“I do not think you meant it.”
“I would not say a word to hurt you—oh, for more than I can tell you.”
“It is all bosh, of course,” he said laughing; “but I do not like to hear the old place named. I have always made a fool of myself. Some men do it and don’t care about it. But I do it, and yet it makes me miserable.”
“If that be so you will soon give over making—what you call a fool of yourself. For myself I like the idea of wild oats. I look upon them like measles. Only you should have a doctor ready when the disease shows itself.”
“What sort of a doctor ought I to have?”
“Ah;—you must find out that yourself. That sort of feeling which makes you feel miserable;—that is a doctor itself.”
“Or a wife?”
“Or a wife—if you can find a good one. There are wives, you know, who aggravate the disease. If I had a fast husband I should make him faster by being fast myself. There is nothing I envy so much as the power of doing half-mad things.”
“Women can do that too.”
“But they go to the dogs. We are dreadfully restricted. If you like champagne you can have a bucketful. I am obliged to pretend that I only want a very little. You can bet thousands. I must confine myself to gloves. You can flirt with any woman you please. I must wait till somebody comes—and put up with it if nobody does come.”
“Plenty come, no doubt.”
“But I want to pick and choose. A man turns the girls over one after another as one does the papers when one is 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 semipolitical—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 aptitude 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 present 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 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 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 rule,” said the Duke, “I don’t know who is to blame them. In my time, if any man stretched a rule
