“Don’t you know what I mean, Robert?”

“No; I do not think that I do, exactly.”

“I suppose your head is stronger.  You do not get that feeling of dazed, helpless imbecility of brain, which hardly amounts to headache, but which yet—­is almost as bad.”

“Imbecility of brain may be worse than headache, but I don’t think it can produce it.”

“Well, well;—­I don’t know how to explain it.”

“Headache comes, I think, always from the stomach, even when produced by nervous affections.  But imbecility of the brain—­”

“Oh, Robert, I am so sorry that I used the word.”

“I see that it did not prevent your reading,” he said, after a pause.

“Not such reading as that.  I was up to nothing better.”

Then there was another pause.

“I won’t deny that it may be a prejudice,” he said, “but I confess that the use of novels in my own house on Sundays is a pain to me.  My mother’s ideas on the subject are very strict, and I cannot think that it is bad for a son to hang on to the teaching of his mother.”  This he said in the most serious tone which he could command.

“I don’t know why I took it up,” said Lady Laura.  “Simply, I believe, because it was there.  I will avoid doing so for the future.”

“Do, my dear,” said the husband.  “I shall be obliged and grateful if you will remember what I have said.”  Then he left her, and she sat alone, first in the dusk and then in the dark, for two hours, doing nothing.  Was this to be the life which she had procured for herself by marrying Mr. Kennedy of Loughlinter?  If it was harsh and unendurable in London, what would it be in the country?

CHAPTER XXIV

The Willingford Bull

Phineas left London by a night mail train on Easter Sunday, and found himself at the Willingford Bull about half an hour after midnight.  Lord Chiltern was up and waiting for him, and supper was on the table.  The Willingford Bull was an English inn of the old stamp, which had now, in these latter years of railway travelling, ceased to have a road business,—­for there were no travellers on the road, and but little posting—­but had acquired a new trade as a depot for hunters and hunting men.  The landlord let out horses and kept hunting stables, and the house was generally filled from the beginning of November till the middle of April.  Then it became a desert in the summer, and no guests were seen there, till the pink coats flocked down again into the shires.

“How many days do you mean to give us?” said Lord Chiltern, as he helped his friend to a devilled leg of turkey.

“I must go back on Wednesday,” said Phineas.

“That means Wednesday night.  I’ll tell you what we’ll do.  We’ve the Cottesmore to-morrow.  We’ll get into Tailby’s country on Tuesday, and Fitzwilliam will be only twelve miles off on Wednesday.  We shall be rather short of horses.”