

"Very much out of sorts, it seems."

"And the worst of it is, there isn't a better glass of wine in London, and 'is lordship knows it."

"I suppose that's what he comes for," said Lady Monogram, being quite as uncivil in her way as the nobleman.

"'E's like a good many others. He knows where he can get a good dinner. After all, there's no attraction like that. Of course, a 'ansome woman won't admit that, Lady Monogram."

"I will not admit it, at any rate, Mr. Roby."

"But I don't doubt Monogram is as careful as any one else to get the best cook he can, and takes a good deal of trouble about his wine too. Mongrober is very unfair about that champagne. It came out of Madame Cliquot's cellars before the war, and I gave Sprott and Burlinghammer 110s. for it."

"Indeed!"

"I don't think there are a dozen men in London can give you such a glass of wine as that. What do you say about that champagne, Monogram?"

"Very tidy wine," said Sir Damask.

"I should think it is. I gave 110s. for it before the war. 'Is lordship's got a fit of the gout coming, I suppose."

But Sir Damask was engaged with his neighbour, Lady Eustace. "Of all things I should so like to see a pigeon match," said Lady Eustace. "I have heard about them all my life. Only I suppose it isn't quite proper for a lady."

"Oh, dear, yes."

"The darling little pigeons! They do sometimes escape, don't they? I hope they escape sometimes. I'll go any day you'll make up a party,—if Lady Monogram will join us." Sir Damask said that he would arrange it, making up his mind, however, at the same time, that this last stipulation, if insisted on, would make the thing impracticable.

Roby the ministerialist, sitting at the end of the table between his sister-in-law and Mrs. Happerton, was very confidential respecting the Government and parliamentary affairs in general. "Yes, indeed;—of course it's a coalition, but I don't see why we shouldn't go on very well. As to the Duke, I've always had the greatest possible respect for him. The truth is, there's nothing special to be done at the present moment, and there's no reason why we shouldn't agree and divide the good things between us. The Duke has got some craze of his own about decimal coinage. He'll amuse himself with that; but it won't come to anything, and it won't hurt us."

"Isn't the Duchess giving a great many parties?" asked Mrs. Happerton.

"Well;—yes. That kind of thing used to be done in old Lady Brock's time, and the Duchess is repeating it. There's no end to their money, you know. But it's rather a bore for the persons who have to go." The ministerial Roby knew well how he would make his sister-in-law's mouth water by such an allusion as this to the great privilege of entering the Prime Minister's mansion in Carlton Terrace.

"I suppose you in the Government are always asked."

"We are expected to go too, and are watched pretty close. Lady Glen, as we used to call her, has the eyes of Argus. And of course we who used to be on the other side are especially bound to pay her observance."

"Don't you like the Duchess?" asked Mrs. Happerton.

"Oh, yes;—I like her very well. She's mad, you know,—mad as a hatter,—and no one can ever guess what freak may come next. One always feels that she'll do something sooner or later that will startle all the world."

"There was a queer story once,—wasn't there?" asked Mrs. Dick.

"I never quite believed that," said Roby. "It was something about some lover she had before she was married. She went off to Switzerland. But the Duke,—he was Mr. Palliser then,—followed her very soon and it all came right."

"When ladies are going to be duchesses, things do come right; don't they?" said Mrs. Happerton.

On the other side of Mrs. Happerton was Mr. Wharton, quite unable to talk to his right-hand neighbour, the Secretary's wife. The elder Mrs. Roby had not, indeed, much to say for herself, and he during the whole dinner was in misery. He had resolved that there should be no intimacy of any kind between his daughter and Ferdinand Lopez,—nothing more than the merest acquaintance; and there they were, talking together before his very eyes, with more evident signs of understanding each other than were exhibited by any other two persons at the table. And yet he had no just ground of complaint against either of them. If people dine together at the same house, it may of course happen that they shall sit next to each other. And if people sit next to each other at dinner, it is expected that they shall talk. Nobody could accuse Emily of flirting; but then she was a girl who under no circumstances would condescend to flirt. But she had declared boldly to her father that she loved this man, and there she was in close conversation with him! Would it not be better for him to give up any further trouble, and let her marry the man? She would certainly do so sooner or later.

