secretary. "I'm all here," said Charles
Standish, getting up and shaking himself.

"I am going. Just tie up those papers,--exactly as they are. I shall
be here early to-morrow, but I shan't want you before twelve. Good
night, Charles."

"Ta, ta," said his private secretary, who was very fond of his
master, but not very respectful,--unless upon express occasions.

Then Phineas went out and walked across the park; but as he went he
became quite aware that his back was broken. It was not the less
broken because he sang to himself little songs to prove to himself
that it was whole and sound. It was broken, and it seemed to him now
that he never could become an Atlas again, to bear the weight of the
world upon his shoulders. What did anything signify? All that he had
done had been part of a game which he had been playing throughout,
and now he had been beaten in his game. He absolutely ignored his
old passion for Lady Laura as though it had never been, and regarded
himself as a model of constancy,--as a man who had loved, not wisely
perhaps, but much too well,--and who must now therefore suffer a
living death. He hated Parliament. He hated the Colonial Office.
He hated his friend Mr. Monk; and he especially hated Madame Max
Goesler. As to Lord Chiltern,--he believed that Lord Chiltern had
obtained his object by violence. He would see to that! Yes;--let the
consequences be what they might, he would see to that!

He went up by the Duke of York's column, and as he passed the
Athenaeum he saw his chief, Lord Cantrip, standing under the portico
talking to a bishop. He would have gone on unnoticed, had it been
possible; but Lord Cantrip came down to him at once. "I have put your
name down here," said his lordship.

"What's the use?" said Phineas, who was profoundly indifferent at
this moment to all the clubs in London.

"It can't do any harm, you know. You'll come up in time. And if you
should get into the ministry, they'll let you in at once."

"Ministry!" ejaculated Phineas. But Lord Cantrip took the tone of
voice as simply suggestive of humility, and suspected nothing of that
profound indifference to all ministers and ministerial honours which
Phineas had intended to express. "By-the-bye," said Lord Cantrip,
putting his arm through that of the Under-Secretary, "I wanted to
speak to you about the guarantees. We shall be in the devil's own
mess, you know--" And so the Secretary of State went on about the
Rocky Mountain R