“How are we getting on?” says Miss Volumnia, clasping her hands.  “Are we safe?”

The mighty business is nearly over by this time, and Doodle will throw himself off the country in a few days more.  Sir Leicester has just appeared in the long drawing-room after dinner, a bright particular star surrounded by clouds of cousins.

“Volumnia,” replies Sir Leicester, who has a list in his hand, “we are doing tolerably.”

“Only tolerably!”

Although it is summer weather, Sir Leicester always has his own particular fire in the evening.  He takes his usual screened seat near it and repeats with much firmness and a little displeasure, as who should say, I am not a common man, and when I say tolerably, it must not be understood as a common expression, “Volumnia, we are doing tolerably.”

“At least there is no opposition to you,” Volumnia asserts with confidence.

“No, Volumnia.  This distracted country has lost its senses in many respects, I grieve to say, but—­”

“It is not so mad as that.  I am glad to hear it!”

Volumnia’s finishing the sentence restores her to favour.  Sir Leicester, with a gracious inclination of his head, seems to say to himself, “A sensible woman this, on the whole, though occasionally precipitate.”

In fact, as to this question of opposition, the fair Dedlock’s observation was superfluous, Sir Leicester on these occasions always delivering in his own candidateship, as a kind of handsome wholesale order to be promptly executed.  Two other little seats that belong to him he treats as retail orders of less importance, merely sending down the men and signifying to the tradespeople, “You will have the goodness to make these materials into two members of Parliament and to send them home when done.”

“I regret to say, Volumnia, that in many places the people have shown a bad spirit, and that this opposition to the government has been of a most determined and most implacable description.”

“W-r-retches!” says Volumnia.

“Even,” proceeds Sir Leicester, glancing at the circumjacent cousins on sofas and ottomans, “even in many—­in fact, in most—­of those places in which the government has carried it against a faction—­”

(Note, by the way, that the Coodleites are always a faction with the Doodleites, and that the Doodleites occupy exactly the same position towards the Coodleites.)

“—­Even in them I am shocked, for the credit of Englishmen, to be constrained to inform you that the party has not triumphed without being put to an enormous expense.  Hundreds,” says Sir Leicester, eyeing the cousins with increasing dignity and swelling indignation, “hundreds of thousands of pounds!”

If Volumnia have a fault, it is the fault of being a trifle too innocent, seeing that the innocence which would go extremely well with a sash and tucker is a little out of keeping with the rouge and pearl necklace.  Howbeit, impelled by innocence, she asks, “What for?”