ad both intended from the first that it should
be so. "I know you have not accepted Mr. Gresham's offer, or you
would have told me so."

"I have not accepted."

"Nor have you refused?"

"No; it is still open. I must send my answer by telegram
to-morrow--Yes or No,--Mr. Gresham's time is too precious to admit of
more."

"Phineas, for Heaven's sake do not allow little feelings to injure
you at such a time as this. It is of your own career, not of Mr.
Gresham's manners, that you should think."

"I have nothing to object to in Mr. Gresham. Yes or No will be quite
sufficient."

"It must be Yes."

"It cannot be Yes, Lady Laura. That which I desired so ardently six
months ago has now become so distasteful to me that I cannot accept
it. There is an amount of hustling on the Treasury Bench which makes
a seat there almost ignominious."

"Do they hustle more than they did three years ago?"

"I think they do, or if not it is more conspicuous to my eyes. I
do not say that it need be ignominious. To such a one as was Mr.
Palliser it certainly is not so. But it becomes so when a man goes
there to get his bread, and has to fight his way as though for bare
life. When office first comes, unasked for, almost unexpected, full
of the charms which distance lends, it is pleasant enough. The
new-comer begins to feel that he too is entitled to rub his shoulders
among those who rule the world of Great Britain. But when it has been
expected, longed for as I longed for it, asked for by my friends and
refused, when all the world comes to know that you are a suitor for
that which should come without any suit,--then the pleasantness
vanishes."

"I thought it was to be your career."

"And I hoped so."

"What will you do, Phineas? You cannot live without any income."

"I must try," he said, laughing

"You will not share with your friend, as a friend should?"

"No, Lady Laura. That cannot be done."

"I do not see why it cannot. Then you might be independent."

"Then I should indeed be dependent."

"You are too proud to owe me anything."

He wanted to tell her that he was too proud to owe such obligation as
she had suggested to any man or any woman; but he hardly knew how to
do so, intending as he did to inform her before they returned to the
house of his intention to ask Madame Goesler to be his wife. He could
discern the difference between enjoying his wife's fortune and taking
gifts of money from one who was bound to him by