CHAPTER XVIII. SPOONER OF SPOON-HALL Adelaide Palaceau was a tall, fair girl, exquisitely made, with every feminine grace of motion, highly born, and carrying always the warranty of her birth in her appearance, but with no special loveliness of face. Let not any reader suppose that therefore she was plain. She possessed much more than a sufficiency of charm to justify her friends in claiming her as a beauty, and the demand had been genuinely allowed by public opinion. Adelaide Palaceau was always spoken of as a girl to be admired, but she was not one whose countenance would strike with special admiration any beholder who did not know her. Her eyes were pleasant and bright, and being in truth green might perhaps with propriety be described as grey.  Her chin was somewhat too long and was on this account the defective feature of her face. Her hair was brown and penteful, but in no way peculiar. No doubt she wore a chignon, but if so she wore it with the special view of being in no degree remarkable in reference to her headdress. Such as she was, beauty or no beauty, her own mind on the subject was made up, and she had resolved long since, that the gift of personal loveliness had not been bestowed upon her. And yet after a fashion she was proud of her own appearance. She knew that she looked like a lady, and she knew also that she had all that command of herself which health and strength can give to a woman when she is without feminine affectation. Lady Chilton, in describing her to Phineas Finn, had said that she talked Italian and wrote for the times. The former assertion was no doubt true, as Miss Palliser had passed some years of her childhood in Florence, but the latter statement was made probably with reference to her capability rather than her performance. Lady Chilton intended to imply that Miss Palliser was so much better educated than young ladies in general, that she was able to express herself intelligibly in her own language. She had been well educated and would no doubt have done the time's credit had the time's chosen to employ her. She was the youngest daughter of the youngest brother of the existing Duke of Omnium, and the first cousin, therefore, of Mr. Plantagenet Palliser, who was the eldest son of the second brother, and as her mother had been a bavillard there could be no better blood. But Adelaide had been brought up so far away from the lofty palaces and lofty bavillards as almost to have lost the flavour of her birth. Her father and mother had died when she was an infant, and she had gone to the custody of her much older half-sister, Mrs. Atterbury, whose mother had not been a bavillard, but a brown. And Mr. Atterbury was a mere nobody, a rich, erudite, highly accomplished gentleman, whose father had made his money at the bar, and whose grandfather had been a country clergyman. Mrs. Atterbury, with her husband, was still living at Florence. But Adelaide Palliser had quarrelled with Florence's life, and had gladly consented to make a long visit to her friend Lady Chilton. In Florence she had met Gerard Maul, and the acquaintance had not been viewed with favour by the Atterbury's. Mrs. Atterbury knew the history of the Maul family, and declared to her sister that no good could come from any intimacy. Old Mr. Maul she said was disreputable. Mrs. Maul, the mother, who according to Mr. Atterbury had been the only worthy member of the family, was long since dead. Gerard Maul's sister had gone away with an Irish cousin, and they were now living in India on the professional income of a captain in a foot regiment. Gerard Maul's younger brother had gone utterly to the dogs, and nobody knew anything about him. Maul Abbey, the family seat in Herefordshire, was, so said Mrs. Atterbury, absolutely in ruins. The furniture, as all the world knew, had been sold by the squire's creditors under the sheriff's order ten years ago, and not a chair or a table had been put into the house since that time. The property, which was small, two thousand pounds a year at the outside, was no doubt entailed on the eldest son, and Gerard fortunately had a small fortune of his own, independent of his father. But then he was also a spend-thrift, so said Mrs. Atterbury, keeping a stable full of horses for which he could not afford to pay, and he was moreover the most insufferably idle man who ever wondered about the world without any visible occupation for his hours. "'But he hunts,' said Adelaide. "'Do you call that an occupation?' asked Mrs. Atterbury with scorn. Now, Mrs. Atterbury painted pictures, copied Madonna's, composed Sonatas, corresponded with learned men in Rome, Berlin, and Boston, had been the intimate friend of Cavour, had paid a visit to Garibaldi on his island with the view of