"No doubt with your inexperience it would be unfit that you should be left entirely to yourself. But I would wish you to know,—perhaps I should say to feel,—that the sentiments to be expressed by you were just."
"I should have to praise Sir Timothy."
"Not that necessarily. But you would have to advocate that course in Parliament which Sir Timothy and his friends have taken and propose to take."
"But I hate him like poison."
"There need be no personal feeling in the matter. I remember that when I moved the address in your house Mr. Mildmay was Prime Minister,—a man for whom my regard and esteem were unbounded,—who had been in political matters the preceptor of my youth, whom as a patriotic statesman I almost worshipped, whom I now remember as a man whose departure from the arena of politics left the country very destitute. No one has sprung up since like to him,—or hardly second to him. But in speaking on so large a subject as the policy of a party, I thought it beneath me to eulogise a man. The same policy reversed may keep you silent respecting Sir Timothy."
"I needn't of course say what I think about him."
"I suppose you do agree with Sir Timothy as to his general policy? On no other condition can you undertake such a duty."
"Of course I have voted with him."
"So I have observed,—not so regularly perhaps as Mr. Roby would have desired." Mr. Roby was the Conservative whip.
"And I suppose the people at Silverbridge expect me to support him."