Part 16 (2/2)
”Let me tell you, Lady Glencora, that a faineant government is not the worst government that England can have. It has been the great fault of our politicians that they have all wanted to do something.”
”Mr. Mildmay is at any rate innocent of that charge,” said Lady Glencora.
They were now riding through a vast wood, and Phineas found himself delightfully established by the side of Violet Effingham. ”Mr. Ratler has been explaining to me that he must have nineteen next session.
Now, if I were you, Mr. Finn, I would decline to be counted up in that way as one of Mr. Ratler's sheep.”
”But what am I to do?”
”Do something on your own hook. You men in Parliament are so much like sheep! If one jumps at a gap, all go after him,--and then you are penned into lobbies, and then you are fed, and then you are fleeced. I wish I were in Parliament. I'd get up in the middle and make such a speech. You all seem to me to be so much afraid of one another that you don't quite dare to speak out. Do you see that cottage there?”
”What a pretty cottage it is!”
”Yes;--is it not? Twelve years ago I took off my shoes and stockings and had them dried in that cottage, and when I got back to the house I was put to bed for having been out all day in the wood.”
”Were you wandering about alone?”
”No, I wasn't alone. Oswald Standish was with me. We were children then. Do you know him?”
”Lord Chiltern;--yes, I know him. He and I have been rather friends this year.”
”He is very good;--is he not?”
”Good,--in what way?”
”Honest and generous!”
”I know no man whom I believe to be more so.”
”And he is clever?” asked Miss Effingham.
”Very clever. That is, he talks very well if you will let him talk after his own fas.h.i.+on. You would always fancy that he was going to eat you;--but that is his way.”
”And you like him?”
”Very much.”
”I am so glad to hear you say so.”
”Is he a favourite of yours, Miss Effingham?”
”Not now,--not particularly. I hardly ever see him. But his sister is the best friend I have, and I used to like him so much when he was a boy! I have not seen that cottage since that day, and I remember it as though it were yesterday. Lord Chiltern is quite changed, is he not?”
”Changed,--in what way?”
”They used to say that he was--unsteady you know.”
”I think he is changed. But Chiltern is at heart a Bohemian. It is impossible not to see that at once. He hates the decencies of life.”
”I suppose he does,” said Violet. ”He ought to marry. If he were married, that would all be cured;--don't you think so?”
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