Phineas Redux quotes

They were to be made to go, because they could not command majorities. But there ought to have been no dissolution, and Mr. Daubeny was regarded by his opponents, and indeed by very many of his followers also, with an enmity that was almost ferocious.

A seat in Parliament, if it be for five or six years, is a blessing; but the blessing becomes very questionable if it have to be sought afresh every other Session.

One thing was manifest to thoughtful, working, eager political Liberals. They must have not only a majority in the next Parliament, but a majority of good men—of men good and true. There must be no more mismanagement; no more quarrelling; no more idleness.

but in youth, with all the faculties still perfect, with the body still strong, with the hopes still buoyant, such a change as that which had been made by Phineas Finn was more than he, or than most men, could bear with equanimity.

He had revelled in the gaslight, and could not lie quiet on a sunny bank.

To the palate accustomed to high cookery, bread and milk is almost painfully insipid.

He had revelled in the gaslight, and could not lie quiet on a sunny bank.

To the palate accustomed to high cookery, bread and milk is almost painfully insipid.

When Phineas Finn found himself discharging in Dublin the routine duties of his office—as to which there was no public comment, no feeling that such duties were done in the face of the country—he became sick at heart and discontented.

When Phineas Finn found himself discharging in Dublin the routine duties of his office—as to which there was no public comment, no feeling that such duties were done in the face of the country—he became sick at heart and discontented.

Like the warhorse out at grass he remembered the sound of the battle and the noise of trumpets.

After five years spent in the heat and full excitement of London society, life in Ireland was tame to him, and cold, and dull. He did not analyse the difference between metropolitan and quasi-metropolitan manners;

“She went abroad to escape his attempts, and remains there in order that she may be safe.

Of all hatreds that the world produces, a wife’s hatred for her husband, when she does hate him, is the strongest.

”

Mann, and by others; but, for the maintenance of love and friendship, continued correspondence between distant friends is naught.

Distance in time and place, but especially in time, will diminish friendship.

It is a rule of nature that it should be so, and thus the friendships which a man most fosters are those which he can best enjoy.

… that the pressure from behind, forcing upon them great measures, drives them almost quicker than they can go, so that it becomes a necessity with them to resist rather than to aid the pressure which will certainly be at last effective by its own strength.

The best carriage horses are those which can most steadily hold back against the coach as it trundles down the hill.

All this Phineas knew, and was of opinion that the Barrington Erles and Ratlers of his party would not thank him for ventilating a measure which, however certain might be its coming, might well be postponed for a few years.

Smith and he were quite in a bond together, and the Gartlow coverts were reopened. Now all the world knows that the Gartlow coverts, though small, are material as being in the very centre of the Brake country.

It is essential that a Master of Hounds should be somewhat feared by the men who ride with him.

There should be much awe mixed with the love felt for him. He should be a man with whom other men will not care to argue; an irrational, cut and thrust, unscrupulous, but yet distinctly honest man;

Friends he must have, but not favourites. He must be self-sacrificing, diligent, eager, and watchful. He must be strong in health, strong in heart, strong in purpose, and strong in purse.

He must be economical and yet lavish; generous as the wind and yet obdurate as the frost.

He should be assured that of all human pursuits hunting is the best, and that of all living things a fox is the most valuable.

“Just the reverse.

Flirting I take to be the excitement of love, without its reality, and without its ordinary result in marriage.

This playing at caring has none of the excitement, but it often leads to the result, and sometimes ends in downright affection.”

“A bull in a china shop is not a useful animal, nor is he ornamental, but there can be no doubt of his energy. The hare was full of energy, but he didn’t win the race.

The man who stands still is the man who keeps his ground.

”

“

Does love go by intentions?

”

“Buy some more!” said Lord Chiltern, turning round, and looking at the man. “

He talks of buying horses as he would sugar plums!

” Then they trotted in at the gate, and in two minutes were at the hall door.

Whether or not this be a reason the more for preferring the calm and tranquil man may be doubted; but the calm and tranquil man is preferred for public services. We want practical results rather than truth.

A clear head is worth more than an honest heart.

In a matter of horseflesh of what use is it to have all manner of good gifts if your horse won’t go whither you want him, and refuses to stop when you bid him? Mr.

It was acknowledged also that as regarded the question of oratory Mr. Daubeny had failed signally. But the strategy of the Minister was said to have been excellent, whereas that of the ex-Minister was very loudly condemned.

