“It is pleasant to succeed, of course,” said Phineas, “let the success be ever so little.”

“We knew you would succeed,” said Lady Laura.  “We were quite sure of it.  Were we not, Violet?”

“You always said so, my dear.  For myself I do not venture to have an opinion on such matters.  Will you always have to go to that big building in the corner, Mr. Finn, and stay there from ten till four?  Won’t that be a bore?”

“We have a half-holiday on Saturday, you know,” said Phineas.

“And do the Lords of the Treasury have to take care of the money?” asked Madame Max Goesler.

“Only their own; and they generally fail in doing that,” said Phineas.

He sat there for a considerable time, wondering whether Mr. Kennedy would come in, and wondering also as to what Mr. Kennedy would say to Madame Max Goesler when he did come in.  He knew that it was useless for him to expect any opportunity, then or there, of being alone for a moment with Violet Effingham.  His only chance in that direction would be in some crowded room, at some ball at which he might ask her to dance with him; but it seemed that fate was very unkind to him, and that no such chance came in his way.  Mr. Kennedy did not appear, and Madame Max Goesler with Violet went away, leaving Phineas still sitting with Lady Laura.  Each of them said a kind word to him as they went.  “I don’t know whether I may dare to expect that a Lord of the Treasury will come and see me?” said Madame Max Goesler.  Then Phineas made a second promise that he would call in Park Lane.  Violet blushed as she remembered that she could not ask him to call at Lady Baldock’s.  “Good-bye, Mr. Finn,” she said, giving him her hand.  “I’m so very glad that they have chosen you; and I do hope that, as Madame Max says, they’ll make you a secretary and a president, and everything else very quickly,—­till it will come to your turn to be making other people.”  “He is very nice,” said Madame Goesler to Violet as she took her place in the carriage.  “He bears being petted and spoilt without being either awkward or conceited.”  “On the whole, he is rather nice,” said Violet; “only he has not got a shilling in the world, and has to make himself before he will be anybody.”  “He must marry money, of course,” said Madame Max Goesler.

“I hope you are contented?” said Lady Laura, rising from her chair and coming opposite to him as soon as they were alone.

“Of course I am contented.”

“I was not,—­when I first heard of it.  Why did they promote that empty-headed countryman of yours to a place for which he was quite unfit?  I was not contented.  But then I am more ambitious for you than you are for yourself.”  He sat without answering her for awhile, and she stood waiting for his reply.  “Have you nothing to say to me?” she asked.

“I do not know what to say.  When I think of it all, I am lost in amazement.  You tell me that you are not contented;—­that you are ambitious for me.  Why is it that you should feel any interest in the matter?”