“Everything is not changed,” said Lord Chiltern, getting up from his seat. “I am not changed—at least not in this, that as I loved you better than any being in the world—better even than Laura there—so do I love you now infinitely the best of all. Do not look so surprised at me. You knew it before as well as you do now;—and Laura knows it. There is no secret to be kept in the matter among us three.”
“But, Lord Chiltern—” said Miss Effingham, rising also to her feet, and then pausing, not knowing how to answer him. There had been a suddenness in his mode of addressing her which had, so to say, almost taken away her breath; and then to be told by a man of his love before his sister was in itself, to her, a matter so surprising, that none of those words came at her command which will come, as though by instinct, to young ladies on such occasions.
“You have known it always,” said he, as though he were angry with her.
“Lord Chiltern,” she replied, “you must excuse me if I say that you are, at the least, very abrupt. I did not think when I was going back so joyfully to our childish days that you would turn the tables on me in this way.”
“He has said nothing that ought to make you angry,” said Lady Laura.
“Only because he has driven me to say that which will make me appear to be uncivil to himself. Lord Chiltern, I do not love you with that love of which you are speaking now. As an old friend I have always regarded you, and I hope that I may always do so.” Then she got up and left the room.
“Why were you so sudden with her—so abrupt—so loud?” said his sister, coming up to him and taking him by the arm almost in anger.
“It would make no difference,” said he. “She does not care for me.”
“It makes all the difference in the world,” said Lady Laura. “Such a woman as Violet cannot be had after that fashion. You must begin again.”
“I have begun and ended,” he said.
“That is nonsense. Of course you will persist. It was madness to speak in that way today. You may be sure of this, however, that there is no one she likes better than you. You must remember that you have done much to make any girl afraid of you.”
“I do remember it.”
“Do something now to make her fear you no longer. Speak to her softly. Tell her of the sort of life which you would live with her. Tell her that all is changed. As she comes to love you, she will believe you when she would believe no one else on that matter.”
“Am I to tell her a lie?” said Lord Chiltern, looking his sister full in the face. Then he turned upon his heel and left her.
XII
Autumnal Prospects
The session went on very calmly after the opening battle which ousted Lord de Terrier and sent Mr. Mildmay back to the Treasury—so calmly that Phineas Finn was unconsciously disappointed, as lacking that excitement of contest to which he had been introduced in the first days of his parliamentary career. From time to time certain waspish attacks were made by Mr. Daubeny, now on this Secretary of State and now on that; but they were felt by both parties to mean nothing; and as no great measure was brought forward, nothing which would serve by the magnitude of its interests to divide the liberal side of the House into fractions, Mr. Mildmay’s Cabinet was allowed to hold its own in comparative peace and quiet. It was now July—the middle of July—and the member for Loughshane had not yet addressed the House. How often had he meditated doing so; how he had composed his speeches walking round the Park on his way down to the House; how he got his subjects up—only to find on hearing them discussed that he really knew little or nothing about them; how he had his arguments and almost his very words taken out of his mouth by some other member; and lastly, how he had actually been deterred from getting upon his legs by a certain tremor of blood round his heart when the moment for rising had come—of all this he never said a word to any man. Since that last journey to county Mayo, Laurence Fitzgibbon had been his most intimate friend, but he said nothing of all this even to Laurence Fitzgibbon. To his other friend, Lady Laura Standish, he did explain something of his feelings, not absolutely describing to her the extent of hindrance to which his modesty had subjected him, but letting her know that he had his qualms as well as his aspirations. But as Lady Laura always recommended patience, and more than once expressed her opinion that a young member would be better to sit in silence at least for one session, he was not driven to the mortification of feeling that he was incurring her contempt by his bashfulness. As regarded the men among whom he lived, I think he was almost annoyed at finding that no one seemed to expect that he should speak. Barrington Erle, when he had first talked of sending Phineas down to Loughshane, had predicted for him all manner of parliamentary successes, and had expressed the warmest admiration of the manner in which Phineas had discussed this or that subject at the Union. “We have not above one or two men in the House who can do that kind of thing,”
