y stand till she choose to take it? It's an affair of
trade, I suppose, and you're at the head of all that now." Then again
she asked him some question about the Home Secretary, with reference
to Phineas Finn; and when he told her that it would be highly
improper for him to speak to that officer on such a subject, she
pretended to suppose that the impropriety would consist in the
interference of a man holding so low a position as he was. "Of course
it is not the same now," she said, "as it used to be when you were at
the Exchequer." All which he took without uttering a word of anger,
or showing a sign of annoyance. "You only get two thousand a year, do
you, at the Board of Trade, Plantagenet?"

"Upon my word, I forget. I think it's two thousand five hundred."

"How nice! It was five at the Exchequer, wasn't it?"

"Yes; five thousand at the Exchequer."

"When you're a Lord of the Treasury it will only be one;--will it?"

"What a goose you are, Glencora. If it suited me to be a Lord of the
Treasury, what difference would the salary make?"

"Not the least;--nor yet the rank, or the influence, or the prestige,
or the general fitness of things. You are above all such sublunary
ideas. You would clean Mr. Gresham's shoes for him, if--the service
of your country required it." These last words she added in a tone
of voice very similar to that which her husband himself used on
occasions.

"I would even allow you to clean them,--if the service of the country
required it," said the Duke.

But, though he was magnanimous, he was not happy, and perhaps the
intense anxiety which his wife displayed as to the fate of Phineas
Finn added to his discomfort. The Duchess, as the Duke of St. Bungay
had said, was enthusiastic, and he never for a moment dreamed of
teaching her to change her nature; but it would have been as well
if her enthusiasm at the present moment could have been brought to
display itself on some other subject. He had been brought to feel
that Phineas Finn had been treated badly when the good things of
Government were being given away, and that this had been caused by
the jealous prejudices of the man who had been since murdered. But an
expectant Under-Secretary of State, let him have been ever so cruelly
left out in the cold, should not murder the man by whom he has been
ill-treated. Looking at all the evidence as best he could, and
listening to the opinions of others, the Duke did think that Phineas
had been guil