Phineas Finn’s first session of Parliament was over — his first session with all its adventures. When he got back to Mrs Bunce’s house — for Mrs Bunce received him for a night in spite of her husband’s advice to the contrary — I am afraid he almost felt that Mrs Bunce and her rooms were beneath him. Of course he was very unhappy — as wretched as a man can be; there were moments in which he thought that it would hardly become him to live unless he could do something to prevent the marriage of Lady Laura and Mr Kennedy. But, nevertheless, he had his consolations. These were reflections which had in them much of melancholy satisfaction. He had not been despised by the woman to whom he had told his love. She had not shown him that she thought him to be unworthy of her. She had not regarded his love as an offence. Indeed, she had almost told him that prudence alone had forbidden her to return his passion. And he had kissed her, and had afterwards parted from her as a dear friend. I do not know why there should have been a flavour of exquisite joy in the midst of his agony as he thought of this — but it was so. He would never kiss her again. All future delights of that kind would belong to Mr Kennedy, and he had no real idea of interfering with that gentleman in the fruition of his privileges. But still there was the kiss — an eternal fact. And then, in all respects except that of his love, his visit to Loughlinter had been pre-eminently successful, Mr Monk had become his friend, and had encouraged him to speak during the next session — setting before him various models, and prescribing for him a course of reading. Lord Brentford had become intimate with him. He was on pleasant terms with Mr Palliser and Mr Gresham. And as for Mr Kennedy — he and Mr Kennedy were almost bosom friends. It seemed to him that he had quite surpassed the Ratlers, Fitzgibbons, and Bonteens in that politico-social success which goes so far towards downright political success, and which in itself is so pleasant. He had surpassed these men in spite of their offices and their acquired positions, and could not but think that even Mr Low, if he knew it all, would confess that he had been right.
As to his bosom friendship with Mr Kennedy, that of course troubled him. Ought he not to be driving a poniard into Mr Kennedy’s heart? The conventions of life forbade that; and therefore the bosom friendship was to be excused. If not an enemy to the death, then there could be no reason why he should not be a bosom friend.
He went over to Ireland, staying but one night with Mrs Bunce, and came down upon them at Killaloe like a god out of the heavens. Even his father was well-nigh overwhelmed by admiration, and his mother and sisters thought themselves only fit to minister to his pleasures. He had learned, if he had learned nothing else, to look as though he were master of the circumstances around him, and was entirely free from internal embarrassment. When his father spoke to him about his legal studies, he did not exactly laugh at his father’s ignorance, but he recapitulated to his father so much of Mr Monk’s wisdom at second hand — showing plainly that it was his business to study the arts of speech and the technicalities of the House, and not to study law — that his father had nothing further to say. He had become a man of such dimensions that an ordinary father could hardly dare to inquire into his proceedings; and as for an ordinary mother — such as Mrs Finn certainly was — she could do no more than look after her son’s linen with awe.
Mary Flood Jones — the reader I hope will not quite have forgotten Mary Flood Jones — was in a great tremor when first she met the hero of Loughshane after returning from the honours of his first session. She had been somewhat disappointed because the newspapers had not been full of the speeches he had made in Parliament. And indeed the ladies of the Finn household had all been ill at ease on this head. They could not imagine why Phineas had restrained himself with so much philosophy. But Miss Flood Jones in discussing the matter with the Miss Finns had never expressed the slightest doubt of his capacity or his judgment. And when tidings came — the tidings came in a letter from Phineas to his father — that he did not intend to speak that session, because speeches from a young member on his first session were thought to be inexpedient, Miss Flood Jones and the Miss Finns were quite willing to accept the wisdom of this decision, much as they might regret the effect of it. Mary, when she met her hero, hardly dared to look him in the face, but she remembered accurately all the circumstances of her last interview with him. Could it be that he wore that ringlet near his heart? Mary had received from Barbara Finn certain hairs supposed to have come from the head of Phineas, and these she always wore near her own. And moreover, since she had seen Phineas she had refused an offer of marriage from Mr Elias Bodkin — had refused it almost ignominiously — and when doing so had told herself that she would never be false to Phineas Finn.
“We think it so good of you to come to see us again,” she said.
“Good to come home to my own people?”
“Of course you might be staying with plenty of grandees if you liked it.”
“No, indeed, Mary. It did happen by accident that I had to go to the house of a man whom perhaps you would call a grandee, and to meet grandees there. But it was only for a few days, and I am very glad to be taken in again here, I can assure you.”
“You know how very glad we all are to have you.”
“Are you glad to see me, Mary?”
“Very glad. Why should I not be glad, and Barbara the dearest friend I have in the world? Of course she talks about you — and that makes me think of you.”
“If you knew, Mary, how often I think about you.” Then Mary, who was very happy at hearing such words, and who was walking in to dinner with him at the moment, could not refrain herself from pressing his arm with her little fingers. She knew that Phineas in his position could not marry at once; but she would wait for him — oh, for ever, if he would only ask her. He of course was a wicked traitor to tell her that he was wont to think of her. But Jove smiles at lovers’ perjuries — and it is well that he should do so, as such perjuries can hardly be avoided altogether in the difficult circumstances of a successful gentleman’s life. Phineas was a traitor, of course, ............