“And so unnecessary.”
“Ah, Lady Laura—if it only could be avoided! But it is of no use going through all that again.”
“How much we would both of us avoid if we could only have another chance!” said Lady Laura. “If I could only be as I was before I persuaded myself to marry a man whom I never loved, what a paradise the earth would be to me! With me all regrets are too late.”
“And with me as much so.”
“No, Mr. Finn. Even should you resign your office, there is no reason why you should give up your seat.”
“Simply that I have no income to maintain me in London.”
She was silent for a few moments, during which she changed her seat so as to come nearer to him, placing herself on a corner of a sofa close to the chair on which he was seated. “I wonder whether I may speak to you plainly,” she said.
“Indeed you may.”
“On any subject?”
“Yes;—on any subject.”
“I trust you have been able to rid your bosom of all remembrances of Violet Effingham.”
“Certainly not of all remembrances, Lady Laura.”
“Of all hope, then?”
“I have no such hope.”
“And of all lingering desires?”
“Well, yes;—and of all lingering desires. I know now that it cannot be. Your brother is welcome to her.”
“Ah;—of that I know nothing. He, with his perversity, has estranged her. But I am sure of this—that if she do not marry him, she will marry no one. But it is not on account of him that I speak. He must fight his own battles now.”
“I shall not interfere with him, Lady Laura.”
“Then why should you not establish yourself by a marriage that will make place a matter of indifference to you? I know that it is within your power to do so.” Phineas put his hand up to his breastcoat pocket, and felt that Mary’s letter—her precious letter—was there safe. It certainly was not in his power to do this thing which Lady Laura recommended to him, but he hardly thought that the present was a moment suitable for explaining to her the nature of the impediment which stood in the way of such an arrangement. He had so lately spoken to Lady Laura with an assurance of undying constancy of his love for Miss Effingham, that he could not as yet acknowledge the force of another passion. He shook his head by way of reply. “I tell you that it is so,” she said with energy.
“I am afraid not.”
“Go to Madame Goesler, and ask her. Hear what she will say.”
“Madame Goesler would laugh at me, no doubt.”
“Psha! You do not think so. You know that she would not laugh. And are you the man to be afraid of a woman’s laughter? I think not.”
Again he did not answer her at once, and when he did speak the tone of his voice was altered. “What was it you said of yourself, just now?”
“What did I say of myself?”
“You regretted that you had consented to marry a man—whom you did not love.”
“Why should you not love her? And it is so different with a man! A woman is wretched if she does not love her husband, but I fancy that a man gets on very well without any such feeling. She cannot domineer over you. She cannot expect you to pluck yourself out of your own soil, and begin a new growth altogether in accordance with the laws of her own. It was that which Mr. Kennedy did.”
“I do not for a moment think that she would take me, if I were to offer myself.”
“Try her,” said Lady Laura energetically. “Such trials cost you but little;—we both of us know that!” Still he said nothing of the letter in his pocket. “It is everything that you should go on now that you have once begun. I do not believe in you working at the Bar. You cannot do it. A man who has commenced life as you have done with the excitement of politics, who has known what it is to take a prominent part in the control of public affairs, cannot give it up and be happy at other work. Make her your wife, and you may resign or remain in office just as you choose. Office will be much easier to you than it is now, because it will not be a necessity. Let me at any rate have the pleasure of thinking that one of us can remain here—that we need not both fall together.”
Still he did not tell her of the letter in his pocket. He felt that she moved him—that she made him acknowledge to himself how great would be the pity of such a failure as would be his. He was quite as much alive as she could be to the fact that work at the Bar, either in London or in Dublin, would have no charms for him now. The prospect of such a life was very dreary to him. Even with the comfort of Mary’s love such a life would be very dreary to him. And then he knew—he thought that he knew—that were he to offer himself to Madame Goesler he would not in truth be rejected. She had told him that if poverty was a trouble to him he need be no longer poor. Of course he had understood this. Her money was at his service if he should choose to stoop and pick it up. And it was not only money that such a marriage would give him. He had acknowledged to himself more than once that Madame Goesler was very lovely, that she was clever, attractive in every way, and as far as he could see, blessed with a sweet temper. She had a position, too, in the world that would help him rather than mar him. What might he not do with an independent seat in the House of Commons, and as joint owner of the little house in Park Lane? Of all careers which
