"But have you no plan of your own?"
"Not much of one. Sometimes I have thought I would go to New Zealand."
"You would have to be a farmer there."
"No;—I shouldn't do that. I should get up an opposition to the Government and that sort of thing, and then they would buy me off and give me a place."
"That does very well here, Jeffrey, if a man can get into Parliament and has capital enough to wait; but I don't think it would do out there. Would you like to go into Parliament?"
"What; here? Of course I should. Only I should be sure to get terribly into debt. I don't owe very much, now,—not to speak of,—except what I owe you."
"You owe nothing to me," said Plantagenet, with some little touch of magniloquence in his tone. "No; don't speak of it. I have no brother, and between you and me it means nothing. You see, Jeffrey, it may be that I shall have to look to you as my—my—my heir, in short." Hereupon Jeffrey muttered something as to the small probability of such necessity, and as to the great remoteness of any result even if it were so.
"That's all true," said the elder heir of the Pallisers, "but still—. In short, I wish you would do something. Do you think about it; and then some day speak to me again."
Jeffrey, as he left his cousin with a cheque for £500 in his waist-coat pocket, thought that the interview which had at one time taken important dimensions, had not been concluded altogether satisfactorily. A seat in Parliament! Yes, indeed! If his cousin would so far use his political, monetary, or ducal interest as to do that for him;—as to give him something of the status properly belonging to the younger son of the House, then indeed life would have some charms for him! But as for the farm in Scotland, or a desk at an office in London,—his own New Zealand plan would be better than those. And then as he went along of course he bethought himself that it might be his lot yet to die, and at least to be buried, in the purple, as a Duke of Omnium. If so, certainly it would be his duty to prepare another heir, and leave a duke behind him,—if it were possible.
"Are you going to ride with us after lunch?" said Lady Glencora to him as he strolled into the drawing-room.