'Has it answered?' Phineas was silent for a moment.'Of course you will tell me the truth.You won't be so bad as to flatter me now that I am much in earnest.' 'I almost think,' said Phineas, 'that the time has gone by for what one may call drawing-room influences.They used to be very great.Old Lord Brock used them extensively, though by no means as your Grace has done.But the spirit of the world has changed since then.' 'The spirit of the world never changes,' said the Duchess in her soreness.
But her strongest dependence was on the old Duke.The party of the Castle was almost broken up when she consulted him.She had been so far true to her husband as not to ask another guest to the house since his command;--but they who had been asked before came and went as had been arranged.Then, when the place was nearly empty, and when Locock and Millepois and Pritchard were wondering among themselves at this general collapse, she asked her husband's leave to invite their old friend again for a day or two.'I do so want to see him, and I think he'll come,' said the Duchess.The Duke gave his permission with a ready smile,--not because the proposed visitor was his own confidential friend, but because it suited his spirit to grant such a request as to anyone after the order that he had given.Had she named Major Pountney, I think he would have smiled and acceded.
The Duke came, and to him she poured out her whole soul.'It has been for him and for his honour that I have done it;--that men and women might know how really gracious he is, and how good.Of course, there has been money spent, but he can afford it without hurting the children.It has been so necessary that with a Coalition people should know each other! There was some absurd little row here.A man who was a mere nobody, one of the travelling butterfly men that fill up spaces and talk to girls, got hold of him and was impertinent.He is so thin-skinned that he could not shake the creature into the dust as you would have done.It annoyed him,--that, and I think, seeing so many strange faces,--so that he came to me and declared that as long as he remained in office he would not have another person in the house, either here or in London.He meant it literally, and he meant me to understand it literally.I had to get special leave before I could ask so dear an old friend as your Grace.'
'I don't think he would object to me,' said the Duke, laughing.
'Of course not.He was only too glad to think you would come.
But he took the request as being quite the proper thing.It will kill me if this is to be carried out.After all that I have done, I could show myself nowhere.And it will be so injurious to him! Could you not tell him, Duke? No one else in the world can tell him but you.Nothing unfair has been attempted.No job has been done.I have endeavoured to make his house pleasant to people, in order that they might look upon him with grace and favour.Is that wrong? Is that unbecoming in a wife?'
The old Duke patted her on the head as though she were a little girl, and was more comforting to her than her other counsellors.
He would say nothing to her husband now;--but they must both be up in London at the meeting of Parliament, and then he would tell his friend that, in his opinion, no sudden change should be made.
'This husband of yours is a very peculiar man,' he said smiling.
'His honesty is not like the honesty of other men.It is more downright;--more absolutely honest; less capable of bearing even the shadow which the stain from another's dishonesty might throw upon it.Give him credit for all that, and remember that you cannot find everything combined in the same person.He is very practical in some things, but the question is whether he is not too scrupulous to be practical in all things.' At the close of the interview the Duchess kissed him and promised to be guided by him.The occurrences of the last few weeks had softened the Duchess much.