There never had been, in the memory of them all, a matter that was so interesting to them for it was the only matter thy remembered in which a woman's conduct might probably be called into question in the House of Commons.And the seats appropriated to peers were so crammed that above a dozen grey-headed old lords were standing in the passage which divides them from the common strangers.After all it was not, in truth, much of an affair.A very little man indeed had calumniated the conduct of a minister of the Crown, till it had been thought well that the minister should defend himself.No one really believed that the Duke had committed any great offence.At the worst it was no more than indiscretion, which was noticeable only because a Prime Minister should never be indiscreet.Had the taxation of the whole country for the next year been in dispute there would have been no such interest felt.Had the welfare of the Indian Empire occupied the House, the House would have been empty.But the hope that a certain woman's name would have to be mentioned, crammed it from floor to ceiling.
The reader need not be told that the name was not mentioned.Our old friend Phineas, on rising to his legs, first apologized for doing so in place of the Chancellor of the Exchequer.But perhaps the House would accept a statement from him, as the noble Duke at the head of the Government had asked him to make it.Then he made his statement.'Perhaps,' he said, 'no falser accusation than this had ever been brought forward against a Minister of the Crown, for it specially charged his noble friend with resorting to the employment of unconstitutional practices to bolster up his parliamentary support, whereas it was known by everybody that there would have been no matter for accusation at all had not the Duke of his own motion abandoned a recognized privilege, because, in his opinion, the exercise of that privilege was opposed to the spirit of the Constitution.
Had the noble Duke simply nominated a candidate, as candidate had been nominated at Silverbridge for centuries past, that candidate would have been returned with absolute certainty, and there would have been no word spoken on the subject.It was not, perhaps, for him, who had the honour of serving under his Grace, and who, as being part of his Grace's Government, was for the time one with his Grace, to expiate at length on the nobility of the sacrifice here made.But they all knew there at what rate was valued a seat in that House.Thank God that privilege which his noble friend had so magnanimously resigned from purely patriotic motives, was, he believed, still in existence, and he would ask those few who were still in the happy, or perhaps, he had better say in the envied position of being able to send their friends to that House, what was their estimation of the conduct of the Duke in this matter? It might be that there were one or two such present, and who now heard him,--or perhaps, one or two who owed their seats to the exercise of such a privilege.They might marvel at the magnitude of the surrender.They might even question the sagacity of the man who could abandon so much without a price.But he hardly thought that even they would regard it as unconstitutional.
'This was what the Prime Minister had done,--acting not as Prime Minister, but as an English gentleman, in the management of his own property and privileges.And now he would come to the gist of the accusation made; in making which, the thing which the Duke had really done had been altogether ignored.When the vacancy had been declared by the acceptance of the Chiltern Hundreds by a gentleman whose absence from the House they all regretted, the Duke had signified to his agents his intention of retiring altogether from the exercise of any privilege or power in the matter.But the Duke was then, as he was also now, and would, it was to be hoped, long continue to be Prime Minister of England.
He need hardly remind gentlemen in that House that the Prime Minister was not in a position to devote his undivided time to the management of his own property, or even to the interests of the Borough of Silverbridge.That his Grace had been earnest in his instructions to his agents, the sequel fully proved; but that earnestness his agents had misinterpreted.'
Then there was a voice heard in the House, 'What agents?' and from another voice, 'Name them.' For there were present some who thought it to be shameful that the excitement of the occasion should be lowered by keeping back the allusion to the Duchess.