"I am afraid you will find the Duke very urgent."
"I must then express my great sorrow that I cannot oblige the Duke. I trust I need hardly say that the Duke has no colleague more devoted to his interest than I am. Were he to wish me to change my office, or to abandon it, or to undertake any political duty within the compass of my small powers, he would find me ready to obey his behests. But in this matter others are concerned, and I cannot make my judgment subordinate to his." The private Secretary looked very serious, and simply said that he would do his best to explain these objections to his Grace.
That the Duke would take his refusal in bad part Phineas felt nearly certain. He had been a little surprised at the coldness of the Minister's manner to him after the statement he had made in the house, and had mentioned the matter to his wife. "You hardly know him," she had said, "as well as I do."
"Certainly not. You ought to know him very intimately, and I have had but little personal friendship with him. But it was a moment in which the man might, for the moment, have been cordial."
"It was not a moment for his cordiality. The Duchess says that if you want to get a really genial smile from him you must talk to him about cork soles. I know exactly what she means. He loves to be simple, but he does not know how to show people that he likes it. Lady Rosina found him out by accident."
"Don't suppose that I am in the least aggrieved," he had said. And now he spoke again to his wife in the same spirit. "Warburton clearly thinks that he will be offended, and Warburton, I suppose, knows his mind."
"I don't see why he should. I have been reading it longer, and I still find it very difficult. Lady Glen has been at the work for the last fifteen years, and sometimes owns that there are passages she has not mastered yet. I fancy Mr. Warburton is afraid of him, and is a little given to fancy that everybody should bow down to him. Now if there is anything certain about the Duke it is this,—that he doesn't want any one to bow down to him. He hates all bowing down."
"I don't think he loves those who oppose him."
"It is not the opposition he hates, but the cause in the man's mind which may produce it. When Sir Orlando opposed him, and he thought that Sir Orlando's opposition was founded on jealousy, then he despised Sir Orlando. But had he believed in Sir Orlando's belief in the new ships, he would have been capable of pressing Sir Orlando to his bosom, although he might have been forced to oppose Sir Orlando's ships in the Cabinet."
"He is a Sir Bayard to you," said Phineas, laughing.