"

"It would be such an abominable shame to sacrifice the girl," said
Lord Fawn. "Only think of it. Everything is gone. The man is a
drunkard, and I don't believe he is any more reconciled to his father
than you are. Lady Laura Kennedy must have had some object in saying
so."

"Perhaps an invention of Finn's altogether," said Mr. Bonteen. "Those
Irish fellows are just the men for that kind of thing."

"A man, you know, so violent that nobody can hold him," said Lord
Fawn, thinking of Chiltern.

"And so absurdly conceited," said Mr. Bonteen, thinking of Phineas.

"A man who has never done anything, with all his advantages in the
world,--and never will."

"He won't hold his place long," said Mr. Bonteen.

"Whom do you mean?"

"Phineas Finn."

"Oh, Mr. Finn. I was talking of Lord Chiltern. I believe Finn to be
a very good sort of a fellow, and he is undoubtedly clever. They say
Cantrip likes him amazingly. He'll do very well. But I don't believe
a word of this about Lord Chiltern." Then Mr. Bonteen felt himself to
be snubbed, and soon afterwards left Lord Fawn alone.

CHAPTER LIV

Consolation

On the day following Madame Goesler's dinner party, Phineas, though
he was early at his office, was not able to do much work, still
feeling that as regarded the realities of the world, his back
was broken. He might no doubt go on learning, and, after a time,
might be able to exert himself in a perhaps useful, but altogether
uninteresting kind of way, doing his work simply because it was
there to be done,--as the carter or the tailor does his;--and from
the same cause, knowing that a man must have bread to live. But as
for ambition, and the idea of doing good, and the love of work for
work's sake,--as for the elastic springs of delicious and beneficent
labour,--all that was over for him. He would have worked from day
till night, and from night till day, and from month till month
throughout the year to have secured for Violet Effingham the
assurance that her husband's position was worthy of her own. But now
he had no motive for such work as this. As long as he took the public
pay, he would earn it; and that was all.

On the next day things were a little better with him. He received a
note in the morning from Lord Cantrip saying that they two were to
see the Prime Minister that evening, in order that the whole question
of the railway to the Rocky Mountains might be understood, and
Phineas was driven to his wor