第102章

'But I want to pick and choose. A man turns the girls over one after another as one does the papers when one if fitting up a room, or rolls them out as one rolls out the carpets. A very careful young man like Lord Popplecourt might reject a young woman because her hair didn't suit the colour of his furniture.'

'I don't think that I shall choose my wife as I would papers and carpets.'

The Duke, who sat between Lady Cantrip and her daughter, did his best to make himself agreeable. The conversation had been semi-political,--political to the usual feminine extent, and had consisted chiefly of sarcasms from Lady Cantrip against Sir Timothy Beeswax. 'That England should put up with such a man,'

Lady Cantrip had said, 'is to me shocking! There used to be a feeling in favour of gentlemen.' To this the Duke had responded by asserting that Sir Timothy had displayed great aptitudes for parliamentary life, and knew the House of Commons better than most men. He said nothing against his foe, and very much in his foe's praise. But Lady Cantrip perceived that she had succeeded in pleasing him.

When the ladies were gone the politics became more serious. 'That unfortunate quarrel is to go on the same as ever I suppose,' said the Duke, addressing himself to the two young men who had seats in the House of Commons. They were both on the Conservative side in politics. The three peers were all Liberals.

'Till next session, I think, sir,' said Silverbridge.

'Sir Timothy, though he did lose his temper, has managed it well,' said Lord Cantrip.

'Phineas Finn lost his temper worse than Sir Timothy,' said Lord Nidderdale.

'But yet I think he had the feeling of the House with him,' said the Duke. 'I happened to be present in the gallery at the time.'

'Yes,' said Nidderdale, 'because he "owned up". The fact is if you "own up" in a genial sort of way the House will forgive anything.

If I were to murder my grandmother, and when questioned about it were to acknowledge that I had done it--' Then Lord Nidderdale stood up and made his speech as he might have made it in the House of Commons. 'I regret to say, sir, that the old woman did get in my way when I was in a passion. Unfortunately I had a heavy stick in my hand and I did strike her over the head. Nobody can regret it so much as I do! Nobody can feel so acutely the position in which I am placed! I have sat in this House for many years, and many gentlemen know me well. I think, sir, that they will acknowledge that I am a man not deficient in filial piety or general humanity. Sir, I am sorry for what I did in a moment of heat. I have now spoken the truth, and I shall leave myself in the hands of the House. My belief is that I should get such a round of applause as I certainly shall never achieve in any other way. It is not only that a popular man may do it,--like Phineas Finn,--but the most unpopular man in the House may make himself liked by owning freely that he has done something that he ought to be ashamed of.' Nidderdale's unwonted eloquence was received in good part by the assembled legislators.

'Taking it altogether,' said the Duke, 'I know of no assembly in any country in which good-humour prevails so generally, in which the members behave to each other so well, in which the rules are so universally followed, or in which the president is so thoroughly sustained by the feeling of the members.

'I hear men say that it isn't quite what it used to be,' said Silverbridge.

'Nothing will ever be quite what it used to be.'

'Changes for the worse, I mean. Men are doing all kinds of things, just because the rules of the House allow them.'

'If they be within the rule,' said the Duke, 'I don't know who is to blame them. In my time, if any man stretched a rule too far the House would not put up with it.'

'That's just it,' said Nidderdale. 'The House puts up with anything now. There is a great deal of good feeling no doubt, but there's no earnestness about anything. I think you are more earnest than we; but then you are such horrid bores. And each earnest man is in earnest about something that nobody else cares for.'

When they were again in the drawing-room, Lord Popplecourt was seated next to Lady Mary. 'Where are you going this autumn?' he asked.

'I don't know in the least. Papa said something about going abroad.'

'You won't be at Custins?' Custins was Lord Cantrip's country seat in Dorsetshire.

'I know nothing about myself as yet. But I don't think I shall go anywhere unless papa goes too.'

'Lady Cantrip has asked me to be at Custins in the middle of October. They say it is about the best pheasant shooting in England.'

'Do you shoot much?'

'A great deal. I shall be in Scotland on the Twelfth. I and Reginald Dobbs have a place together. I shall get to my own partridges on the first of September. I always manage that.

Popplecourt is in Suffolk, and I don't think any man in England can beat me for partridges.'

'What do you do with all you slay?'

'Leadenhall Market. I make it pay,--or very nearly. Then I shall run back to Scotland for the end of the stalking, and I can easily manage to be at Custins by the middle of October. I never touch my own pheasants till November.'

'Why are you so abstemious?'

'The birds are heavier and it answer better. But if I thought you would be at Custins it would be much nicer.' Lady Mary again told him that as yet she knew nothing of her father's autumn movements.'