"To tell you the truth, Lady Glen, I don't think you'll ever make the Duke believe anything. What he believes, he believes either from very old habit, or from the working of his own mind."
"You're always singing his praises, Marie."
"I don't know that there is any special praise in what I say; but as far as I can see, it is the man's character."
"Mr. Finn will come in, of course," said the Duchess.
"Mr. Finn will be like the Duke in one thing. He'll take his own way as to being in or out quite independently of his wife."
"You'd like him to be in office?"
"No, indeed! Why should I? He would be more often at the House, and keep later hours, and be always away all the morning into the bargain. But I shall like him to do as he likes himself."
"Fancy thinking of all that. I'd sit up all night every night of my life.—I'd listen to every debate in the House myself,—to have Plantagenet Prime Minister. I like to be busy. Well now, if it does come off—"
"It isn't settled, then?"
"How can one hope that a single journey will settle it, when those other men have been going backwards and forwards between Windsor and London, like buckets in a well, for the last three weeks? But if it is settled, I mean to have a cabinet of my own, and I mean that you shall do the foreign affairs."