"I can understand all that, Lady Glen."
"It isn't as it should be, though you can understand it. I'll bet you a guinea that Sir Timothy Beeswax has to go out before the beginning of next Session."
"I've no objection. But why Sir Timothy?"
"He mentioned Lopez' name the other day before Plantagenet. I heard him. Plantagenet pulled that long face of his, looking as though he meant to impose silence on the whole world for the next six weeks. But Sir Timothy is brass itself, a sounding cymbal of brass that nothing can silence. He went on to declare with that loud voice of his that the death of Lopez was a good riddance of bad rubbish. Plantagenet turned away and left the room and shut himself up. He didn't declare to himself that he'd dismiss Sir Timothy, because that's not the way of his mind. But you'll see that Sir Timothy will have to go."
"That, at any rate, will be a good riddance of bad rubbish," said Mrs. Finn, who did not love Sir Timothy Beeswax.
Soon after that the Duchess made up her mind that she would interrogate the Duke of St. Bungay as to the present state of affairs. It was then the end of June, and nearly one of those long and tedious months had gone by of which the Duke spoke so feelingly when he asked Phineas Finn to come down to Matching. Hope had been expressed in more than one quarter that this would be a short Session. Such hopes are much more common in June than in July, and, though rarely verified, serve to keep up the drooping spirits of languid senators. "I suppose we shall be early out of town, Duke," she said one day.
"I think so. I don't see what there is to keep us. It often happens that ministers are a great deal better in the country than in London, and I fancy it will be so this year."
"You never think of the poor girls who haven't got their husbands yet."
"They should make better use of their time. Besides, they can get their husbands in the country."
"It's quite true that they never get to the end of their labours. They are not like you members of Parliament who can shut up your portfolios and go and shoot grouse. They have to keep at their work spring and summer, autumn and winter,—year after year! How they must hate the men they persecute!"