There is nothing so prejudicial to a cause as temper.

This man is declared to be unfit for any position of note, because he always shows temper. Anything can be done with another man—he can be made to fit almost any hole—because he has his temper under command.

“

Happy? What right had she to expect to be happy?

Are we to believe that we should be happy here? Are we not told that we are to look for happiness there, and to hope for none below?” As he said this he stretched his left hand to the ceiling.

If he could only secure a seat he would be safe; and it seemed that Tankerville would be a certain seat. This certainty he would not admit; but, nevertheless, he was comforted by his friend.

When you have done the rashest thing in the world it is very pleasant to be told that no man of spirit could have acted otherwise.

It was a matter of course that he should return to public life—so said Lady Laura;—and doubly a matter of course when he found himself a widower without a child.

“Whether it be a bad life or a good life,” said Lady Laura, “you and I understand equally well that no other life is worth having after it.

We are like the actors, who cannot bear to be away from the gaslights when once they have lived amidst their glare.

” As she said this they were leaning together over one of the parapets of the great fortress, and the sadness of the words struck him as they bore upon herself.

Were my husband not still living it would be the same. I should never under any circumstances marry again. I have passed the period of a woman’s life when as a woman she is loved; but I have not outlived the power of loving.

I shall fret about you, Phineas, like an old hen after her one chick; and though you turn out to be a duck, and get away into waters where I cannot follow you, I shall go cackling round the pond, and always have my eye upon you.

” He was holding her now by the hand, but he could not speak for the tears were trickling down his cheeks. “When I was young,” she continued, “I did not credit myself with capacity for so much passion.

“Of course you will. I tried to blaze into power by a marriage, and I failed—because I was a woman.

A woman should marry only for love.

You will do it yet, and will not fail. You may remember this too—that I shall never be jealous again. You may tell me everything with safety. You will tell me everything?”

“He would attempt it. I will not go back until he consents to my living apart from him. And, to tell the truth, I am better here for awhile. They say that the sick animals always creep somewhere under cover.

I am a sick animal, and now that I have crept here I will remain till I am stronger.

How terribly anxious you must be about Tankerville!”

He was again a member of the British House of Commons—was again in possession of that privilege for which he had never ceased to sigh since the moment in which he lost it.

A drunkard or a gambler may be weaned from his ways, but not a politician.

To have been in the House and not to be there was, to such a one as Phineas Finn, necessarily a state of discontent.

“We must have a meeting about it, and let the world know it—that’s all.” At this moment the door was again opened, and Madame Goesler entered the room.

When one wants to be natural, of necessity one becomes the reverse of natural.

A clever actor—or more frequently a clever actress—will assume the appearance; but the very fact of the assumption renders the reality impossible.

When we give a guinea for a stall at the opera we think that we pay a large sum; but we are fairly sure of having our music.

When you go to Copperhouse Cross you are by no means sure of your opera.

Why is it that when men and women congregate, though the men may beat the women in numbers by ten to one, and though they certainly speak the louder, the concrete sound that meets the ears of any outside listener is always a sound of …

and then you must take him, or make him understand that he is not to be taken.” Gerard Maule had chosen to come; but Adelaide Palliser had not as yet quite made up her mind.

Perhaps there is nothing so generally remarkable in the conduct of young ladies in the phase of life of which we are now speaking as the facility⁠—it may almost be said audacity⁠—with which they do make up their minds.

A young man seeks a young woman’s hand in marriage, because she has waltzed stoutly with him, and talked pleasantly between the dances;—and the young woman gives it, almost with gratitude.

“I have been waiting for this opportunity all the morning,” said Mr. Spooner. Adelaide Palliser turned round and looked at him, still understanding nothing.

Ride at any fence hard enough, and the chances are you’ll get over.

The harder you ride the heavier the fall, if you get a fall; but the greater the chance of your getting over. This had been a precept in the life of Mr.

“

There’s nothing in the world easier than calling a man mad. It’s what we do to dogs when we want to hang them.

I believe Mr. Kennedy has the management of his own property. He is not too mad for that. But just cast your eye down and read it.”

“

Purity of morals, Finn;⁠—punishment for the guilty;⁠—defence for the innocent;⁠—support for the weak;⁠—safety for the oppressed;⁠—and a rod of iron for the oppressors!

”

but still as he turned his eyes up to the woman’s face there was a remnant of that look of graceful fainéant nobility which had always distinguished him.

