‘I would not have you marry any man without loving him.’

’I never can love anybody else.  That is what I wanted you to know, papa.’

To this he made no reply, nor was there anything else said upon the subject before the carriage drove up to the railway station.  ‘Do not get out, dear,’ he said, seeing that her eyes had been filled with tears.  ’It is not worth while.  God bless you my child!  You will be up in London I hope in a fortnight, and we must try to make the house a little less dull for you.’

And so he encountered the third attack.

Lady Mary, as she was driven home, recovered her spirits wonderfully.  Not a word had fallen from her father which she could use hereafter as a refuge from her embarrassments.  He had made her no promise.  He had assented to nothing.  But there had been something in his manner, in his gait, in his eye, in the pressure of his arm, which made her feel that her troubles would soon be at an end.

‘I do love you so much,’ she said to Mrs Finn late on that afternoon.

‘I am glad of that, dear.’

’I shall always love you,—­because you have been on my side all through.’

‘No, Mary;—­that is not so.’

’I know it is so.  Of course you have to be wise because you are older.  And papa would not have you here with me if you were not wise.  But I know you are on my side,—­and papa knows it too.  And someone else shall know it some day.’

CHAPTER 67

‘He is Such a Beast’

Lord Silverbridge remained in the Brake country till a few days before the meeting of Parliament, and had he been left to himself he would have had another week in the country and might probably have overstayed the opening day; but he had not been left to himself.  In the last week in January an important despatch reached his hands, from no less important person than Sir Timothy Beeswax, suggesting to him that he should undertake the duty of seconding the address in the House of Commons.  When the proposition first reached him it made his hair stand on end.  He had never yet risen to his feet in the House.  He had spoken at those election meetings in Cornwall, and had found it easy enough.  After the first or second time he had thought it good fun.  But he knew that standing up in the House of Commons would be different from that.  Then there would be the dress!  ’I should so hate to fig myself out and look like a guy,’ he said to Tregear, to whom of course he confided the offer that was made to him.  Tregear was very anxious that he should accept it.  ’A man should never refuse anything of that kind which comes his way,’ Tregear said.

‘It is only because I am the governor’s son,’ Silverbridge pleaded.

’Partly so perhaps.  But if it be altogether so, what of that?  Take the goods the gods provide you.  Of course all these things which our ambition covets are easier to Duke’s sons than to others.  But not on that account should a Duke’s son refuse them.  A man when he sees a rung vacant on the ladder should always put his foot there.’