MRS. G. I don’t think he ever really tried—­much.

MORLEY.  Didn’t he?  Oh, you don’t mean Mr. Gladstone?

MRS. G. And then, you see, the Queen never liked him.  That has counted for a good deal.

MORLEY.  It has—­curiously.

MRS. G. Now why should it, Mr. Morley?  She ought not to have such power—­any more than I.

MORLEY.  How can it be kept from either of you?  During the last decade this country has been living on two rival catchwords, which in the field of politics have meant much—­the “Widow at Windsor,” and the “Grand Old Man.”  And these two makers of history are mentally and temperamentally incompatible.  That has been the tragedy.  This is her day, dear lady; but it won’t always be so.

MRS. G. Mr. Morley, who is going to be—­who will take Mr. Gladstone’s place?

MORLEY.  Difficult to say:  the Queen may make her own choice.  Spencer, perhaps; though I rather doubt it; probably Harcourt.

MRS. G. Shall you serve under him?

MORLEY.  I haven’t decided.

MRS. G. You won’t.

MORLEY.  Possibly not.  We are at the end of a dispensation.  Whether I belong to the new one, I don’t yet know.

MRS. G. The Queen will be pleased, at any rate.

MORLEY.  Delighted.

MRS. G. Will she offer him a peerage, do you think?

MORLEY.  Oh, of course.

MRS. G. Yes.  And she knows he won’t accept it.  So that gives her the advantage of seeming—­magnanimous!

MORLEY.  Dear lady, you say rather terrible things—­sometimes!  You pray for the Queen, too, I suppose; or don’t you?

MRS. G. Oh yes; but that’s different.  I don’t feel with her that it’s personal.  She was always against him.  It was her bringing up; she couldn’t help being.

MORLEY.  So was Chamberlain; so was Harcourt; so was everybody.  He is the loneliest man, in a great position, that I have ever known.

MRS. G. Till he met you, Mr. Morley.

MORLEY.  I was only speaking of politics.  Sixty years ago he met you.

MRS. G. Nearly sixty-three.

MORLEY.  Three to the good; all the better!

MRS. G. (having finished off the comforter).  There! that is finished now!

MORLEY.  A thousand thanks; so it is to be mine, is it?

MRS. G. I wanted to say, Mr. Morley, how good I think you have always been to me.

MORLEY.  I, dear lady?  I?

MRS. G. I must so often have been in the way without knowing it.  You see, you and I think differently.  We belong to different schools.

MORLEY.  If you go on, I shall have to say “angel,” again.  That is all I can say.

MRS. G. (tremulously).  Oh, Mr. Morley, you will tell me!  Is this the end?  Has he—­has he, after all, been a failure?

MORLEY.  My dear lady, he has been an epoch.

MRS. G. Aren’t epochs failures, sometimes?