He had never done any good, but he had always carried himself like a duke, and like a duke he carried himself to the end.

“He is decidedly better than he was this morning,” said Lady Glencora.

“Well—never mind.

Some people fall on their feet like cats; but you are one of those who never fall at all.

Others tumble about in the most unfortunate way, without any great fault of their own. Think of that poor Lady Laura.”

but, in spite of appearances, romance and a duck-like waddle may go together. The memory of those forty years had been strong upon her, and her heart was heavy because she could not see that old man once again.

Men will love to the last, but they love what is fresh and new. A woman’s love can live on the recollection of the past, and cling to what is old and ugly.

“What an episode!” said Lady Glencora, when the unwelcome visitor was gone;—“but it’s odd how much less dreadful things are than you think they will be. I was frightened when I heard her name; but you see we’ve got through it without much harm.”

I think, too, that she did regret the change in her name, though she was by no means indifferent to the rank. As Lady Glencora she had made a reputation which might very possibly fall away from her as Duchess of Omnium.

Fame is a skittish jade, more fickle even than Fortune, and apt to shy, and bolt, and plunge away on very trifling causes.

As Lady Glencora Palliser she was known to everyone, and had always done exactly as she had pleased.

It is a great thing to us that Sir Samuel Bobwig, an excellent Liberal, is seated high on the bench of justice, instead of that timeserving Conservative, Sir Alexander McSilk.

Men and not measures are, no doubt, the very life of politics. But then it is not the fashion to say so in public places.

Mr. Gresham was determined to introduce that fashion on the present occasion. He did not think very much of Mr. Daubeny’s Bill. So he told his friends at the Duke’s house.

Gresham, who disliked the man, would be coerced by the fact that there was no other competitor. That Mr. Bonteen should go into the Cabinet would be gall and wormwood to many brother Liberals; but gall and wormwood such as this have to be swallowed.

The rising in life of our familiar friends is, perhaps, the bitterest morsel of the bitter bread which we are called upon to eat in life.

But we do eat it; and after a while it becomes food to us—when we find ourselves able to use, on behalf, perhaps, of our children, the influence of those whom we had once hoped to leave behind in the race of life.

When a man suddenly shoots up into power few suffer from it very acutely.

The rise of a Pitt can have caused no heartburning.

But Mr. Bonteen had been a hack among the hacks, had filled the usual half-dozen places, had been a junior Lord, a Vice-President, a Deputy Controller, a Chief Commissioner, and a Joint Secretary.

… their hearts, and did believe—not that the crack of doom was coming, which they could have borne with equanimity if convinced that their influence would last to the end—but that the Evil One was to be made welcome upon the earth by Act of Parliament.

It is out of nature that any man should think it good that his own order should be repressed, curtailed, and deprived of its power.

If we go among cabdrivers or letter-carriers, among butlers or gamekeepers, among tailors or butchers, among farmers or graziers, among doctors or attorneys, we shall find in each set of men a conviction that the welfare of the community depends upon the firmness with which …

There was much neatness and some acuteness in Mr. Daubeny’s satire, but there was no heat, and it was prolix. It had, however, the effect of irritating Mr. Gresham—as was evident from the manner in which he moved his hat and shuffled his feet.

A man destined to sit conspicuously on our Treasury Bench, or on the seat opposite to it, should ask the gods for a thick skin as a first gift.

The need of this in our national assembly is greater than elsewhere, because the differences between the men opposed to each other are smaller.

Mr. Gresham, as a matter of course, succeeded.

Rights and rules, which are bonds of iron to a little man, are packthread to a giant.

No one in all that assembly knew the House better than did Mr. Gresham, was better able to take it by storm, or more obdurate in perseverance. He did make his speech, though clearly he had no right to do so.

An affected stateliness cannot support itself but for a moment; and Mr. Daubeny had been forced to sit down when the Speaker did not at once support his appeal. But he did not forget that wave of the hand, nor did he forgive it.

He was a man who in public life rarely forgot, and never forgave.

They used to say of him that “at home” he was kindly and forbearing, simple and unostentatious. It may be so.

“

Let them laugh that win.

We thought of besieging Lord Fawn through Lady Chiltern, but we are not sure that anybody cares for Lord Fawn. The man we specially want now is the other Duke.

“And yet it is essential to your interests that he should know it.

When your enemies are undermining you, you must countermine or you’ll be blown up.