When the ladies went upstairs that misery was over for a time, but Mr. Wharton was still not happy. Dick came round and took his wife's chair, so that he sat between the lord and his brother. Lopez and Happerton fell into city conversation, and Sir Damask tried to amuse himself with Mr. Wharton. But the task was hopeless,—as it always is when the elements of a party have been ill-mixed. Mr. Wharton had not even heard of the new Aldershot coach which Sir Damask had just started with Colonel Buskin and Sir Alfonso Blackbird. And when Sir Damask declared that he drove the coach up and down twice a week himself, Mr. Wharton at any rate affected to believe that such a thing was impossible. Then when Sir Damask gave his opinion as to the cause of the failure of a certain horse at Northampton, Mr. Wharton gave him no encouragement whatever. "I never was at a racecourse in my life," said the barrister. After that Sir Damask drank his wine in silence.

"You remember that claret, my lord?" said Dick, thinking that some little compensation was due to him for what had been said about the champagne.

But Lord Mongrober's dinner had not yet had the effect of mollifying the man sufficiently for Dick's purposes. "Oh, yes, I remember the wine. You call it '57, don't you?"

"And it is '57;—'57, Leoville."

"Very likely,—very likely. If it hadn't been heated before the fire—"

"It hasn't been near the fire," said Dick.

"Or put into a hot decanter—"

"Nothing of the kind."

"Or treated after some other damnable fashion, it would be very good wine, I dare say."

"You are hard to please, my lord, to-day," said Dick, who was put beyond his bearing.

"What is a man to say? If you will talk about your wine, I can only tell you what I think. Any man may get good wine,—that is if he can afford to pay the price,—but it isn't one out of ten who knows how to put it on the table." Dick felt this to be very hard. When a man pays 110s. a dozen for his champagne, and then gives it to guests like Lord Mongrober who are not even expected to return the favour, then that man ought to be allowed to talk about his wine without fear of rebuke. One doesn't have an agreement to that effect written down on parchment and sealed; but it is as well understood and ought to be as faithfully kept as any legal contract. Dick, who could on occasions be awakened to a touch of manliness, gave the bottle a shove and threw himself back in his chair. "If you ask me, I can only tell you," repeated Lord Mongrober.

"I don't believe you ever had a bottle of wine put before you in better order in all your life," said Dick. His lordship's face became very square and very red as he looked round at his host. "And as for talking about my wine, of course I talk to a man about what he understands. I talk to Monogram about pigeons, to Tom there about politics, to Apperton and Lopez about the price of consols, and to you about wine. If I asked you what you thought of the last new book, your lordship would be a little surprised." Lord Mongrober grunted and looked redder and squarer than ever; but he made no attempt at reply, and the victory was evidently left with Dick,—very much to the general exaltation of his character. And he was proud of himself. "We had a little tiff, me and Mongrober," he said to his wife that night. "'E's a very good fellow, and of course he's a lord and all that. But he has to be put down occasionally, and, by George, I did it to-night. You ask Lopez."

There were two drawing-rooms up-stairs, opening into each other, but still distinct. Emily had escaped into the back room, avoiding the gushing sentiments and equivocal morals of Lady Eustace and Mrs. Leslie,—and here she was followed by Ferdinand Lopez. Mr. Wharton was in the front room, and though on entering it he did look round furtively for his daughter, he was ashamed to wander about in order that he might watch her. And there were others in the back room,—Dick and Monogram standing on the rug, and the elder Mrs. Roby seated in a corner;—so that there was nothing peculiar in the position of the two lovers.

"Must I understand," said he, "that I am banished from Manchester Square?"

"Has papa banished you?"

"That's what I want you to tell me."

"I know you had an interview with him, Mr. Lopez."

"Yes. I had."

"And you must know best what he told you."

"He would explain himself better to you than he did to me."

"I doubt that very much. Papa, when he has anything to say, generally says it plainly. However, I do think that he did intend to banish you. I do not know why I should not tell you the truth."

"I do not know either."

"I think he did—intend to banish you."

"And you?"

"I shall be guided by him in all things,—as far as I can."

"Then I am banished by you also?"

"I did not say so. But if papa says that you are not to come there, of course I cannot ask you to do so."

"But I may see you here?"

"Mr. Lopez, I will not be asked some questions. I will not indeed."