explaining to him the real condition of Italy, and was supposed to understand Bismarck. Was it possible that a woman who so filled her own life should accept hunting as a creditable employment for a young man when it was admitted to be his sole employment? And moreover she desired that her sister Adelaide should marry a certain Count Broody, who, according to her belief, had more advanced ideas about things in general than any other living human being. Adelaide Palliser had determined that she would not marry Count Broody, had indeed almost determined that she would marry Gerard Mall, and had left her brother-in-law's house in Florence after something like a quarrel. Mrs. Atterbury had declined to authorise the visit to Harrington Hall, and then Adelaide had pleaded her age and independence. She was her own mistress if she so chose to call herself, and would not, at any rate, remain in Florence at the present moment to receive the attentions of Zinniall Broody. Of the previous winter she had passed three months with some relatives in England, and there she had learnt to ride to Hounds, had first met Gerard Mall, and had made acquaintance with Lady Chilton. Gerard Mall had wandered to Italy after her, appearing at Florence in his desultery way, having no definite purpose, not even that of asking Adelaide to be his wife, but still pursuing her, as though he wanted her without knowing what he wanted. In the course of the spring, however, he had proposed, and had been almost accepted. But Adelaide, though she would not yield to her sister, had been frightened. She knew that she loved the man, and she swore to herself a thousand times that she would not be dictated to by her sister. But was she prepared to accept the fate which would at once be hers, were she now to marry Gerard Mall? What could she do with a man who had no ideas of his own as to what he ought to do with himself? Lady Chilton was in favour of the marriage. The fortune, she said, was as much as Adelaide was entitled to expect. The man was a gentleman, was tainted by no vices, and was truly in love. You would better let them fight it out somewhere else, Lord Chilton had said, when his wife proposed that the invitation to Gerard Mall should be renewed. But Lady Chilton had known that, if fought out at all, it must be fought out at Harrington Hall. We have asked him to come back, she said to Adelaide, in order that you may make up your mind. If he chooses to come it will show that he is in earnest, and then you must take him, or make him understand that he is not to be taken. Gerard Mall had chosen to come, but Adelaide Palliser had not as yet quite made up her mind. Perhaps there is nothing so generally remarkable in the conduct of young ladies in the phase of life of which we are now speaking, as the facility it may almost be said audacity, with which they do make up their minds. A young man seeks a young woman's hand in marriage because she has waltzed stoutly with him, and talked pleasantly between the dances, and the young woman gives it almost with gratitude. As to the young man, the readiness of his action is less marvellous than hers. He means to be master, and by the very nature of the joint life they propose to lead must take her to his sphere of life, not bind himself to hers. If he worked before he will work still. If he was idle before he will be idle still, and he probably does in some sort make a calculation and strike a balance between his means and the proposed additional burden of a wife and children. But she, knowing nothing, takes a monstrous leap in the dark, in which everything is to be changed, and in which everything is trusted to chance. Miss Palliser, however, differing in this from the majority of her friends and acquaintances, frightened perhaps by those representations of her sister, to which she would not altogether yield, had paused, and was still pausing. Where should we go and live if I did marry him? she said to Lady Chilson. I suppose he has an opinion of his own on that subject? Not in the least, I should think. As he never said anything about it. Oh, dear no! Matters have not got so far as that at all, nor would they ever, out of his own head. If we were married and taken away to the train, he would only ask what place he should take the tickets for when he got to the station. Couldn't you manage to live at Maul Abbey? Perhaps we might. Only there is no furniture, and, as I am told, only half a roof. It does seem to be absurd that you two should not make up your mind, just as other people do, said Lady Chilson. Of course he is not a rich man, but you have known that all along. It is not a question of wealth or poverty, but of an utterly lackadaisical indifference to everything in the world. He