She sat there over an hour, and as she was taking her leave she had a few words to whisper to Mrs. Finn. “When this is all over,” she said, “I mean to call on that Mrs. Lopez.”
“I thought you did go there.”
“That was soon after the poor man had killed himself—when she was going away. Of course I only left a card. But I shall see her now if I can. We want to get her out of her melancholy if possible. I have a sort of feeling, you know, that among us we made the train run over him.”
“I don’t think that.”
“He got so horribly abused for what he did at Silverbridge; and I really don’t see why he wasn’t to have his money. It was I that made him spend it.”
“He was, I fancy, a thoroughly bad man.”
“But a wife doesn’t always want to be made a widow even if her husband be bad. I think I owe her something, and I would pay my debt if I knew how. I shall go and see her, and if she will marry this other man we’ll take her by the hand. Goodbye, dear. You’d better come to me early tomorrow, as I suppose we shall know something by eleven o’clock.”
In the course of that evening the Duke of St. Bungay came to Carlton Terrace and was closeted for some time with the late Prime Minister. He had been engaged during that and the last two previous days in lending his aid to various political manoeuvres and ministerial attempts, from which our Duke had kept himself altogether aloof. He did not go to Windsor, but as each successive competitor journeyed thither and returned, someone either sent for the old Duke or went to seek his counsel. He was the Nestor of the occasion, and strove heartily to compose all quarrels, and so to arrange matters that a wholesome, moderately Liberal Ministry might be again installed for the good of the country and the comfort of all true Whigs. In such moments he almost ascended to the grand heights of patriotism, being always indifferent as to himself. Now he came to his late chief with a new project. Mr. Gresham would attempt to form a Ministry if the Duke of Omnium would join him.
“It is impossible,” said the younger politician, folding his hands together and throwing himself back in his chair.
“Listen to me before you answer me with such certainty. There are three or four gentlemen who, after the work of the last three years, bearing in mind the manner in which our defeat has just been accomplished, feel themselves disinclined to join Mr. Gresham unless you will do so also. I may specially name Mr. Monk and Mr. Finn. I might perhaps add myself, were it not that I had hoped that in any event I might at length regard myself as exempt from further service. The old horse should be left to graze out his last days, Ne peccet ad extremum ridendus. But you can’t consider yourself absolved on that score.”
“There are other reasons.”
“But the Queen’s service should count before everything. Gresham and Cantrip with their own friends can hardly make a Ministry as things are now unless Mr. Monk will join them. I do not think that any other Chancellor of the Exchequer is at present possible.”
“I will beseech Mr. Monk not to let any feeling as to me stand in his way. Why should it?”
“It is not only what you may think and he may think—but what others will think and say. The Coalition will have done all that ought to have been expected from it if our party in it can now join Mr. Gresham.”
“By all means. But I could give them no strength. They may be sure at any rate of what little I can do for them out of office.”
“Mr. Gresham has made his acceptance of office—well, I will not say strictly conditional on your joining him. That would hardly be correct. But he has expressed himself quite willing to make the attempt with your aid, and doubtful whether he can succeed without it. He suggests that you should join him as President of the Council.”
“And you?”
“If I were wanted at all I should take the Privy Seal.”
“Certainly not, my friend. If there were any question of my return we would reverse the offices. But I think I may say that my mind is fixed. If you wish it I will see Mr. Monk, and do all that I can to get him to go with you. But for myself—I feel that it would be useless.”
At last, at the Duke’s pressing request, he agreed to take twenty-four hours before he gave his final answer to the proposition.
LXXVII
The Duchess in Manchester Square
The Duke said not a word to his wife as to this new proposition, and when she asked him what tidings their old friend had brought as to the state of affairs, he almost told a fib in his anxiety to escape from her persecution. “He is in some doubt what he means to do himself,” said the Duke. The Duchess asked many questions, but got no satisfactory reply to any of them. Nor did Mrs. Finn learn anything from her husband, whom, however, she did not interrogate very closely. She would be contented to know when the proper time might come for ladies to be informed. The Duke, however, was determined to take his twenty-four hours all alone—or at any rate
