"How nice! It was five at the Exchequer, wasn't it?"
"Yes; five thousand at the Exchequer."
"When you're a Lord of the Treasury it will only be one;—will it?"
"What a goose you are, Glencora. If it suited me to be a Lord of the Treasury, what difference would the salary make?"
"Not the least;—nor yet the rank, or the influence, or the prestige, or the general fitness of things. You are above all such sublunary ideas. You would clean Mr. Gresham's shoes for him, if—the service of your country required it." These last words she added in a tone of voice very similar to that which her husband himself used on occasions.
"I would even allow you to clean them,—if the service of the country required it," said the Duke.
But, though he was magnanimous, he was not happy, and perhaps the intense anxiety which his wife displayed as to the fate of Phineas Finn added to his discomfort. The Duchess, as the Duke of St. Bungay had said, was enthusiastic, and he never for a moment dreamed of teaching her to change her nature; but it would have been as well if her enthusiasm at the present moment could have been brought to display itself on some other subject. He had been brought to feel that Phineas Finn had been treated badly when the good things of Government were being given away, and that this had been caused by the jealous prejudices of the man who had been since murdered. But an expectant Under-Secretary of State, let him have been ever so cruelly left out in the cold, should not murder the man by whom he has been ill-treated. Looking at all the evidence as best he could, and listening to the opinions of others, the Duke did think that Phineas had been guilty. The murder had clearly been committed by a personal enemy, not by a robber. Two men were known to have entertained feelings of enmity against Mr. Bonteen; as to one of whom he was assured that it was impossible that he should have been on the spot. As to the other it seemed equally manifest that he must have been there. If it were so, it would have been much better that his wife should not display her interest publicly in the murderer's favour. But the Duchess, wherever she went, spoke of the trial as a persecution; and seemed to think that the prisoner should already be treated as a hero and a martyr. "Glencora," he said to her, "I wish that you could drop the subject of this trial till it be over."
"But I can't."
"Surely you can avoid speaking of it."
"No more than you can avoid your decimals. Out of the full heart the mouth speaks, and my heart is very full. What harm do I do?"