“Is it not reasonable that we should be interested for our friends?”

“But when you and I last parted here in this room you were hardly my friend.”

“Was I not?  You wrong me there;—­very deeply.”

“I told you what was my ambition, and you resented it,” said Phineas.

“I think I said that I could not help you, and I think I said also that I thought you would fail.  I do not know that I showed much resentment.  You see, I told her that you were here, that she might come and meet you.  You know that I wished my brother should succeed.  I wished it before I ever knew you.  You cannot expect that I should change my wishes.”

“But if he cannot succeed,” pleaded Phineas.

“Who is to say that?  Has a woman never been won by devotion and perseverance?  Besides, how can I wish to see you go on with a suit which must sever you from my father, and injure your political prospects;—­perhaps fatally injure them?  It seems to me now that my father is almost the only man in London who has not heard of this duel.”

“Of course he will hear of it.  I have half made up my mind to tell him myself.”

“Do not do that, Mr. Finn.  There can be no reason for it.  But I did not ask you to come here to-day to talk to you about Oswald or Violet.  I have given you my advice about that, and I can do no more.”

“Lady Laura, I cannot take it.  It is out of my power to take it.”

“Very well.  The matter shall be what you members of Parliament call an open question between us.  When papa asked you to accept this place at the Treasury, did it ever occur to you to refuse it?”

“It did;—­for half an hour or so.”

“I hoped you would,—­and yet I knew that I was wrong.  I thought that you should count yourself to be worth more than that, and that you should, as it were, assert yourself.  But then it is so difficult to draw the line between proper self-assertion and proper self-denial;—­to know how high to go up the table, and how low to go down.  I do not doubt that you have been right,—­only make them understand that you are not as other junior lords;—­that you have been willing to be a junior lord, or anything else for a purpose; but that the purpose is something higher than that of fetching and carrying in Parliament for Mr. Mildmay and Mr. Palliser.”

“I hope in time to get beyond fetching and carrying,” said Phineas.

“Of course you will; and knowing that, I am glad that you are in office.  I suppose there will be no difficulty about Loughton.”

Then Phineas laughed.  “I hear,” said he, “that Mr. Quintus Slide, of the People’s Banner, has already gone down to canvass the electors.”

“Mr. Quintus Slide!  To canvass the electors of Loughton!” and Lady Laura drew herself up and spoke of this unseemly intrusion on her father’s borough, as though the vulgar man who had been named had forced his way into the very drawing-room in Portman Square.  At that moment Mr. Kennedy came in.  “Do you hear what Mr. Finn tells me?” she said.  “He has heard that Mr. Quintus Slide has gone down to Loughton to stand against him.”