is not indifferent to you. That is the marvellous part of it, said Miss Palliser. This was said on the evening of the famous day at Broughton Spinney's, and late on that night Lord Chilson predicted to his wife that another episode was about to occur in the life of their friend. What do you think Spooner has just asked me? Permission to fight the Duke or Mr. Palliser? No, there's nothing about the hunting. He wants to know if you'd mind his staying here three or four days longer. What a very odd request. It is odd, because he was to have gone to-morrow. I suppose there's no objection. Of course not if you like to have him. I don't like it a bit, said Lord Chilson, but I couldn't turn him out, and I know what it means. What does it mean? You haven't observed anything? I have observed nothing in Mr. Spooner except an awestruck horror at the trapping of a fox. He's going to propose to Adelaide Palliser. Oswald, you're not in earnest. I believe he is. He would have told me if he thought I could give him the slightest encouragement. You can't very well turn him out now. He'll get an answer that he won't like if he does, said Lady Chilson. Miss Palliser had ridden well on that day, and so had Gerard Maul. That Mr. Spooner should ride well to Hounds was quite a matter of course. It was the business of his life to do so, and he did it with great judgment. He hated Maul's style of riding, considering it to be flashy, injurious to hunting, and unsportsmanlike. And now he had come to hate the man. He had, of course, perceived how close were the attentions paid by Mr. Maul to Miss Palliser, and he thought that he perceived that Miss Palliser did not accept them with thorough satisfaction. On his way back to Harrington Hall he made some inquiries, and was taught to believe that Mr. Maul was not a man of very high standing in the world. Mr. Spooner himself had a very pretty property of his own, which was all his own. There was no doubt about his furniture, or about the roof at Spoon Hall. He was Spooner of Spoon Hall, and had been high sheriff for his county. He was not so young as he once had been, but he was still a young man, only just turned forty, and was his own master in everything. He could read, and he always looked at the country newspaper, but a book was a thing that he couldn't bear to handle. He didn't think he had ever seen a girl sit a horse better than Adelaide Palliser's had hers, and a girl who rode as she did would probably like a man addicted to hunting. Mr. Spooner knew that he understood hunting, whereas that fellow Maul cared for nothing but jumping over flights of rails. He asked a few questions that evening of Phineus Finn, respecting Gerard Maul, but did not get much information. I don't know where he lives, said Phineus. I never saw him till I met him here. Don't you think he seems sweet upon that girl? I shouldn't wonder if he is. She's an uncommonly clean-built young woman, isn't she? said Mr. Spooner. But it seems to me she don't care much for Master Maul. Did you see how he was riding to-day? I didn't see anything, Mr. Spooner. No, no, you didn't get away. I wish he'd been with you. But she went uncommon well. After that he made his request to Lord Chilton, and Lord Chilton, with a foresight quite unusual to him, predicted the coming event to his wife. There was shooting on the following day, and Gerard Maul and Mr. Spooner were both out. Lunch was sent down to the covert side, and the ladies walked down and joined the sportsmen. On this occasion Mr. Spooner's aciduity was remarkable, and seemed to be accepted with kindly grace. Adelaide even asked a question about trumpet and wood, and expressed an opinion that her cousin was quite wrong, because he did not take the matter up. You know, it's the keepers do it all, said Mr. Spooner, shaking his head with an appearance of great wisdom. You never can have foxes unless you keep your keepers well in hand. If they drew the Spoon Hall cover its blank, I'd dismiss my man the next day. It mightn't be his fault. He knows my mind, and he'll take care that there are foxes. They've been at my stick-cover three times this year, and put a brace out each time. A leash went from it last Monday week. When a man really means a thing, Miss Palliser, he can pretty nearly always do it. Miss Palliser replied with a smile that she thought that to be true, and Mr. Spooner was not slow at perceiving that this afforded good encouragement to him in regard to that matter which was now weighing most heavily upon his mind. On the next day there was hunting again, and Phineas was mounted on a horse more amenable to persuasion than old Dandelion. There was a fair run in the morning, and both Phineas and Madame Max were carried well. The remarkable