"It isn't quite a certainty, you know, but I suppose it's as near a certainty as anything left." And this came from a strong Radical Reformer!
"Lady Laura, I couldn't accept such a favour from your father." Then Mr. Kennedy nodded his head very slightly and whispered, "Yes, yes." "I couldn't think of it," said Phineas Finn. "I have no right to such a favour."
"That is a matter entirely for papa's consideration," said Lady Laura, with an affectation of solemnity in her voice. "I think it has always been felt that any politician may accept such an offer as that when it is made to him, but that no politician should ask for it. My father feels that he has to do the best he can with his influence in the borough, and therefore he comes to you."
"It isn't that," said Phineas, somewhat rudely.
"Of course private feelings have their weight," said Lady Laura. "It is not probable that papa would have gone to a perfect stranger. And perhaps, Mr. Finn, I may own that Mr. Kennedy and I would both be very sorry that you should not be in the House, and that that feeling on our part has had some weight with my father."
"Of course you'll stand?" whispered Mr. Kennedy, still looking straight out of the window, as though the slightest attempt to turn his neck would be fraught with danger to himself and the Duchy.
"Papa has desired me to ask you to call upon him," said Lady Laura. "I don't suppose there is very much to be said, as each of you know so well the other's way of thinking. But you had better see him to-day or to-morrow."
Of course Phineas was persuaded before he left Mr. Kennedy's room. Indeed, when he came to think of it, there appeared to him to be no valid reason why he should not sit for Loughton. The favour was of a kind that had prevailed from time out of mind in England, between the most respectable of the great land magnates, and young rising liberal politicians. Burke, Fox, and Canning had all been placed in Parliament by similar influence. Of course he, Phineas Finn, desired earnestly,—longed in his very heart of hearts,—to extinguish all such Parliamentary influence, to root out for ever the last vestige of close borough nominations; but while the thing remained it was better that the thing should contribute to the liberal than to the conservative strength of the House,—and if to the liberal, how was this to be achieved but by the acceptance of such influence by some liberal candidate? And if it were right that it should be accepted by any liberal candidate,—then, why not by him? The logic of this argument seemed to him to be perfect. He felt something like a sting of reproach as he told himself that in truth this great offer was made to him, not on account of the excellence of his politics, but because he had been instrumental in saving Lord Brentford's son-in-law from the violence of garrotters. But he crushed these qualms of conscience as being over-scrupulous, and, as he told himself, not practical. You must take the world as you find it, with a struggle to be something more honest than those around you. Phineas, as he preached to himself this sermon, declared to himself that they who attempted more than this flew too high in the clouds to be of service to men and women upon earth.
As he did not see Lord Brentford that day he postponed writing to his father for twenty-four hours. On the following morning he found the Earl at home in Portman Square, having first discussed the matter fully with Lord Chiltern. "Do not scruple about me," said Lord Chiltern; "you are quite welcome to the borough for me."
"But if I did not stand, would you do so? There are so many reasons which ought to induce you to accept a seat in Parliament!"