"Your definition was perfectly just, I dare say, only—"
"Only what?"
"Lady Glencora need not have been so anxious to provide specially for your amusement. Not but what I'm very much obliged to her,—of course. But Miss Vavasor, unfortunately I'm not a politician. I haven't a chance of a seat in the House, and so I despise politics."
"Women are not allowed to be politicians in this country."
"Thank God, they can't do much in that way;—not directly, I mean. Only think where we should be if we had a feminine House of Commons, with feminine debates, carried on, of course, with feminine courtesy. My cousins Iphy and Phemy there would of course be members. You don't know them yet?"
"No; not yet. Are they politicians?"
"Not especially. They have their tendencies, which are decidedly liberal. There has never been a Tory Palliser known, you know. But they are too clever to give themselves up to anything in which they can do nothing. Being women they live a depressed life, devoting themselves to literature, fine arts, social economy, and the abstract sciences. They write wonderful letters; but I believe their correspondence lists are quite full, so that you have no chance at present of getting on either of them."
"I haven't the slightest pretension to ask for such an honour."
"Oh! if you mean because you don't know them, that has nothing to do with it."
"But I have no claim either private or public."