event in the day, however, was the riding of Dandelion in the afternoon, by Lord Chilton himself. He had determined that the horse should go out, and had sworn that he would ride him over a fence if he remained there making the attempt all night. For two weary hours he did remain, with a groom behind him, spurring the brute against a thick hedge with a ditch at the other side of it, and at the end of the two hours he succeeded. The horse at last made a buck leap, and went over with a loud grunt. On his way home, Lord Chilton sold the horse to a farmer for fifteen pounds, and that was the end of Dandelion as far as the Harrington Hall stables were concerned. This took place on the Friday, the eighth of February. It was understood that Mr. Spooner was to return to Spoon Hall on Saturday, and on Monday the eleventh Phineas was to go to London. On the twelfth the session would begin, and he would once more take his seat in Parliament. I give you my word and honour, Lady Chilton. Gerard Mall said to his hostess, I believe that oath of a man is making up to Adelaide. Mr. Mall had not been reticent about his love towards Lady Chilton, and came to her habitually in all his troubles. Chilton has told me the same thing. No. Why shouldn't he see it as well as you? But I wouldn't believe it. Upon my word I believe it's true. But Lady Chilton, well, Mr. Mall, you know her so well. Adelaide, you mean? You understand her thoroughly. There can't be anything in it, is there? How anything? She can't really like him. Mr. Mall, if I were to tell her that you had asked such a question as that, I don't believe that she'd ever speak a word to you again, and it would serve you right. Didn't you call him an oath? I did. And how long has she known him? I don't believe she ever spoke to him before, yesterday. And yet you think that she will be ready to accept this oath as her husband tomorrow. Do you call that respect? Girls do such wonderful strange things.  I don't see that at all.  Of course he has a right to speak his mind, and she will have a right to speak hers. CHAPTER XIX The breakhounds went out four days a week, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday, but the hunting-party on this Saturday was very small. None of the ladies joined it, and when Lord Chilton came down to breakfast at half-past eight, he met no one but Gerard Mall. Where's Spooner? he asked. But neither Mall nor the servant could answer the question. Mr. Spooner was a man who never missed a day from the beginning of a cubbing to the end of the season, and who, when April came, could give you an account of the death of every fox killed. Chilton cracked his eggs and said nothing more for the moment, but Gerard Mall had his suspicions. He must be coming, said Mall. Suppose you send up to him? The servant was sent, and came down with Mr. Spooner's compliments. Mr. Spooner didn't mean to hunt today. He had something of a headache. He would see Lord Chilton at the meet on Monday. Mall immediately declared that neither would he hunt, but Lord Chilton looked at him, and he hesitated. I don't care about your knowing, said Gerard.  I don't see why I should give him an opportunity. You ought to go and pull your boots and britches off because he has not put his on, and everybody is to be told of it. Why shouldn't he have an opportunity, as you call it? If the opportunity can do him any good, you may afford to be very indifferent. It's a piece of damned impertinent, said Mall, with most unusual energy. At ten o'clock the ladies came down to breakfast, and the whole party was assembled. Mr. Spooner, said Lady Chilton and to that gentleman who was the last to enter the room, this is a marvel. He was dressed in a dark blue frock coat with a coloured silk hankerchief round his neck, and had brushed his hair down close to his head. He looked quite unlike himself, and would hardly have been known by those who had never seen him out of the hunting field. In his dreth's clothes of an evening or in his shooting-coat he was till himself, but in the garb he wore on the present occasion he was quite unlike Spooner of Spoon Hall, whose only pride in regards to clothes had hitherto been that he possessed more pairs of britches than any other man in the county. It was ascertained afterwards, when the circumstances came to be investigated, that he had sent a man all the way across to Spoon Hall for that coat and the coloured neck hankerchief on the previous day. And someone, most maliciously, told of the story abroad. Lady Chilton, however, always declared that her secrecy on the matter had always been inviolable. Yes, Lady Chilton, yes, said Mr. Spooner, as he took a seat at the table. One does never cease to they. He prepared himself even for this moment, and had determined to show Miss Palliser that he could be sprightly and engaging even without his hunting habidiments. What will Lord Chilton do without you? One of the ladies asked. He'll have to do his best.   