”

“Yes;—if there were children. And it will come back to her if he dies first.

But mad people never do die. That’s a well-known fact. They’ve nothing to trouble them, and they live forever.

It’ll all go to some cousin of his that nobody ever saw.”

It was his duty to let the House know the fact, and he did his duty. But now he had a word to say in which he himself could take some little interest.

Mr. Daubeny could be fiery or flaccid as it suited himself;⁠—and now it suited him to be fiery.

He had a prophecy to make, and prophets have ever been energetic men. Mr.

“Not particularly. I have always felt that there has been a mistake about Mr. Daubeny. By many he has been accounted as a statesman, whereas to me he has always been a political Cagliostro.

Now a conjuror is I think a very pleasant fellow to have among us, if we know that he is a conjuror;⁠—but a conjuror who is believed to do his tricks without sleight of hand is a dangerous man.

It is essential that such a one should be found out and known to be a conjuror—and I hope that such knowledge may have been communicated to some men this afternoon.”

Why should the appointment of Mr. Phineas Finn make things go easier in regard to Mr. Bonteen? There must be some woman’s fingers in the pie. Now

Mr. Gresham was firmly resolved that no woman’s fingers should have anything to do with his pie.

How the thing went from bad to worse, it would be bootless here to tell. Neither of the two dukes absolutely refused to join the Ministry; but they were persistent in their objection to Mr.

Mr. Legge Wilson became Chancellor of the Exchequer. When the lists were completed, no office whatever was assigned to Phineas Finn. “I haven’t done with Mr. Bonteen yet,” said the young duchess to her friend Madame Goesler.

The secrets of the world are very marvellous, but they are not themselves half so wonderful as the way in which they become known to the world.

There could be no doubt that Mr. Bonteen’s high ambition had foundered, and that he had been degraded through the secret enmity of the Duchess of Omnium. It was equally certain that his secret enmity to Phineas Finn had brought this punishment on his head.

“So I have—but I have seen no one belonging to him. Don’t you understand what I mean? I feel all at sea about him. I am sure he does not mean any harm.”

“But then he hardly means any good.”

“I never saw a man more earnestly in love,” said Lady Chiltern.

I think better of him than of anybody else in the world;—but I know his fault, and, as it happens, it is a fault so very prejudicial to my happiness. You ask me why I got into his boat.

Why does any girl get into a man’s boat?

Why did you get into Lord Chiltern’s?”

After you have come to feel like that about a man I don’t suppose it makes any difference whether you think him perfect or imperfect. He’s just my own—at least I hope so;—the one thing that I’ve got.

If I wear a stuff frock, I’m not going to despise it because it’s not silk.

”

No doubt general opinion was adverse to poor Phineas Finn, but he was not without his party in the matter.

To oblige a friend by inflicting an injury on his enemy is often more easy than to confer a benefit on the friend himself.

We have already seen how the young Duchess failed in her attempt to obtain an appointment for Phineas, and also how she succeeded in destroying the high hopes of Mr. Bonteen.

And with it all he had an assurance in his own position—a knowledge of the strength derived from his intellect, his industry, his rank, and his wealth—which made him altogether fearless of others.

When the little dog snarls, the big dog does not connect the snarl with himself, simply fancying that the little dog must be uncomfortable.

Mr. Bonteen snarled a good deal, and the new Lord Privy Seal thought that the new President of the Board of Trade was not comfortable within himself.

“And yet,” said Mr. Gresham, “Grogram is a very earnest man when he believes in his case.

No member of Parliament will ever be punished for bribery as for a crime till members of Parliament generally look upon bribery as a crime.

We are very far from that as yet. I should have thought a conviction to be a great misfortune.”

“

Roses! The nosegays which are worn down at Westminster are made of garlick and dandelions!

”

But he was flushed with much wine, and he was a man whose arrogance in that condition was apt to become extreme. “In vino veritas!”

The sober devil can hide his cloven hoof; but when the devil drinks he loses his cunning and grows honest.

Mr. Bonteen looked Phineas full in the face a second or two before he answered, and then said—quite aloud—“You have crept upon us unawares, sir.”

“

Officers of the police always believe men to be guilty,

” said Lord Cantrip.

Lord Chiltern had come there about money, and it occurred to him that the impecunious young barrister might already be in some scrape on that head.

In nineteen cases out of twenty, when a man is in a scrape, he simply wants money.

