We are told that it is a bitter moment with the Lord Mayor when he leaves the Mansion House and becomes once more Alderman Jones, of No. 75, Bucklersbury. Lord Chancellors going out of office have a great fall though they take pensions with them for their consolation. And the President of the United States when he leaves the glory of the White House and once more becomes a simple citizen must feel the change severely. But our hero, Phineas Finn, as he turned his back upon the scene of his many successes, and prepared himself for permanent residence in his own country, was, I think, in a worse plight than any of the reduced divinities to whom I have alluded. They at any rate had known that their fall would come. He, like Icarus, had flown up towards the sun, hoping that his wings of wax would bear him steadily aloft among the gods. Seeing that his wings were wings of wax, we must acknowledge that they were very good. But the celestial lights had been too strong for them, and now, having lived for five years with lords and countesses, with Ministers and orators, with beautiful women and men of fashion, he must start again in a little lodging in Dublin, and hope that the attorneys of that litigious city might be good to him. On his journey home he made but one resolution. He would make the change, or attempt to make it, with manly strength. During his last month in London he had allowed himself to be sad, depressed, and melancholy. There should be an end of all that now. Nobody at home should see that he was depressed. And Mary, his own Mary, should at any rate have no cause to think that her love and his own engagement had ever been the cause to him of depression. Did he not value her love more than anything in the world? A thousand times he told himself that he did.
She was there in the old house at Killaloe to greet him. Her engagement was an affair known to all the county, and she had no idea that it would become her to be coy in her love. She was in his arms before he had spoken to his father and mother, and had made her little speech to him — very inaudibly indeed — while he was covering her sweet face with kisses. “Oh, Phineas, I am so proud of you; and I think you are so right, and I am so glad you have done it.” Again he covered her face with kisses. Could he ever have had such satisfaction as this had he allowed Madame Goesler’s hand to remain in his?
On the first night of his arrival he sat for an hour downstairs with his father talking over his plans. He felt — he could not but feel — that he was not the hero now that he had been when he was last at Killaloe — when he had come thither with a Cabinet Minister under his wing. And yet his father did his best to prevent the growth of any such feeling. The old doctor was not quite as well off as he had been when Phineas first started with his high hopes for London. Since that day he had abandoned his profession and was now living on the fruits of his life’s labour. For the last two years he had been absolved from the necessity of providing an income for his son, and had probably allowed himself to feel that no such demand upon him would again be made. Now, however, it was necessary that he should do so. Could his son manage to live on two hundred a year? There would then be four hundred a year left for the wants of the family at home. Phineas swore that he could fight his battle on a hundred and fifty, and they ended the argument by splitting the difference. He had been paying exactly the same sum of money for the rooms he had just left in London; but then, while he held those rooms, his income had been two thousand a year. Tenant-right was a very fine thing, but could it be worth such a fall as this?
“And about dear Mary?” said the father.
“I hope it may not be very long,” said Phineas.
“I have not spoken to her about it, but your mother says that Mrs Flood Jones is very averse to a long engagement.”
“What can I do? She would not wish me to marry her daughter with no other income than an allowance made by you.”
“Your mother says that she has some idea that you and she might live together — that if they let Floodborough you might take a small house in Dublin. Remember, Phineas, I am not proposing it myself.”
Then Phineas bethought himself that he was not even yet so low in the world that he need submit himself to terms dictated to him by Mrs Flood Jones. “I am glad that you do not propose it, sir.”
“Why so, Phineas?”
“Because I should have been obliged to oppose the plan even if it had come from you. Mothers-in-law are never a comfort in a house.”
“I never tried it myself,” said the doctor.
“And I never will try it. I am quite sure that Mary does not expect any such thing, and that she is willing to wait. If I can shorten the term of waiting by hard work, I will do so.” The decision to which Phineas had come on this matter was probably made known to Mrs Flood Jones after some mild fashion by old Mrs Finn. Nothing more was said to Phineas about a joint household; but he was quite able to perceive from the manner of the lady towards him that his proposed mother-in-law wished him to understand that he was treating her daughter very badly. What did it signify? None of them knew the story of Madame Goesler, and of course none of them would know it. None of them would ever hear how well he had behaved to his little Mary.
But Mary did know it all before he left her to go up to Dublin. The two lovers allowed themselves — or were allowed by their elders, one week of exquisite bliss together; and during this week, Phineas told her, I think, everything. He told her everything as far as he could do so without seeming to boast of his own successes. How is a man not to tell such tales when he has on his arm, close to him, a girl who tells him her little everything of life, and only asks for his confidence in return? And then his secrets are so precious to her and so sacred, that he feels as sure of her fidelity as though she were a very goddess of faith and trust. And the temptation to tell is so great. For all that he has to tell she loves him the better and still the better. A man desires to win a virgin heart, and is happy to know — or at least to believe — that he has won it. With a woman every former rival is an added victim to the wheels of the triumphant chariot in which she is sitting. “All these has he known and loved, culling sweets from each of them. But............