“Feeling this was ticklish ground, as Harcourt thought that he and not Rosebery should have been Prime Minister, I turned the talk on to Goschen.

“Sir William:  ’It is sad to see the way Goschen has lost his hold in the country; he has not been at all well treated by his colleagues.’

“This seemed to me to be also rather risky, so I said boldly that I thought Goschen had done wonders in the House and country, considering he had a poor voice and was naturally cautious.  I told them I loved him personally and that Jowett at whose house I first met him shared my feeling in valuing his friendship.  After this he took his departure, promising to bring me roses from Malwood.

“John Morley—­the most fastidious and fascinating of men—­stayed on with me and suggested quite seriously that, when we went out of office (which might happen any day), he and I should write a novel together.  He said that, if I would write the plot and do the female characters, he would manage the men and politics.

I asked if he wanted the old Wilkie Collins idea of a plot with a hundred threads drawn into one woof, or did he prefer modern nothingness, a shred of a story attached to unending analysis and the infinitely little commented upon with elaborate and pretentious humour.  He scorned the latter.

I asked him if he did not want to go permanently away from politics to literature and discussed all his wonderful books and writings.  I chaffed him about the way he had spoken of me before our marriage, in spite of the charming letter he had written, how it had been repeated to me that he had said my light-hearted indiscretions would ruin Henry’s career; and I asked him what I had done since to merit his renewed confidence.

“He did not deny having criticised me, for although ‘Honest John’ —­the name by which he went among the Radicals—­was singularly ill-chosen, I never heard of Morley telling a lie.  He was quite impenitent and I admired his courage.

“After an engrossing conversation, every moment of which I loved, he said good-bye to me and I leant back against the pillow and gazed at the pattern on the wall.

“Henry came into my room shortly after this and told me the Government had been beaten by seven in a vote of censure passed on Campbell-Bannerman in Supply, in connection with small arms ammunition.  I looked at him wonderingly and said: 

“‘Are you sad, darling, that we are out?’

“To which he replied: 

“’Only for one reason.  I wish I had completed my prison reforms.  I have, however, appointed the best committee ever seen, who will go on with my work.  Ruggles-Brise, the head of it, is a splendid little fellow!’

“At that moment he received a note to say he was wanted in the House of Commons immediately, as Lord Rosebery had been sent for by the Queen.  This excited us much and, before he could finish telling me what had happened, he went straight down to Westminster . ...  John Morley had missed this fateful division, as he was sitting with me, and Harcourt had only just arrived at the House in time to vote.