"But you won't leave him?" This was said to Phineas Finn by his wife a day or two before Christmas, and the question was intended to ask whether Phineas thought of giving up his place.
"Not if I can help it."
"You like the work."
"That has but little to do with the question, unfortunately. I certainly like having something to do. I like earning money."
"I don't know why you like that especially," said the wife, laughing.
"I do at any rate,—and, in a certain sense, I like authority. But in serving with the Duke I find a lack of that sympathy which one should have with one's chief. He would never say a word to me unless I spoke to him. And when I do speak, though he is studiously civil,—much too courteous,—I know that he is bored. He has nothing to say to me about the country. When he has anything to communicate, he prefers to write a minute for Warburton, who then writes to Morton,—and so it reaches me."
"Doesn't it do as well?"
"It may do with me. There are reasons which bind me to him, which will not bind other men. Men don't talk to me about it, because they know that I am bound to him through you. But I am aware of the feeling which exists. You can't be really loyal to a king if you never see him,—if he be always locked up in some almost divine recess."
"A king may make himself too common, Phineas."
"No doubt. A king has to know where to draw the line. But the Duke draws no intentional line at all. He is not by nature gregarious or communicative, and is therefore hardly fitted to be the head of a ministry."