“Perhaps I can be of help,” he said.

He was taken to Bow Street, going thither in a cab with the two policemen, and the superintendent followed them with Lord Chiltern and Mr. Low. “You don’t mean to say that you believe it?” said Lord Chiltern to the officer.

“We never believe and we never disbelieve anything, my Lord,” replied the man.

Nevertheless, the superintendent did most firmly believe that Phineas Finn had murdered Mr. Bonteen.

Mr. Gresham, in the official statement which he had made, had, as a matter of course, said many fine things about Mr. Bonteen.

A man can always have fine things said about him for a few hours after his death.

But in the small private conferences which were held the fine things said all referred to Phineas Finn. Mr.

Violet knows how well I have always loved him.” Lord Chiltern turned his angry face upon his wife. Lady Chiltern put her arm round her sister-in-law’s waist, and whispered some words into her ear. “What is that to me?” continued the half-frantic woman. “

I do love him. I have always loved him. I shall love him to the end. He is all my life to me.

”

“

I feel no shame. There is no disgrace in love.

I did disgrace myself when I gave the hand for which he asked to another man, because—because—” But she was too noble to tell her brother even then that at the moment of her life to which she was alluding she had married the rich …

His letters fall naturally to the Sunday afternoon, and are hardly written before sleep overpowers him.

Many a large fortune has been made with less of true devotion to the work than is given to hunting by so genuine a sportsman as Mr. Spooner.

Our friend had some inkling of this himself, and felt that many of the less important affairs of his life were neglected because he was so true to the one great object of his existence.

You may shake your head, Mr. Low; but I would. And I’d carry Lord Fawn off to the Antipodes, too;—and I shouldn’t care if you left him there. I know that this man is innocent, and I’d do anything to save him.

A woman, I know, can’t do much;⁠—but she has this privilege, that she can speak out what men only think.

I’d give them two carriages and two pairs of horses apiece if I could do it that way.”

“Would that be justice, ladies?” asked the just man.

“It would be success, Mr. Low⁠—which is a great deal the better thing of the two.”

“If Mr. Finn were found guilty, I could not in my heart believe that that would be justice,” said Madame Goesler.

“You would do as much, Duchess, if you were free as I am. It isn’t a matter of love at all. It’s womanly enthusiasm for the cause one has taken up.”

“I’m quite as enthusiastic⁠—only I shouldn’t like to go to Prague in June.”

“I’d go to Siberia in January if I could find out that that horrid man really committed the murder.”

The Duchess had declared that the Duke should insist on having the Garter. “These are things that men do not ask for,” the Duke had said.

“Don’t tell me, Plantagenet, about not asking. Everybody asks for everything nowadays.”

“Your everybody is not correct, Glencora. I never yet asked for anything—and never shall. No honour has any value in my eyes unless it comes unasked.”

Noble lords and great statesmen would throng the bench of the court to see Phineas Finn tried, and all the world who could find an entrance would do the same to see the great statesmen and the noble lords.

The importance of such an affair increases like a snowball as it is rolled on.

Many people talk much, and then very many people talk very much more. The under-sheriffs of the City, praiseworthy gentlemen not hitherto widely known to fame, became suddenly conspicuous and popular, as being the dispensers of admissions to seats in the court.

“They have been doing that ever since we were married;—but I do not know that they have made out much against me.

We must go after our nature, Plantagenet. Your nature is decimals. I run after units.

” He did not deem it wise to say anything further—knowing that to this evil also of Phineas Finn the gods would at last vouchsafe an ending.

But there he was—in the clutches of the odious, dirty, little man, hating the little man, despising him because he was dirty, and nothing better than an Old Bailey barrister—and yet fearing him with so intense a fear!

Mr. Chaffanbrass smiled at his victim, and for a moment was quite soft with him⁠—as a cat is soft with a mouse.

The reporters could hardly hear his first question—“I believe you are an Undersecretary of State?” Lord Fawn acknowledged the fact.

But Madame Goesler was a brunette—swarthy, Lady Laura would have called her—with bright eyes and glossy hair and thin cheeks, and now being somewhat over thirty she was at her best.

Lady Laura hated her as a fair woman who has lost her beauty can hate the dark woman who keeps it.

“What made her think of the key?” said Lady Chiltern.

He would be the wonder of the club for twenty minutes, and then it would all be over. He stood close under the shade of a heavy building as he thought of this, but he found that he could not do it.

