t, the most considerate
way possible, that I am not here to relieve the tedium of a life made
lonely by a bereavement equal to your own, in conversation however
beguiling, or in quest of a sympathy of which, I dare to say, I feel
assured. For, in a sense, it is as to a public assembly, or rather as to a
great institution, immemorially venerable and august that I have to
address myself when, obedient to your summons, I come to be consulted as
your Majesty's First Minister of State. If, therefore, your royal mind
have any inquiries, any further commands to lay upon me, I am here, Madam,
to give effect to them in so far as I can.

(_This time he has really finished, but with so artful an abbreviation
at the point where her interest has been most roused that the Queen would
fain have him go on. And so the conversation continues to flow along
intimate channels_.)

QUEEN. No, dear Lord Beaconsfield, not to-day! Those official matters can
wait. After you have said so much, and said it so beautifully, I would
rather still talk with you as a friend. Of friends you and I have not
many; those who make up our world, for the most part, we have to keep at a
distance. But while I have many near relatives, children and descendants,
I remember that you have none. So your case is the harder.

LORD B. Ah, no, Madam, indeed! I have my children--descendants who will
live after me, I trust--in those policies which, for the welfare of my
beloved country, I confide to the care of a Sovereign whom I revere and
love....I am not unhappy in my life, Madam; far less in my fortune; only,
as age creeps on, I find myself so lonely, so solitary, that sometimes I
have doubt whether I am really alive, or whether the voice, with which now
and then I seek to reassure myself, be not the voice of a dead man.

QUEEN (_almost tearfully_). No, no, my dear Lord Beaconsfield, you
mustn't say that!

LORD B.(_gallantly_). I won't say anything, Madam, that you forbid,
or that you dislike. You invited me to speak to you as a friend; so I have
done, so I do. I apologise that I have allowed sadness, even for a moment,
to trouble the harmony-the sweetness--of our conversation.

QUEEN. Pray, do not apologise! It has been a very great privilege; I beg
that you will go on! Tell me--you spoke of bereavement--I wish you would
tell me more--about your wife.

(_The sudden request touches some latent chord; and it is with genuine
emotion that he answers_.)

LORD B. Ah!