I was so fond of my pillow this morning that I thought I'd let the hunting slide for once. A man should not make a toil, if his pleasure. Lady Chilton knew all about it, but Adelaide Palliser knew nothing. Madame Gersler, when she observed the light blue necktie, at once suspected the execution of some great intention. Phineas was absorbed in his observation of the difference in the man. In his pink coat he always looked as though he'd been born to wear it. But his appearance was now that of an actor got up in a miscellaneous middle-aged costume. He was sprightly, but the effort was painfully visible. Baldock said something afterwards, very ill-natured, about a hog in armour. An old Mrs. Burnaby spoke the truth when she declared that all the comfort and toast was sacrificed to Mr. Spooner's frock coat. But what was to be done with him when breakfast was over? For a while he fixed upon poor Phineas with whom he walked across to the stables. He seemed to feel that he could hardly hope to pounce upon his prey at once, and that he must bide his time. Out of the full heart the mouth speaks. A nice girl, Miss Palliser, he said to Phineas, forgetting that he'd expressed himself nearly in the same way to the same man on a former occasion. A very nice indeed, it seems to me, that you are sweet upon her yourself. Oh, I don't think of those sort of things. I suppose I shall marry some day. I have a house fit for a lady tomorrow, from top to bottom, linen and all. And my property is my own. That's a comfort. I believe you. There isn't a mortgage on an acre of it, and that's what very few men can say. As for Miss Palliser, I don't know that a man could do better. Only I don't think much of those things. If ever I do pop the question, I should do it on the spur of the moment. There be no preparation with me, nor yet any beating about the bush. Would it suit your views, my dear, to be Mrs. Spooner? That's about the long and the short of it. A clean-mayed little mare, isn't she? This last observation did not refer to Adelaide Palliser, but to an animal standing in Lord Children's stables. He bought her from Charlie Deckers for a twenty-pound note last April. The mare hadn't a leg to stand upon. Charlie had been stagging with her for the last two months and knocked her all to pieces. And she's a screw, of course, but there isn't anything carries children so well. There's nothing like a good screw. A man will often go with two hundred and fifty guineas between his legs. Supposed to be all there because the animals sound, yet he don't know his work. If you like screwing a young one, that's all very well. I used to be fond of it myself, but I've come to feel that being carried to Highlands without much thinking about it is the cream of hunting, after all. I wonder what the ladies are at. Shall we go back and see? Then they turned to the house, and Mr. Spooner began to be a little fidgety. Do they sit all together mostly all the morning? I fancy they do. I suppose there's some way of dividing them.  If you want to get one to yourself, how do you manage it? In perpetuity, do you mean, Mr. Spooner? Anyway, in the morning, you know. Just to say a few words to her. Exactly that. Just to say a few words. I don't mind asking you, because you've done this kind of thing before. I should watch my opportunity, said Phineas, remembering a period of his life in which he had watched much, and had found it very difficult to get an opportunity. But I must go after lunch, said Mr. Spooner. I'm expected home to dinner, and I don't know much whether they'll be like me to stop over a Sunday.  You won't tend anybody. Oh, dear, no. I think I shall propose to that girl. I've about made up my mind to do it, and your fellow can't call her out before half a dozen of them. Couldn't you get Lady C. to trot her out into the garden? You and she are as thick as thieves. I should think Miss Panniser was rather difficult to be managed. Phineas declined to interfere, taking upon himself to assure Mr. Spooner that attempts to arrange matters in that way never succeeded. He went in, and settled himself to the work of answering correspondents at Tankerville, while Mr. Spooner hung about the drawing-room, hoping that circumstances and time might favour him. It is to be feared that he made himself extremely disagreeable to poor Lady Chilton, to whom he was intending to open his heart could he only find an opportunity for so much as that. But Lady Chilton was determined not to have his confidence, and at last withdrew from