ll be anybody." "He
must marry money, of course," said Madame Max Goesler.

"I hope you are contented?" said Lady Laura, rising from her chair
and coming opposite to him as soon as they were alone.

"Of course I am contented."

"I was not,--when I first heard of it. Why did they promote that
empty-headed countryman of yours to a place for which he was quite
unfit? I was not contented. But then I am more ambitious for you than
you are for yourself." He sat without answering her for awhile, and
she stood waiting for his reply. "Have you nothing to say to me?" she
asked.

"I do not know what to say. When I think of it all, I am lost in
amazement. You tell me that you are not contented;--that you are
ambitious for me. Why is it that you should feel any interest in the
matter?"

"Is it not reasonable that we should be interested for our friends?"

"But when you and I last parted here in this room you were hardly my
friend."

"Was I not? You wrong me there;--very deeply."

"I told you what was my ambition, and you resented it," said Phineas.

"I think I said that I could not help you, and I think I said also
that I thought you would fail. I do not know that I showed much
resentment. You see, I told her that you were here, that she might
come and meet you. You know that I wished my brother should succeed.
I wished it before I ever knew you. You cannot expect that I should
change my wishes."

"But if he cannot succeed," pleaded Phineas.

"Who is to say that? Has a woman never been won by devotion and
perseverance? Besides, how can I wish to see you go on with a suit
which must sever you from my father, and injure your political
prospects;--perhaps fatally injure them? It seems to me now that my
father is almost the only man in London who has not heard of this
duel."

"Of course he will hear of it. I have half made up my mind to tell
him myself."

"Do not do that, Mr. Finn. There can be no reason for it. But I
did not ask you to come here to-day to talk to you about Oswald or
Violet. I have given you my advice about that, and I can do no more."

"Lady Laura, I cannot take it. It is out of my power to take it."

"Very well. The matter shall be what you members of Parliament call
an open question between us. When papa asked you to accept this place
at the Treasury, did it ever occur to you to refuse it?"

"It did;--for half an hour or so."

"I hoped you would,--and yet I knew that I was wrong. I thought that