"You know why I ask them. You know that to me you are more than all the world." She stood still for a moment after hearing this, and then without any reply walked away into the other room. She felt half ashamed of herself in that she had not rebuked him for speaking to her in that fashion after his interview with her father, and yet his words had filled her heart with delight. He had never before plainly declared his love to her,—though she had been driven by her father's questions to declare her own love to herself. She was quite sure of herself,—that the man was and would always be to her the one being whom she would prefer to all others. Her fate was in her father's hands. If he chose to make her wretched he must do so. But on one point she had quite made up her mind. She would make no concealment. To the world at large she had nothing to say on the matter. But with her father there should be no attempt on her part to keep back the truth. Were he to question her on the subject she would tell him, as far as her memory would serve her, the very words which Lopez had spoken to her this evening. She would ask nothing from him. He had already told her that the man was to be rejected, and had refused to give any other reason than his dislike to the absence of any English connexion. She would not again ask even for a reason. But she would make her father understand that though she obeyed him she regarded the exercise of his authority as tyrannical and irrational.

They left the house before any of the other guests and walked round the corner together into the Square. "What a very vulgar set of people!" said Mr. Wharton as soon as they were down the steps.

"Some of them were," said Emily, making a mental reservation of her own.

"Upon my word I don't know where to make the exception. Why on earth any one should want to know such a person as Lord Mongrober I can't understand. What does he bring into society?"

"A title."

"But what does that do of itself? He is an insolent, bloated brute."

"Papa, you are using strong language to-night."

"And that Lady Eustace! Heaven and earth! Am I to be told that that creature is a lady?"

They had now come to their own door, and while that was being opened and as they went up into their own drawing-room, nothing was said, but then Emily began again. "I wonder why you go to Aunt Harriet's at all. You don't like the people?"

"I didn't like any of them to-day."

"Why do you go there? You don't like Aunt Harriet herself. You don't like Uncle Dick. You don't like Mr. Lopez."

"Certainly I do not."

"I don't know who it is you do like."

"I like Mr. Fletcher."

"It's no use saying that to me, papa."

"You ask me a question, and I choose to answer it. I like Arthur Fletcher, because he is a gentleman,—because he is a gentleman of the class to which I belong myself; because he works; because I know all about him, so that I can be sure of him; because he had a decent father and mother; because I am safe with him, being quite sure that he will say to me neither awkward things nor impertinent things. He will not talk to me about driving a mail coach like that foolish baronet, nor tell me the price of all his wines like your uncle." Nor would Ferdinand Lopez do so, thought Emily to herself. "But in all such matters, my dear, the great thing is like to like. I have spoken of a young person, merely because I wish you to understand that I can sympathise with others besides those of my own age. But to-night there was no one there at all like myself,—or, as I hope, like you. That man Roby is a chattering ass. How such a man can be useful to any government I can't conceive. Happerton was the best, but what had he to say for himself? I've always thought that there was very little wit wanted to make a fortune in the City." In this frame of mind Mr. Wharton went off to bed, but not a word more was spoken about Ferdinand Lopez.



CHAPTER XI

Carlton Terrace

Certainly the thing was done very well by Lady Glen,—as many in the political world persisted in calling her even in these days. She had not as yet quite carried out her plan,—the doing of which would have required her to reconcile her husband to some excessive abnormal expenditure, and to have obtained from him a deliberate sanction for appropriation and probable sale of property. She never could find the proper moment for doing this, having, with all her courage,—low down in some corner of her heart,—a wholesome fear of a certain quiet power which her husband possessed. She could not bring herself to make her proposition;—but she almost acted as though it had been made and approved. Her house was always gorgeous with flowers. Of course there would be the bill;—and he, when he saw the exotics, and the whole place turned into a bower of ever fresh blooming floral glories, must know that there would be the bill. And when he found that there was an archducal dinner-party every week, and an almost imperial reception twice a week; that at these receptions a banquet was always provided; when he was asked whether she might buy a magnificent pair of bay carriage-horses, as to which she assured him that nothing so lovely had ever as yet been seen stepping in the streets of London,—of course he must know that the bills would come. It was better, perhaps, to do it in this way, than to make any direct proposition. And then, early in June, she spoke to him as to the guests to be invited to Gatherum Castle in August. "Do you want to go to Gatherum in August?" he asked in surprise. For she hated the place, and had hardly been content to spend ten days there every year at Christmas.

"I think it should be done," she said solemnly. "One cannot quite consider just now what one likes oneself."

"Why not?"

"You would hardly go to a small place like Matching in your present position. There are so many people whom you should entertain! You would probably have two or three of the foreign ministers down for a time."