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 so 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 at 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 any one 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 little absurd 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