We must go back for a while to Gatherum Castle and see the guests whom the Duchess had collected there for her Christmas festivities. The hospitality of the Duke's house had been maintained almost throughout the autumn. Just at the end of October they went to Matching, for what the Duchess called a quiet month,—which, however, at the Duke's urgent request became six weeks. But even here the house was full all the time, though from deficiency of bedrooms the guests were very much less numerous. But at Matching the Duchess had been uneasy and almost cross. Mrs. Finn had gone with her husband to Ireland, and she had taught herself to fancy that she could not live without Mrs. Finn. And her husband had insisted upon having round him politicians of his own sort, men who really preferred work to archery, or even to hunting, and who discussed the evils of direct taxation absolutely in the drawing-room. The Duchess was assured that the country could not be governed by the support of such men as these, and was very glad to get back to Gatherum,—whither also came Phineas Finn with his wife, and the St. Bungay people, and Barrington Erle, and Mr. Monk, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with Lord and Lady Cantrip, and Lord and Lady Drummond,—Lord Drummond being the only representative of the other or coalesced party. And Major Pountney was there, having been urgent with the Duchess,—and having fully explained to his friend Captain Gunner that he had acceded to the wishes of his hostess only on the assurance of her Grace that the house would not be again troubled by the presence of Ferdinand Lopez. Such assurances were common between the two friends, but were innocent, as, of course, neither believed the other. And Lady Rosina was again there,—with many others. The melancholy poverty of Lady Rosina had captivated the Duke. "She shall come and live here, if you like," the Duchess had said in answer to a request from her husband on his new friend's behalf,—"I've no doubt she will be willing." The place was not crowded as it had been before; but still about thirty guests sat down to dinner daily, and Locock, Millepois, and Mrs. Pritchard were all kept hard at work. Nor was our Duchess idle. She was always making up the party,—meaning the coalition,—doing something to strengthen the buttresses, writing little letters to little people, who, little as they were, might become big by amalgamation. "One has always to be binding one's fagot," she said to Mrs. Finn, having read her ?sop not altogether in vain. "Where should we have been without you?" she had whispered to Sir Orlando Drought when that gentleman was leaving Gatherum at the termination of his second visit. She had particularly disliked Sir Orlando, and was aware that her husband had on this occasion been hardly as gracious as he should have been, in true policy, to so powerful a colleague. Her husband had been peculiarly shy of Sir Orlando since the day on which they had walked together in the park,—and, consequently, the Duchess had whispered to him. "Don't bind your fagot too conspicuously," Mrs. Finn had said to her. Then the Duchess had fallen to a seat almost exhausted by labour, mingled with regrets, and by the doubts which from time to time pervaded even her audacious spirit. "I'm not a god," she said, "or a Pitt, or an Italian with a long name beginning with M., that I should be able to do these things without ever making a mistake. And yet they must be done. And as for him,—he does not help me in the least. He wanders about among the clouds of the multiplication table, and thinks that a majority will drop into his mouth because he does not shut it. Can you tie the fagot any better?" "I think I would leave it untied," said Mrs. Finn. "You would not do anything of the kind. You'd be just as fussy as I am." And thus the game was carried on at Gatherum Castle from week to week.

"But you won't leave him?" This was said to Phineas Finn by his wife a day or two before Christmas, and the question was intended to ask whether Phineas thought of giving up his place.

"Not if I can help it."

"You like the work."

"That has but little to do with the question, unfortunately. I certainly like having something to do. I like earning money."

"I don't know why you like that especially," said the wife, laughing.

"I do at any rate,—and, in a certain sense, I like authority. But in serving with the Duke I find a lack of that sympathy which one should have with one's chief. He would never say a word to me unless I spoke to him. And when I do speak, though he is studiously civil,—much too courteous,—I know that he is bored. He has nothing to say to me about the country. When he has anything to communicate, he prefers to write a minute for Warburton, who then writes to Morton,—and so it reaches me."

