“We’ll try at least,” said Phineas, upon whom, however, such remarks as these cast a gloom which he could not succeed in shaking off, though he could summon vigour sufficient to save him from showing the gloom. He knew very well that comfortable words would be spoken to him at Harrington Hall, and that then the gloom would go. The comforting words of his friends would mean quite as little as the discourtesies of Mr. Ratler. He understood that thoroughly, and felt that he ought to hold a stronger control over his own impulses. He must take the thing as it would come, and neither the flatterings of friends nor the threatenings of enemies could alter it; but he knew his own weakness, and confessed to himself that another week of life by himself at Fowler’s Hotel, refreshed by occasional interviews with Mr. Ratler, would make him altogether unfit for the coming contest at Tankerville.
He reached Harrington Hall in the afternoon about four, and found Lady Chiltern alone. As soon as he saw her he told himself that she was not in the least altered since he had last been with her, and yet during the period she had undergone that great change which turns a girl into a mother. She had the baby with her when he came into the room, and at once greeted him as an old friend—as a loved and loving friend who was to be made free at once to all the inmost privileges of real friendship, which are given to and are desired by so few. “Yes, here we are again,” said Lady Chiltern, “settled, as far as I suppose we ever shall be settled, for ever so many years to come. The place belongs to old Lord Gunthorpe, I fancy, but really I hardly know. I do know that we should give it up at once if we gave up the hounds, and that we can’t be turned out as long as we have them. Doesn’t it seem odd to have to depend on a lot of yelping dogs?”
“Only that the yelping dogs depend on you.”
“It’s a kind of give and take, I suppose, like other things in the world. Of course, he’s a beautiful baby. I had him in just that you might see him. I show Baby, and Oswald shows the hounds. We’ve nothing else to interest anybody. But nurse shall take him now. Come out and have a turn in the shrubbery before Oswald comes back. They’re gone today as far as Trumpeton Wood, out of which no fox was ever known to break, and they won’t be home till six.”
“Who are ‘they’?” asked Phineas, as he took his hat.
“The ‘they’ is only Adelaide Palliser. I don’t think you ever knew her?”
“Never. Is she anything to the other Pallisers?”
“She is everything to them all; niece and grandniece, and first cousin and granddaughter. Her father was the fourth brother, and as she was one of six her share of the family wealth is small. Those Pallisers are very peculiar, and I doubt whether she ever saw the old duke. She has no father or mother, and lives when she is at home with a married sister, about seventy years older than herself, Mrs. Attenbury.”
“I remember Mrs. Attenbury.”
“Of course you do. Who does not? Adelaide was a child then, I suppose. Though I don’t know why she should have been, as she calls herself one-and-twenty now. You’ll think her pretty. I don’t. But she is my great new friend, and I like her immensely. She rides to hounds, and talks Italian, and writes for the Times.”
“Writes for the Times!”
“I won’t swear that she does, but she could. There’s only one other thing about her. She’s engaged to be married.”
“To whom?”
“I don’t know that I shall answer that question, and indeed I’m not sure that she is engaged. But there’s a man dying for her.”
“You must know, if she’s your friend.”
“Of course I know; but there are ever so many ins and outs, and I ought not to have said a word about it. I shouldn’t have done so to anyone but you. And now we’ll go in and have some tea, and go to bed.”
“Go to bed!”
“We always go to bed here before dinner on hunting days. When the cubbing began Oswald used to be up at three.”
“He doesn’t get up at three now.”
“Nevertheless we go to bed. You needn’t if you don’t like, and I’ll stay with you if you choose till you dress for dinner. I did know so well that you’d come back to London, Mr. Finn. You are not a bit altered.”
“I feel to be changed in everything.”
“Why should you be altered? It’s only two years. I am altered because of Baby. That does change a woman. Of course I’m thinking always of what he will do in the world; whether he’ll be a master of hounds or a Cabinet Minister or a great farmer;—or perhaps a miserable spendthrift, who will let everything that his grandfathers and grandmothers have done for him go to the dogs.”
“Why do you think of anything so wretched, Lady Chiltern?”
“Who can help thinking? Men do do so. It seems to me that that is the line of most young men who come to their property early. Why should I dare to think that my boy should be better than others? But I do; and I fancy that he will be a great statesman. After all, Mr. Finn, that is the best thing that a man can be, unless it is given him to be a saint and a martyr and all that kind of thing—which is not just what a mother looks for.”
“That would only be better than the spendthrift and gambler.”
“Hardly better you’ll say, perhaps. How odd that is! We all profess to believe when we’re told that
