"If you can do any good!"
"It all comes round to that. It isn't because I like always to live in a windmill! I have come to hate it. At this moment I would give worlds to be down at Matching with no one but the children, and to go about in a straw hat and a muslin gown. I have a fancy that I could sit under a tree and read a sermon, and think it the sweetest recreation. But I've made the attempt to do all this, and it is so mean to fail!"
"But where is to be the end of it?"
"There shall be no end as long as he is Prime Minister. He is the first man in England. Some people would say the first in Europe,—or in the world. A Prince should entertain like a Prince."
"He need not be always entertaining."
"Hospitality should run from a man with his wealth and his position, like water from a fountain. As his hand is known to be full, so it should be known to be open. When the delight of his friends is in question he should know nothing of cost. Pearls should drop from him as from a fairy. But I don't think you understand me."
"Not when the pearls are to be picked up by Captain Gunners, Lady Glen."
"I can't make the men any better,—nor yet the women. They are poor mean creatures. The world is made up of such. I don't know that Captain Gunner is worse than Sir Orlando Drought or Sir Timothy Beeswax. People seen by the mind are exactly different to things seen by the eye. They grow smaller and smaller as you come nearer down to them, whereas things become bigger. I remember when I used to think that members of the Cabinet were almost gods, and now they seem to be no bigger than the shoeblacks,—only less picturesque. He told me the other day of the time when he gave up going into power for the sake of taking me abroad. Ah me! how much was happening then,—and how much has happened since that! We didn't know you then."
"He has been a good husband to you."
"And I have been a good wife to him! I have never had him for an hour out of my heart since that, or ever for a moment forgotten his interest. I can't live with him because he shuts himself up reading blue-books, and is always at his office or in the House;—but I would if I could. Am I not doing it all for him? You don't think that the Captain Gunners are particularly pleasant to me! Think of your life and of mine. You have had lovers."