"Well, not exactly; though the dinners at the club, even the modest joint and the table-beer, are not by any means to be despised; and as for the rest of it, not being a diplomatist, Miss Lexden, I have no occasion to play the agreeable to any one save in my own house, and, being a bachelor, the only woman I have to see to as properly soignée is my old mother, and I do like her to have the best of every thing."
"Your mother lives with you?"
"Yes, and will, so far as I can see, until the end of the chapter."
"She--you must be very fond of her!" said Barbara, as by a sudden impulse, looking up at his kindling eyes and earnest face.
"I am very proud of her," he replied; "she is more like my sister than my mother; enters into all my hopes and fears, shares all my aspirations, and consoles me in all my doubts."
"More like your wife, then," said Barbara, with a slight sneer. "You have in her a rare combination of virtues."
"No," said Churchill; "not rare, I am disposed to think. I don't suppose that, in your class,--where maternity means nothing in particular to sons, and merely chaperonage, or the part of buffer, to ward off paternal anger for bills incurred, to daughters,--such characters flourish; but in mine they are common enough."--("A little touch of old Harding's Radicalism in that speech, by Jove!" thought he to himself.)
"I don't exactly fallow your reference to my class as distinct from your own. I suppose we mix amongst pretty much the same people, though as individuals we have not met before. But," added Barbara, with a smile, "now that that great occurrence has taken place, I don't think we need enter into lengthy disquisitions as to the charms and duties of maternity; indeed, we will not, for I shall ask you to observe the only conditions which I require from my friends."
"And they are--?" asked Churchill.
"Qu'on exécute mes orders, as Louis Napoleon said when asked what should be done on the Second of December. So long as my commands are obeyed, I am amiability itself."