had certainly made things
worse. He had quarrelled with his son, and then made it up, and then
quarrelled again,--swearing that the fault must all be attributed to
Chiltern's stubbornness and Chiltern's temper. Latterly, however, by
Lady Laura's intervention, Lord Brentford and his son had again been
reconciled, and the Earl endeavoured manfully to keep his tongue from
disagreeable words, and his face from evil looks, when his son was
present. "They will make it up," Lady Laura had said, "if you and I
do not attempt to make it up for them. If we do, they will never come
together." The Earl was convinced, and did his best. But the task
was very difficult to him. How was he to keep his tongue off his son
while his son was daily saying things of which any father,--any such
father as Lord Brentford,--could not but disapprove? Lord Chiltern
professed to disbelieve even in the wisdom of the House of Lords, and
on one occasion asserted that it must be a great comfort to any Prime
Minister to have three or four old women in the Cabinet. The father,
when he heard this, tried to rebuke his son tenderly, strove even to
be jocose. It was the one wish of his heart that Violet Effingham
should be his daughter-in-law. But even with this wish he found it
very hard to keep his tongue off Lord Chiltern.

When Lady Laura discussed the matter with Violet, Violet would always
declare that there was no hope. "The truth is," she said on the
morning of that day on which they both went to Mrs. Gresham's, "that
though we like each other,--love each other, if you choose to say
so,--we are not fit to be man and wife."

"And why not fit?"

"We are too much alike. Each is too violent, too headstrong, and too
masterful."

"You, as the woman, ought to give way," said Lady Laura.

"But we do not always do just what we ought."

"I know how difficult it is for me to advise, seeing to what a pass I
have brought myself."

"Do not say that, dear;--or rather do say it, for we have, both of
us, brought ourselves to what you call a pass,--to such a pass that
we are like to be able to live together and discuss it for the rest
of our lives. The difference is, I take it, that you have not to
accuse yourself, and that I have."

"I cannot say that I have not to accuse myself," said Lady Laura.
"I do not know that I have done much wrong to Mr. Kennedy since I
married him; but in marrying him I did him a grievous wrong."

"And he has avenged himself."