'If you ask me, Plantagenet, you know I shall tell the truth.'
'Then tell the truth.'
'After drinking brandy so long I hardly think that 12s claret will agree with my stomach.You ask for the truth, and there it is,--very plainly.'
'Plain enough!'
'You asked, you know.'
'And I am glad to have been told, even though that which you tell me is not pleasant hearing.When a man has been drinking too much brandy, it may be well that he should be put on a course of 12s claret.'
'He won't like it; and then,--it's kill or cure.'
'I don't think you've gone so far, Cora, that we need fear that the remedy will be fatal.'
'I am thinking of you rather than myself.I can make myself generally disagreeable, and get excitement in that way.But what will you do? It's all very well to talk of me and the children, but you can't bring in a bill for reforming us.You can't make us go by decimals.You can't increase our consumption by lowering our taxation.I wish you had gone back to some Board.'
This she said looking up into his face with an anxiety which was half real and half burlesque.
'I had made up my mind to go back on to no Board,--for the present.I was thinking that we could spend some months in Italy, Cora.'
'What; for the summer,--so as to be in Rome in July! After that we could utilize winter by visiting Norway.'
'We might take Norway first.'
'And be eaten up by mosquitoes! I've got to be too old to like travelling.'
'What do you like, dear?'
'Nothing;--except being the Prime Minister's wife; and upon my word there were times when I didn't like that very much.I don't know anything that I am fit for.I wonder whether Mr Gresham would have me as a housekeeper? Only we should have to lend him Gatherum, or there would be no room for the display of my abilities.Is Mr Monk in?'
'He keeps his office.'
'And Mr Finn?'
'I believe so; but in what place I don't know.'
'And who else?'
'Our old friend the Duke and Lord Cantrip, and Mr Wilson,--and Sir Gregory will be Lord Chancellor.'
'Just the old stupid Liberal team.Put their names in a bag and shake them, and you can always get a ministry.Well, Plantagenet;--I'll go anywhere you like to take me.I'll have something for the malaria at Rome, and something for the mosquitoes in Norway, and will make the best of it.But I don't see why you should run away in the middle of the Session.I would stay and pitch into them, all round, like a true ex-minister and independent member of Parliament.' Then as he was leaving her she fired a last shot.'I hope you made Sir Orlando and Sir Timothy peers before you gave up.'
It was not until two days after this that she read in one of the daily papers that Sir Timothy Beeswax was to be Attorney-General, and then her patience almost deserted her.To tell the truth, her husband had not dared to mention the appointment when he first saw her after hearing it.Her explosion fell on the head of Phineas Finn, whom she found at home with his wife, deploring the necessity which had fallen upon him of filling the faineant office of Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.'Mr Finn,' she said, 'I congratulate you on your colleagues.'
'Your Grace is very good.I was at any rate introduced to many of them under the Duke's auspices.'
'And ought, I think, to have seen enough of them to be ashamed of them.Such a regiment to march through Coventry with!'
'I do not doubt that we shall be good enough men for any enemies we may meet.'
'It cannot be that you should conquer all the world with such a hero among you as Sir Timothy Beeswax.The idea of Sir Timothy coming back again! What do you feel about it?'
'Very indifferent, Duchess.He won't interfere much with me, as I have an Attorney-General of my own.You see I'm especially safe.'
'I do believe men would do anything,' said the Duchess, turning to Mrs Finn.'Of course I mean in the way of politics! But Idid not think it possible that the Duke of St Bungay should again be in the same Government with Sir Timothy Beeswax.'