ot speak to you of him or
of papa. I only want you to understand that there is a subject which
must be secret to myself, and on which I may be allowed to shed
tears,--if I am so weak. I will not trouble you on a matter in which
I have not your sympathy." Then she left him, standing in the middle
of the room, depressed by what had occurred,--but not thinking of it
as of a trouble which would do more than make him uncomfortable for
that day.

CHAPTER XL

Madame Max Goesler

Day after day, and clause after clause, the bill was fought in
committee, and few men fought with more constancy on the side of the
Ministers than did the member for Loughton. Troubled though he was by
his quarrel with Lord Chiltern, by his love for Violet Effingham, by
the silence of his friend Lady Laura,--for since he had told her of
the duel she had become silent to him, never writing to him, and
hardly speaking to him when she met him in society,--nevertheless
Phineas was not so troubled but what he could work at his vocation.
Now, when he would find himself upon his legs in the House, he would
wonder at the hesitation which had lately troubled him so sorely. He
would sit sometimes and speculate upon that dimness of eye, upon that
tendency of things to go round, upon that obtrusive palpitation of
heart, which had afflicted him so seriously for so long a time. The
House now was no more to him than any other chamber, and the members
no more than other men. He guarded himself from orations, speaking
always very shortly,--because he believed that policy and good
judgment required that he should be short. But words were very easy
to him, and he would feel as though he could talk for ever. And there
quickly came to him a reputation for practical usefulness. He was a
man with strong opinions, who could yet be submissive. And no man
seemed to know how his reputation had come. He had made one good
speech after two or three failures. All who knew him, his whole
party, had been aware of his failure; and his one good speech had
been regarded by many as no very wonderful effort. But he was a man
who was pleasant to other men,--not combative, not self-asserting
beyond the point at which self-assertion ceases to be a necessity of
manliness. Nature had been very good to him, making him comely inside
and out,--and with this comeliness he had crept into popularity.

The secret of the duel was, I think, at this time, known to a great
many men and women