She herself told Lady Laura and Lord Brentford what had occurred—and had told Lady Baldock also. Lady Baldock had, of course, triumphed—and Violet sought her revenge by swearing that she would regret forever the loss of so inestimable a gentleman. “Then why have you given him up, my dear?” demanded Lady Baldock. “Because I found that he was too good for me,” said Violet. It may be doubtful whether Lady Baldock was not justified, when she declared that her niece was to her a care so harassing that no aunt known in history had ever been so troubled before.
Lord Brentford had fussed and fumed, and had certainly made things worse. He had quarrelled with his son, and then made it up, and then quarrelled again—swearing that the fault must all be attributed to Chiltern’s stubbornness and Chiltern’s temper. Latterly, however, by Lady Laura’s intervention, Lord Brentford and his son had again been reconciled, and the Earl endeavoured manfully to keep his tongue from disagreeable words, and his face from evil looks, when his son was present. “They will make it up,” Lady Laura had said, “if you and I do not attempt to make it up for them. If we do, they will never come together.” The Earl was convinced, and did his best. But the task was very difficult to him. How was he to keep his tongue off his son while his son was daily saying things of which any father—any such father as Lord Brentford—could not but disapprove? Lord Chiltern professed to disbelieve even in the wisdom of the House of Lords, and on one occasion asserted that it must be a great comfort to any Prime Minister to have three or four old women in the Cabinet. The father, when he heard this, tried to rebuke his son tenderly, strove even to be jocose. It was the one wish of his heart that Violet Effingham should be his daughter-in-law. But even with this wish he found it very hard to keep his tongue off Lord Chiltern.
When Lady Laura discussed the matter with Violet, Violet would always declare that there was no hope. “The truth is,” she said on the morning of that day on which they both went to Mrs. Gresham’s, “that though we like each other—love each other, if you choose to say so—we are not fit to be man and wife.”
“And why not fit?”
“We are too much alike. Each is too violent, too headstrong, and too masterful.”
“You, as the woman, ought to give way,” said Lady Laura.
“But we do not always do just what we ought.”
“I know how difficult it is for me to advise, seeing to what a pass I have brought myself.”
“Do not say that, dear;—or rather do say it, for we have, both of us, brought ourselves to what you call a pass—to such a pass that we are like to be able to live together and discuss it for the rest of our lives. The difference is, I take it, that you have not to accuse yourself, and that I have.”
“I cannot say that I have not to accuse myself,” said Lady Laura. “I do not know that I have done much wrong to Mr. Kennedy since I married him; but in marrying him I did him a grievous wrong.”
“And he has avenged himself.”
“We will not talk of vengeance. I believe he is wretched, and I know that I am;—and that has come of the wrong that I have done.”
“I will make no man wretched,” said Violet.
“Do you mean that your mind is made up against Oswald?”
“I mean that, and I mean much more. I say that I will make no man wretched. Your brother is not the only man who is so weak as to be willing to run the hazard.”
“There is Lord Fawn.”
“Yes, there is Lord Fawn, certainly. Perhaps I should not do him much harm; but then I should do him no good.”
“And poor Phineas Finn.”
“Yes;—there is Mr. Finn. I will tell you something, Laura. The only man I ever saw in the world whom I have thought for a moment that it was possible that I should like—like enough to love as my husband—except your brother, was Mr. Finn.”
“And now?”
“Oh;—now; of course that is over,” said Violet.
“It is over?”
“Quite over. Is he not going to marry Madame Goesler? I suppose all that is fixed by this time. I hope she will be good to him, and gracious, and let him have his own way, and give him his tea comfortably when he comes up tired from the House; for I confess that my heart is a little tender towards Phineas still. I should not like to think that he had fallen into the hands of a female Philistine.”
“I do not think he will marry Madame Goesler.”
“Why not?”
“I can hardly tell you;—but I do not think he will. And you loved him once—eh, Violet?”
“Not quite that, my dear. It has been difficult with me to love. The difficulty with most girls, I fancy, is not to love. Mr. Finn, when I came to measure him in my mind, was not small, but he was never quite tall enough. One feels oneself to be a sort of recruiting sergeant, going about with a standard of inches. Mr. Finn was just half an inch too short. He lacks something in individuality. He is a little too much a friend to everybody.”
“Shall I tell you a secret, Violet?”
“If you please, dear; though I fancy it is one I know already.”
“He is the only man whom I ever loved,” said Lady Laura.
“But it was too late when you learned to love him,” said Violet.
“It was too late, when I was so sure of it as to wish that I had never seen Mr. Kennedy. I felt it coming on me, and I argued with myself that such a marriage would be bad for us both. At that moment there was trouble in the family, and I had not a
