--everybody is so
jealous that they are ready to tear him to pieces!"

"Who is everybody?" asked Phineas.

"Oh! I know. It wasn't only Sir Orlando Drought. Who told Sir
Orlando? Never mind, Mr. Finn."

"I don't in the least, Mrs. Bonteen."

"I should have thought you would have been so triumphant," said
Madame Goesler.

"Not in the least, Madame Goesler. Why should I be triumphant? Of
course the position is very high,--very high indeed. But it's no more
than what I have always expected. If a man give up his life to a
pursuit he ought to succeed. As for ambition, I have less of it than
any woman. Only I do hate jealousy, Mr. Finn." Then Mrs. Bonteen took
her leave, kissing her dear friend, Madame Goesler, and simply bowing
to Phineas.

"What a detestable woman!" said Phineas.

"I know of old that you don't love her."

"I don't believe that you love her a bit better than I do, and yet
you kiss her."

"Hardly that, Mr. Finn. There has come up a fashion for ladies to
pretend to be very loving, and so they put their faces together. Two
hundred years ago ladies and gentlemen did the same thing with just
as little regard for each other. Fashions change, you know."

"That was a change for the worse, certainly, Madame Goesler."

"It wasn't of my doing. So you've had a great victory."

"Yes;--greater than we expected."

"According to Mrs. Bonteen, the chief result to the country will be
that the taxes will be so very safe in her husband's hands! I am sure
she believes that all Parliament has been at work in order that he
might be made a Cabinet Minister. I rather like her for it."

"I don't like her, or her husband."

"I do like a woman that can thoroughly enjoy her husband's success.
When she is talking of his carrying about his food in his pocket she
is completely happy. I don't think Lady Glencora ever cared in the
least about her husband being Chancellor of the Exchequer."

"Because it added nothing to her own standing."

"That's very ill-natured, Mr. Finn; and I find that you are becoming
generally ill-natured. You used to be the best-humoured of men."

"I hadn't so much to try my temper as I have now, and then you must
remember, Madame Goesler, that I regard these people as being
especially my enemies."

"Lady Glencora was never your enemy."

"Nor my friend,--especially."

"Then you wrong her. If I tell you something you must be discreet."

"Am I not always discreet?"

"She does not love Mr. B