been
better than that upon which he had laid his sacrilegious hands. If
he could have cut a purse, after the old fashion, the stain of the
deed would hardly have been so deep. In these days,--for more than
a month, indeed, after his return from Westmoreland,--he did not go
near Queen Anne Street, trying to persuade himself that he stayed
away because of her coldness to him. But, in truth, he was afraid of
seeing her without speaking of her money, and afraid to see her if he
were to speak of it.

"You have seen the _Globe_?" someone said to him as he entered the
club.

"No, indeed; I have seen nothing."

"Bunratty died in Ireland this morning. I suppose you'll be up for
the Chelsea districts?"

CHAPTER XLII

Parliament Meets

Parliament opened that year on the twelfth of February, and Mr
Palliser was one of the first Members of the Lower House to take his
seat. It had been generally asserted through the country, during the
last week, that the existing Chancellor of the Exchequer had, so to
say, ceased to exist as such; that though he still existed to the
outer world, drawing his salary, and doing routine work,--if a man
so big can have any routine work to do,--he existed no longer in
the inner world of the cabinet. He had differed, men said, with
his friend and chief, the Prime Minister, as to the expediency of
repealing what were left of the direct taxes of the country, and was
prepared to launch himself into opposition with his small bodyguard
of followers, with all his energy and with all his venom.

There is something very pleasant in the close, bosom friendship, and
bitter, uncompromising animosity, of these human gods,--of these
human beings who would be gods were they not shorn so short of their
divinity in that matter of immortality. If it were so arranged that
the same persons were always friends, and the same persons were
always enemies, as used to be the case among the dear old heathen
gods and goddesses;--if Parliament were an Olympus in which Juno and
Venus never kissed, the thing would not be nearly so interesting. But
in this Olympus partners are changed, the divine bosom, now rabid
with hatred against some opposing deity, suddenly becomes replete
with love towards its late enemy, and exciting changes occur which
give to the whole thing all the keen interest of a sensational novel.
No doubt this is greatly lessened for those who come too near the
scene of action. Members of Parliament,