verted that promise to a sacred pledge
by a kiss. He had known well why she had exacted the promise. The
turmoil in her husband's mind, the agony which he sometimes endured
when people spoke ill of him, the aversion which he had at first
genuinely felt to an office for which he hardly thought himself fit,
and now the gradual love of power created by the exercise of power,
had all been seen by her, and had created that solicitude which had
induced her to ask for the promise. The old Duke had known them both
well, but had hardly as yet given the Duchess credit for so true a
devotion to her husband. It now seemed to him that though she had
failed to love the man, she had given her entire heart to the Prime
Minister. He sympathised with her altogether, and, at any rate could
not go back from his promise.

And then he remembered, too, that if this man did anything amiss in
the high office which he had been made to fill, he who had induced
him to fill it was responsible. What right had he, the Duke of St.
Bungay, to be angry because his friend was not all-wise at all
points? Let the Droughts and the Drummonds and the Beeswaxes
quarrel among themselves or with their colleagues. He belonged to a
different school, in the teachings of which there was less perhaps
of excitement and more of long-suffering;--but surely, also, more
of nobility. He was, at any rate, too old to change, and he would
therefore be true to his friend through evil and through good. Having
thought this all out he again whispered some cheery word to the Prime
Minister, as they sat listening to the denunciations of Lord Fawn, a
Liberal lord, much used to business, but who had not been received
into the Coalition. The first whisper and the second whisper the
Prime Minister received very coldly. He had fully appreciated the
discontinuance of the whispers, and was aware of the cause. He had
made a selection on his own unassisted judgment in opposition to his
old friend's advice, and this was the result. Let it be so! All his
friends were turning away from him and he would have to stand alone.
If so, he would stand alone till the pendulum of the House of Commons
had told him that it was time for him to retire. But gradually the
determined good-humour of the old man prevailed. "He has a wonderful
gift of saying nothing with second-rate dignity," whispered the
repentant friend, speaking of Lord Fawn.

"A very honest man," said the Prime Minister in return.

"A s