"I hope you are satisfied, Mr. Finn," said Lady Laura, laughing.

"Oh yes."

"And is that all? I thought to have found your joy quite irrepressible."

"A bottle of soda-water, though it is a very lively thing when opened, won't maintain its vivacity beyond a certain period, Lady Laura."

"And you have had your gas let off already?"

"Well,--yes; at any rate, the sputtering part of it. Nineteen is very well, but the question is whether we might not have had twenty-one."

"Mr. Kennedy has just been saying that not a single available vote has been missed on our side. He has just come from Brooks's, and that seems to be what they say there."

So Mr. Kennedy also was a member of Brooks's! At the Reform Club there certainly had been an idea that the number might have been swelled to twenty-one; but then, as Phineas began to understand, nothing was correctly known at the Reform Club. For an accurate appreciation of the political balance of the day, you must go to Brooks's.

"Mr. Kennedy must of course be right," said Phineas. "I don't belong to Brooks's myself. But I was only joking, Lady Laura. There is, I suppose, no doubt that Lord de Terrier is out, and that is everything."

"He has probably tendered his resignation," said Mr. Kennedy.

"That is the same thing," said Phineas, roughly.

"Not exactly," said Lady Laura. "Should there be any difficulty about Mr. Mildmay, he might, at the Queen's request, make another attempt."

"With a majority of nineteen against him!" said Phineas. "Surely Mr.

Mildmay is not the only man in the country. There is the Duke, and there is Mr. Gresham,--and there is Mr. Monk." Phineas had at his tongue's end all the lesson that he had been able to learn at the Reform Club.

"I should hardly think the Duke would venture," said Mr. Kennedy.

"Nothing venture, nothing have," said Phineas. "It is all very well to say that the Duke is incompetent, but I do not know that anything very wonderful is required in the way of genius. The Duke has held his own in both Houses successfully, and he is both honest and popular. I quite agree that a Prime Minister at the present day should be commonly honest, and more than commonly popular."

"So you are all for the Duke, are you?" said Lady Laura, again smiling as she spoke to him.

"Certainly;--if we are deserted by Mr. Mildmay. Don't you think so?"

"I don't find it quite so easy to make up my mind as you do. I am inclined to think that Mr. Mildmay will form a government; and as long as there is that prospect, I need hardly commit myself to an opinion as to his probable successor." Then the objectionable Mr.

Kennedy took his leave, and Phineas was left alone with Lady Laura.

"It is glorious;--is it not?" he began, as soon as he found the field to be open for himself and his own manoeuvring. But he was very young, and had not as yet learned the manner in which he might best advance his cause with such a woman as Lady Laura Standish. He was telling her too clearly that he could have no gratification in talking with her unless he could be allowed to have her all to himself. That might be very well if Lady Laura were in love with him, but would hardly be the way to reduce her to that condition.

"Mr. Finn," said she, smiling as she spoke, "I am sure that you did not mean it, but you were uncourteous to my friend Mr. Kennedy."

"Who? I? Was I? Upon my word, I didn't intend to be uncourteous."

"If I had thought you had intended it, of course I could not tell you of it. And now I take the liberty;--for it is a liberty--"

"Oh no."

"Because I feel so anxious that you should do nothing to mar your chances as a rising man."

"You are only too kind to me,--always."

"I know how clever you are, and how excellent are all your instincts; but I see that you are a little impetuous. I wonder whether you will be angry if I take upon myself the task of mentor."

"Nothing you could say would make me angry,--though you might make me very unhappy."

"I will not do that if I can help it. A mentor ought to be very old, you know, and I am infinitely older than you are."

"I should have thought it was the reverse;--indeed, I may say that I know that it is," said Phineas.

"I am not talking of years. Years have very little to do with the comparative ages of men and women. A woman at forty is quite old, whereas a man at forty is young." Phineas, remembering that he had put down Mr. Kennedy's age as forty in his own mind, frowned when he heard this, and walked about the room in displeasure. "And therefore," continued Lady Laura, "I talk to you as though I were a kind of grandmother."

"You shall be my great-grandmother if you will only be kind enough to me to say what you really think."

"You must not then be so impetuous, and you must be a little more careful to be civil to persons to whom you may not take any particular fancy. Now Mr. Kennedy is a man who may be very useful to you."

"I do not want Mr. Kennedy to be of use to me."

"That is what I call being impetuous,--being young,--being a boy. Why should not Mr. Kennedy be of use to you as well as any one else? You do not mean to conquer the world all by yourself."

"No;--but there is something mean to me in the expressed idea that I should make use of any man,--and more especially of a man whom I don't like."

"And why do you not like him, Mr. Finn?"

"Because he is one of my Dr. Fells."

"You don't like him simply because he does not talk much. That may be a good reason why you should not make of him an intimate companion,--because you like talkative people; but it should be no ground for dislike."

Phineas paused for a moment before he answered her, thinking whether or not it would be well to ask her some question which might produce from her a truth which he would not like to hear. Then he did ask it.

"And do you like him?" he said.

She too paused, but only for a second. "Yes,--I think I may say that I do like him."

"No more than that?"

"Certainly no more than that;--but that I think is a great deal."

"I wonder what you would say if any one asked you whether you liked me," said Phineas, looking away from her through the window.

"Just the same;--but without the doubt, if the person who questioned me had any right to ask the question. There are not above one or two who could have such a right."

"And I was wrong, of course, to ask it about Mr. Kennedy," said Phineas, looking out into the Square.

"I did not say so."

"But I see you think it."

"You see nothing of the kind. I was quite willing to be asked the question by you, and quite willing to answer it. Mr. Kennedy is a man of great wealth."

"What can that have to do with it?"