‘If a Parliamentary career could save this country,’ said Tancred, ‘I am sure you would be a public benefactor. I have observed what you and Mr. Con-ingsby and some of your friends have done and said, with great interest. But Parliament seems to me to be the very place which a man of action should avoid. A Parliamentary career, that old superstition of the eighteenth century, was important when there were no other sources of power and fame. An aristocracy at the head of a people whom they had plundered of their means of education, required some cultivated tribunal whose sympathy might stimulate their intelligence and satisfy their vanity. Parliament was never so great as when they debated with closed doors. The public opinion, of which they never dreamed, has superseded the rhetorical club of our great-grandfathers. They know this well enough, and try to maintain their unnecessary position by affecting the character of men of business, but amateur men of business are very costly conveniences. In this age it is not Parliament that does the real work. It does not govern Ireland, for example. If the manufacturers want to change a tariff, they form a commercial league, and they effect their purpose. It is the same with the abolition of slavery, and all our great revolutions. Parliament has become as really insignificant as for two centuries it has kept the monarch. O’Connell has taken a good share of its power; Cobden has taken another; and I am inclined to believe,’ said Tancred, ‘though I care little about it, that, if our order had any spirit or prescience, they would put themselves at the head of the people, and take the rest.’ ‘Coningsby dines here to-day,’ said Sidonia, who, unobserved, had watched Tancred as he spoke, with a searching glance. ‘Notwithstanding what you say,’ said Lord Henry, smiling, ‘I wish I could induce you to remain and help us. You would be a great ally.’ ‘I go to a land,’ said Tancred, ‘that has never been blessed by that fatal drollery called a representative government, though Omniscience once deigned to trace out the polity which should rule it.’ At this moment the servant announced Lord and Lady Marney. Political sympathy had created a close intimacy between Lord Marney and Coningsby. They were necessary to each other. They were both men entirely devoted to public affairs, and sitting in different Houses, both young, and both masters of fortunes of the first class, they were indicated as individuals who hereafter might take a lead, and, far from clashing, would co-operate with each other. Through Coningsby the Marneys had become acquainted with Sidonia, who liked them both, particularly Sybil. Although received by society with open arms, especially by the high nobility, who affected to look upon Sybil quite as one of themselves, Lady Marney, notwithstanding the homage that everywhere awaited her, had already shown a disposition to retire as much as possible within the precinct of a chosen circle.