’I am going up on purpose to see him.  He is causing me much annoyance.’

‘Is he extravagant?’

‘It is not that—­at present.’  He winced even as he said this, for he had in truth suffered somewhat from demands made upon him for money; which had hurt him not so much by their amount as by their nature.  Lord Silverbridge had taken upon himself to ’own a horse or two’, very much to his father’s chagrin, and was at that moment part proprietor of an animal supposed to stand well for the Derby.  The fact was not announced in the papers with his lordship’s name, but his father was aware of it, and did not like it the better because his son held the horse in partnership with a certain Major Tifto, who was well known in the sporting world.

‘What is it, papa?’

‘Of course he ought to go into Parliament.’

‘I think he wishes it himself.’

’Yes, but how?  By a piece of extreme good fortune.  West Barsetshire is open to him.  The two seats are vacant together.  There is hardly another agricultural county in England that will return a Liberal, and I fear I am not asserting too much in saying that no other Liberal could carry the seat but one of our family.’

‘You used to sit for Silverbridge, papa.’

’Yes, I did.  In those days the county returned four Conservatives.  I cannot explain it all to you, but it is his duty to contest the county on the Liberal side.’

‘But if he is a Conservative himself, papa?’ asked Lady Mary, who had some political ideas suggested to her own mind by her lover.

’It is all rubbish.  It has come from that young man Tregear, with whom he has been associating.’

‘But, papa,’ said Lady Mary, who felt that even in this matter she was bound to be firm on what was now her side of the question.  ’I suppose it is as—­as—­as respectable to be a Conservative as a Liberal.’

‘I don’t know that at all,’ said the Duke angrily.

‘I thought that—­the two sides were—­’

She was going to express an opinion that the two parties might be supposed to stand as equal in the respect of the country, when he interrupted her.  ’The Pallisers have always been Liberal.  It will be a blow to me, indeed, if Silverbridge deserts his colours.  I know that as yet he himself has had no deep thoughts on the subject, that unfortunately he does not give himself much to thinking, and that in this matter he is being taken over by a young man whose position in life hardly justified the great intimacy which has existed.’

This was very far from being comfortable to her, but of course she said nothing in defence of Tregear’s politics.  Nor at present was she disposed to say anything to his position in life, though at some future time she might not be so silent.  A few days later they were again walking together, when he spoke to her about himself.  ‘I cannot bear that you should be left her alone while I am away,’ he said.