"I don't think we can put off going for their sake."
"Men are always selfish, I know. What do you think of Plantagenet lately?" The question was put very abruptly, without a moment's notice, and there was no avoiding it.
"Think of him!"
"Yes;—what do you think of his condition;—of his happiness, his health, his capacity of endurance? Will he be able to go on much longer? Now, my dear Duke, don't stare at me like that. You know, and I know, that you haven't spoken a word to me for the last two months. And you know, and I know, how many things there are of which we are both thinking in common. You haven't quarrelled with Plantagenet?"
"Quarrelled with him! Good heavens, no."
"Of course I know you still call him your noble colleague, and your noble friend, and make one of the same team with him and all that. But it used to be so much more than that."
"It is still more than that;—very much more."
"It was you who made him Prime Minister."
"No, no, no;—and again no. He made himself Prime Minister by obtaining the confidence of the House of Commons. There is no other possible way in which a man can become Prime Minister in this country."
"If I were not very serious at this moment, Duke, I should make an allusion to the—Marines." No other human being could have said this to the Duke of St. Bungay, except the young woman whom he had petted all his life as Lady Glencora. "But I am very serious," she continued, "and I may say not very happy. Of course the big wigs of a party have to settle among themselves who shall be their leader, and when this party was formed they settled, at your advice, that Plantagenet should be the man."