He had known from the beginning that he could not do it. How callous, how hard, how heartless, must he have been, had such a course been possible to him!

He again repeated the lines to himself—

The clock never stopped, and wanted but little looking after. But the works were somewhat rough, and the seconds were not scored. He had, however, been quite true to Phineas during the dark time, and might now say what he pleased.

“I am womanly,” said Phineas. “I begin to feel it. But I can’t alter my nature.”

“I never was so much surprised in my life,” said Lord Chiltern. “When I used to look at you in the dock, by heaven I envied you your pluck and strength.”

“So he has—and tenderly used too. Nobody has had better friends. I thought he would have been more manly.”

The property of manliness in a man is a great possession, but perhaps there is none that is less understood⁠—which is more generally accorded where it does not exist, or more frequently disallowed where it prevails.

There are not many who ever make up their minds as to what constitutes manliness, or even inquire within themselves upon the subject.

That personal bravery is required in the composition of manliness must be conceded, though, of all the ingredients needed, it is the lowest in value. But the first requirement of all must be described by a negative.

Manliness is not compatible with affectation.

Women’s virtues, all feminine attributes, may be marred by affectation, but the virtues and the vice may coexist. An affected man, too, may be honest, may be generous, may be pious;—but surely he cannot be manly.

We see the two things daily, side by side, close to each other.

Let a man put his hat down, and you shall say whether he has deposited it with affectation or true nature.

The natural man will probably be manly. The affected man cannot be so.

She sat opposite the mirror, and pored over her own features with an almost skilful scrutiny, and told herself at last aloud that she had become an old woman.

He was in the prime of life; but for her was left nothing but its dregs.

She was to go to Loughlinter with her brother and her brother’s wife, leaving her father at Saulsby on the way. The Chilterns were to remain with her for one week, and no more.

She would still continue to play her game as before, would still scheme, would still lie; and might still, at last, land herself in that Elysium of life of which she had been always dreaming. Poor Lizzie Eustace!

Was it nature or education which had made it impossible to her to tell the truth, when a lie came to her hand? Lizzie, the liar! Poor Lizzie!

I owe him a great deal too much for that. He is one of the few friends I have who are entitled to say to me just what they please. But I think he mistakes the matter.

When a man becomes crooked from age it is no good telling him to be straight. He’d be straight if he could.

A man can’t eat his dinner with a diseased liver as he could when he was well.”

“No Englishman whom I have met is so broadly and intuitively and unceremoniously imbued with the simplicity of the character of a gentleman.

He could no more lie than he could eat grass.

”

He did not hunt himself—but neither did he shoot, or fish, or play cards.

He recreated himself with Blue Books, and speculations on Adam Smith had been his distraction;⁠—but he knew that he was himself peculiar, and he respected the habits of others.

It had fallen out in this wise. As the old Duke had become very old, the old Duke’s agent had gradually acquired more than an agent’s proper influence in the property;

There is something doubtless absurd in the intensity of the worship paid to the fox by hunting communities.

The animal becomes sacred, and his preservation is a religion. His irregular destruction is a profanity, and words spoken to his injury are blasphemous.

Not long since a gentleman shot a fox running across a woodland ride in a hunting country. He had mistaken it for a hare, and had done the deed in the presence of keepers, owner, and friends.

As the vulpicide, on the afternoon of the day of the deed, went along the corridor to his room, one maidservant whispered to another, and the poor victim of an imperfect sight heard the words—

“That’s he as shot the fox!”

The gentleman did not appear at dinner, nor was he ever again seen in those parts.

“I gave the order yesterday. They are to be sold—I don’t know when. They won’t fetch anything. They never do.

One always buys bad horses there for a lot of money, and sells good ones for nothing.

Where the difference goes to I never could make out.”

“No; he don’t. The fellows get it who have their eyes open.

My eyes never were open⁠—except as far as seeing you went.

”

I believe that will be all I shall have to say, except that Lady Glencora—the Duchess, I mean—wishes that Adelaide should be married from our house. If this be so I shall, of course, hope to have the honour of giving my cousin away.”

The Duke was by no means a pompous man, and probably there was no man in England of so high rank who thought so little of his rank.

But he was stiff and somewhat ungainly, and the task which he was called upon to execute had been very disagreeable to him. He bowed when he had finished his speech, and Gerard Maule felt himself bound to go, almost without expressing his thanks.