poor girls who haven't got their husbands
yet."

"They should make better use of their time. Besides, they can get
their husbands in the country."

"It's quite true that they never get to the end of their labours.
They are not like you members of Parliament who can shut up your
portfolios and go and shoot grouse. They have to keep at their work
spring and summer, autumn and winter,--year after year! How they must
hate the men they persecute!"

"I don't think we can put off going for their sake."

"Men are always selfish, I know. What do you think of Plantagenet
lately?" The question was put very abruptly, without a moment's
notice, and there was no avoiding it.

"Think of him!"

"Yes;--what do you think of his condition;--of his happiness, his
health, his capacity of endurance? Will he be able to go on much
longer? Now, my dear Duke, don't stare at me like that. You know, and
I know, that you haven't spoken a word to me for the last two months.
And you know, and I know, how many things there are of which we are
both thinking in common. You haven't quarrelled with Plantagenet?"

"Quarrelled with him! Good heavens, no."

"Of course I know you still call him your noble colleague, and your
noble friend, and make one of the same team with him and all that.
But it used to be so much more than that."

"It is still more than that;--very much more."

"It was you who made him Prime Minister."

"No, no, no;--and again no. He made himself Prime Minister by
obtaining the confidence of the House of Commons. There is no other
possible way in which a man can become Prime Minister in this
country."

"If I were not very serious at this moment, Duke, I should make an
allusion to the--Marines." No other human being could have said
this to the Duke of St. Bungay, except the young woman whom he had
petted all his life as Lady Glencora. "But I am very serious," she
continued, "and I may say not very happy. Of course the big wigs of
a party have to settle among themselves who shall be their leader,
and when this party was formed they settled, at your advice, that
Plantagenet should be the man."

"My dear Lady Glen, I cannot allow that to pass without
contradiction."

"Do not suppose that I am finding fault, or even that I am
ungrateful. No one rejoiced as I rejoiced. No one still feels so much
pride in it as I feel. I would have given ten years of my life to
make him Prime Minister, and now I would give five to keep him so