"The patriotism may remain, my dear, but not the simplicity. I don't want him to sell his country to Germany, or to turn it into an American republic in order that he may be president. But when he gets the reins in his hands, I want him to keep them there. If he's so much honester than other people, of course he's the best man for the place. We must make him believe that the very existence of the country depends on his firmness." "To tell you the truth, Lady Glen, I don't think you'll ever make the Duke believe anything. What he believes, he believes either from very old habit, or from the working of his own mind." "You're always singing his praises, Marie." "I don't know that there is any special praise in what I say; but as far as I can see, it is the man's character." "Mr. Finn will come in, of course," said the Duchess. "Mr. Finn will be like the Duke in one thing. He'll take his own way as to being in or out quite independently of his wife." "You'd like him to be in office?" "No, indeed! Why should I? He would be more often at the House, and keep later hours, and be always away all the morning into the bargain. But I shall like him to do as he likes himself." "Fancy thinking of all that. I'd sit up all night every night of my life.--I'd listen to every debate in the House myself,--to have Plantagenet Prime Minister. I like to be busy. Well now, if it does come off--" "It isn't settled, then?" "How can one hope that a single journey will settle it, when those other men have been going backwards and forwards between Windsor and London, like buckets in a well, for the last three weeks? But if it is settled, I mean to have a cabinet of my own, and I mean that you shall do the foreign affairs." "You'd better let me be at the exchequer. I'm very good at accounts." "I'll do that myself. The accounts that I intend to set a-going would frighten any one less audacious. And I mean to be my own home secretary, and to keep my own conscience,--and to be my own master of the ceremonies certainly. I think a small cabinet gets on best. Do you know,--I should like to put the Queen down." "What on earth do you mean?" "No treason; nothing of that kind. But I should like to make Buckingham Palace second-rate; and I'm not quite sure but I can. I dare say you don't quite understand me." "I don't think that I do, Lady Glen." "You will some of these days. Come in to-morrow before lunch. I suppose I shall know all about it then, and shall have found that my basket of crockery has been kicked over and every thing smashed." CHAPTER VII Another Old Friend