"Doesn't it do as well?"

"It may do with me. There are reasons which bind me to him, which will not bind other men. Men don't talk to me about it, because they know that I am bound to him through you. But I am aware of the feeling which exists. You can't be really loyal to a king if you never see him,—if he be always locked up in some almost divine recess."

"A king may make himself too common, Phineas."

"No doubt. A king has to know where to draw the line. But the Duke draws no intentional line at all. He is not by nature gregarious or communicative, and is therefore hardly fitted to be the head of a ministry."

"It will break her heart if anything goes wrong."

"She ought to remember that Ministries seldom live very long," said Phineas. "But she'll recover even if she does break her heart. She is too full of vitality to be much repressed by any calamity. Have you heard what is to be done about Silverbridge?"

"The Duchess wants to get it for this man, Ferdinand Lopez."

"But it has not been promised yet?"

"The seat is not vacant," said Mrs. Finn, "and I don't know when it will be vacant. I think there is a hitch about it,—and I think the Duchess is going to be made very angry."

Throughout the autumn the Duke had been an unhappy man. While the absolute work of the Session had lasted he had found something to console him; but now, though he was surrounded by private secretaries, and though dispatch-boxes went and came twice a day, though there were dozens of letters as to which he had to give some instruction,—yet, there was in truth nothing for him to do. It seemed to him that all the real work of the Government had been filched from him by his colleagues, and that he was stuck up in pretended authority,—a kind of wooden Prime Minister, from whom no real ministration was demanded. His first fear had been that he was himself unfit;—but now he was uneasy, fearing that others thought him to be unfit. There was Mr. Monk with his budget, and Lord Drummond with his three or four dozen half rebellious colonies, and Sir Orlando Drought with the House to lead and a ship to build, and Phineas Finn with his scheme of municipal Home Rule for Ireland, and Lord Ramsden with a codified Statute Book,—all full of work, all with something special to be done. But for him,—he had to arrange who should attend the Queen, what ribbons should be given away, and what middle-aged young man should move the address. He sighed as he thought of those happy days in which he used to fear that his mind and body would both give way under the pressure of decimal coinage.

But Phineas Finn had read the Duke's character rightly in saying that he was neither gregarious nor communicative, and therefore but little fitted to rule Englishmen. He had thought that it was so himself, and now from day to day he was becoming more assured of his own deficiency. He could not throw himself into cordial relations with the Sir Orlando Droughts, or even with the Mr. Monks. But, though he had never wished to be put into his present high office, now that he was there he dreaded the sense of failure which would follow his descent from it. It is this feeling rather than genuine ambition, rather than the love of power or patronage or pay, which induces men to cling to place. The absence of real work, and the quantity of mock work, both alike made the life wearisome to him; but he could not endure the idea that it should be written in history that he had allowed himself to be made a fainéant Prime Minister, and then had failed even in that. History would forget what he had done as a working Minister in recording the feebleness of the Ministry which would bear his name.

The one man with whom he could talk freely, and from whom he could take advice, was now with him, here at his Castle. He was shy at first even with the Duke of St. Bungay, but that shyness he could generally overcome, after a few words. But though he was always sure of his old friend's sympathy and of his old friend's wisdom, yet he doubted his old friend's capacity to understand himself. The young Duke felt the old Duke to be thicker-skinned than himself and therefore unable to appreciate the thorns which so sorely worried his own flesh. "They talk to me about a policy," said the host. They were closeted at this time in the Prime Minister's own sanctum, and there yet remained an hour before they need dress for dinner.

"Who talks about a policy?"

"Sir Orlando Drought especially." For the Duke of Omnium had never forgotten the arrogance of that advice given in the park.

"Sir Orlando is of course entitled to speak, though I do not know that he is likely to say anything very well worth the hearing. What is his special policy?"

