“You have made up your mind, then, that I mean to be idle?”

“I have made up my mind that your time will be wholly unprofitable,—­if you do as you say you intend to do.”

“But you do not know my plan;—­just listen to me.”  Then Mr. Low did listen, and Phineas explained his plan,—­saying, of course, nothing of his love for Lady Laura, but giving Mr. Low to understand that he intended to assist in turning out the existing Government and to mount up to some seat,—­a humble seat at first,—­on the Treasury bench, by the help of his exalted friends and by the use of his own gifts of eloquence.  Mr. Low heard him without a word.  “Of course,” said Phineas, “after the first year my time will not be fully employed, unless I succeed.  And if I fail totally,—­for, of course, I may fail altogether—­”

“It is possible,” said Mr. Low.

“If you are resolved to turn yourself against me, I must not say another word,” said Phineas, with anger.

“Turn myself against you!  I would turn myself any way so that I might save you from the sort of life which you are preparing for yourself.  I see nothing in it that can satisfy any manly heart.  Even if you are successful, what are you to become?  You will be the creature of some minister, not his colleague.  You are to make your way up the ladder by pretending to agree whenever agreement is demanded from you, and by voting whether you agree or do not.  And what is to be your reward?  Some few precarious hundreds a year, lasting just so long as a party may remain in power and you can retain a seat in Parliament!  It is at the best slavery and degradation,—­even if you are lucky enough to achieve the slavery.”

“You yourself hope to go into Parliament and join a ministry some day,” said Phineas.

Mr. Low was not quick to answer, but he did answer at last.  “That is true, though I have never told you so.  Indeed, it is hardly true to say that I hope it.  I have my dreams, and sometimes dare to tell myself that they may possibly become waking facts.  But if ever I sit on a Treasury bench I shall sit there by special invitation, having been summoned to take a high place because of my professional success.  It is but a dream after all, and I would not have you repeat what I have said to any one.  I had no intention to talk about myself.”

“I am sure that you will succeed,” said Phineas.

“Yes;—­I shall succeed.  I am succeeding.  I live upon what I earn, like a gentleman, and can already afford to be indifferent to work that I dislike.  After all, the other part of it,—­that of which I dream,—­is but an unnecessary adjunct; the gilding on the gingerbread.  I am inclined to think that the cake is more wholesome without it.”

Phineas did not go up-stairs into Mrs. Low’s drawing-room on that evening, nor did he stay very late with Mr. Low.  He had heard enough of counsel to make him very unhappy,—­to shake from him much of the audacity which he had acquired for himself during his morning’s walk,—­and to make him almost doubt whether, after all, the Chiltern Hundreds would not be for him the safest escape from his difficulties.  But in that case he must never venture to see Lady Laura Standish again.