an odious word," said the Prime Minister.

"What;--flirting? I don't see anything bad about the word. The thing
is dangerous. But you are quite at liberty if you don't go beyond
Lady Rosina. I should like to know whether you would wish anybody
else to come?" Of course he made no becoming answer to this question,
and of course no becoming answer was expected. He knew that she was
trying to provoke him because he would not let her do this year
as she had done last. The house, he had no doubt, would be full
to overflowing when he got there. He could not help that. But as
compared with Gatherum Castle the house at Matching was small, and
his domestic authority sufficed at any rate for shutting up Gatherum
for the time.

I do not know whether at times her sufferings were not as acute as
his own. He, at any rate, was Prime Minister, and it seemed to her
that she was to be reduced to nothing. At the beginning of it all
he had, with unwonted tenderness, asked her for her sympathy in his
undertaking, and, according to her powers, she had given it to him
with her whole heart. She had thought that she had seen a way by
which she might assist him in his great employment, and she had
worked at it like a slave. Every day she told herself that she did
not, herself, love the Captain Gunners and Major Pountneys, nor the
Sir Orlandos, nor, indeed, the Lady Rosinas. She had not followed
the bent of her own inclination when she had descended to sheets and
towels, and busied herself to establish an archery-ground. She had
not shot an arrow during the whole season, nor had she cared who had
won and who had lost. It had not been for her own personal delight
that she had kept open house for forty persons throughout four months
of the year, in doing which he had never taken an ounce of the labour
off her shoulders by any single word or deed! It had all been done
for his sake,--that his reign might be long and triumphant, that the
world might say that his hospitality was noble and full, that his
name might be in men's mouths, and that he might prosper as a British
Minister. Such, at least, were the assertions which she made to
herself, when she thought of her own grievances and her own troubles.
And now she was angry with her husband. It was very well for him
to ask for her sympathy, but he had none to give her in return! He
could not pity her failures,--even though he had himself caused them!
If he had a grain of intelligence about him he mus