"If he had any, of course, I would hear him. It is not that he wants any special thing to be done, but he thinks that I should get up some special thing in order that Parliament may be satisfied."

"If you wanted to create a majority that might be true. Just listen to him and have done with it."

"I cannot go on in that way. I cannot submit to what amounts to complaint from the gentlemen who are acting with me. Nor would they submit long to my silence. I am beginning to feel that I have been wrong."

"I don't think you have been wrong at all."

"A man is wrong if he attempts to carry a weight too great for his strength."

"A certain nervous sensitiveness, from which you should free yourself as from a disease, is your only source of weakness. Think about your business as a shoemaker thinks of his. Do your best, and then let your customers judge for themselves. Caveat emptor. A man should never endeavour to price himself, but should accept the price which others put on him,—only being careful that he should learn what that price is. Your policy should be to keep your government together by a strong majority. After all, the making of new laws is too often but an unfortunate necessity laid on us by the impatience of the people. A lengthened period of quiet and therefore good government with a minimum of new laws would be the greatest benefit the country could receive. When I recommended you to comply with the Queen's behest I did so because I thought that you might inaugurate such a period more certainly than any other one man." This old Duke was quite content with a state of things such as he described. He had been a Cabinet Minister for more than half his life. He liked being a Cabinet Minister. He thought it well for the country generally that his party should be in power,—and if not his party in its entirety, then as much of his party as might be possible. He did not expect to be written of as a Pitt or a Somers, but he thought that memoirs would speak of him as a useful nobleman,—and he was contented. He was not only not ambitious himself, but the effervescence and general turbulence of ambition in other men was distasteful to him. Loyalty was second nature to him, and the power of submitting to defeat without either shame or sorrow had become perfect with him by long practice. He would have made his brother Duke such as he was himself,—had not his brother Duke been so lamentably thin-skinned.

"I suppose we must try it for another Session?" said the Duke of Omnium with a lachrymose voice.

"Of course we must,—and for others after that, I both hope and trust," said the Duke of St. Bungay, getting up. "If I don't go up-stairs I shall be late, and then her Grace will look at me with unforgiving eyes."

On the following day after lunch the Prime Minister took a walk with Lady Rosina De Courcy. He had fallen into a habit of walking with Lady Rosina almost every day of his life, till the people in the Castle began to believe that Lady Rosina was the mistress of some deep policy of her own. For there were many there who did in truth think that statecraft could never be absent from a minister's mind, day or night. But in truth Lady Rosina chiefly made herself agreeable to the Prime Minister by never making any most distant allusion to public affairs. It might be doubted whether she even knew that the man who paid her so much honour was the Head of the British Government as well as the Duke of Omnium. She was a tall, thin, shrivelled-up old woman,—not very old, fifty perhaps, but looking at least ten years more,—very melancholy, and sometimes very cross. She had been notably religious, but that was gradually wearing off as she advanced in years. The rigid strictness of Sabbatarian practice requires the full energy of middle life. She had been left entirely alone in the world, with a very small income, and not many friends who were in any way interested in her existence. But she knew herself to be Lady Rosina De Courcy, and felt that the possession of that name ought to be more to her than money and friends, or even than brothers and sisters. "The weather is not frightening you," said the Duke. Snow had fallen, and the paths, even where they had been swept, were wet and sloppy.

"Weather never frightens me, your Grace. I always have thick boots;—I am very particular about that;—and cork soles."

"Cork soles are admirable."

"I think I owe my life to cork soles," said Lady Rosina enthusiastically. "There is a man named Sprout in Silverbridge who makes them. Did your Grace ever try him for boots?"

"I don't think I ever did," said the Prime Minister.

"Then you had better. He's very good and very cheap too. Those London tradesmen never think they can charge you enough. I find I can wear Sprout's boots the whole winter through and then have them resoled. I don't suppose you ever think of such things?"

"I like to have my feet dry."

"I have got to calculate what they cost." They then passed Major Pountney, who............