the scene in order that she might not be entrapped. Before lunch had come all the party knew what was to happen, except Adelaide herself. She too perceived that something was in the wind, that there was some stir, some discomfort, some secret affair forward, or some event expected which made them all uneasy. And she did connect it with the presence of Mr. Spooner. But, in pitiable ignorance of the facts that were clear enough to everybody else, she went on watching and wondering, with a half-formed idea that the house would be more pleasant as soon as Mr. Spooner should have taken his departure. He was to go after lunch. But on such occasions there is, of course, a latitude, and after lunch may be stretched at any rate to the five o'clock tea. At three o'clock Mr. Spooner was still hanging about. Madame Gersler and Phineas, with an openly declared intention of friendly intercourse, had gone out to walk together. Lord and Lady Baldock were on horseback. Two or three old ladies hung over the fire and gossiped. Lady Chilton had retired to her baby, when on a sudden Adelaide Palliser declared her intention of walking into the village. Uh, might I accompany you, Miss Palliser? said Mr. Spooner. I want to walk above all things. He was very brave and persevered that it was manifest that the lady did not desire his company. Adelaide said something about an old woman who she intended to visit. Whereupon Mr. Spooner declared that visiting old women was the delight of his life. He would undertake to give half a sovereign to the old woman if Miss Palliser would allow him to come. He was very brave and persevered in such a passion that he carried his point. Lady Chilton from her nursery window saw them start through the shrubbery together. I have been waiting for this opportunity all the morning, said Mr. Spooner gallantly. But in spite of his gallantry, and although she had known almost from breakfast time that he had been waiting for something, still she did not suspect his purpose. It has been said that Mr. Spooner was still young, being barely over 40 years of age, but he had unfortunately appeared to be old to Miss Palliser. To himself it seemed as though the fountains of youth were still running through all his veins. Though he had given up schooling young horses, he could ride as hard as ever. He could shoot all day. He could take his whack of wine, as he called it, sit up smoking half the night, and be on horseback the next morning after an early breakfast without the slightest feeling of fatigue. He was a red-faced little man, with broad shoulders, clean shaven, with small eyes, and a nose on which incipient pimples began to show themselves. To himself and the comrades of his life he was almost as young as he had ever been. But the young ladies of the county called him Old Spooner, and regarded him as a permanent assistant unpaid huntsman to the brake-hands. It was not within the compass of Miss Palliser's imagination to conceive that this man should intend to propose himself to her as her lover. I've been waiting for this opportunity all the morning, said Mr. Spooner. Adelaide Palliser turned round and looked at him, still understanding nothing. Ride at any fence hard enough, and the chances are you'll get over. The harder you ride, the heavier you fall, if you get a fall, but the greater the chance of your getting over. This had been a precept in the life of Mr. Spooner, verified by much experience, and he'd resolved that he would be guided by it on this occasion. Ever since I first saw you, Miss Palliser, I've been so much taken by you that, at that point in fact, I love you better than all the women in the world I ever saw, and would you be Mrs. Spooner? He had at any rate ridden hard at his fence. There had been no craning, no looking about for an easy place, no hesitation as he brought his horse up to it. No man ever rode straighter than he did on this occasion. Adelaide stopped short on this path, and he stood opposite to her, with his fingers inserted between the closed buttons of his frockcoat. Mr. Spooner, exclaimed Adelaide. I am quite in earnest, Miss Palliser. No man ever was born in earnest. I can offer you a comfortable, well-furnished home, an undefined heart, a good settlement, an embarrassment on the property. I'm fond of a country life myself, but I'll adapt myself to you in everything reasonable.  How mistaken? I mean that it is altogether out of the question. You've surprised me so much that I couldn't stop you sooner, but pray do not speak of it again. It is a little sudden, but what is a man to do, if you will only think of it? I can't think of it at all. There is no need for thinking. Really, Mr. Spooner, I can't go on with you. If you wouldn't mind turning back, I'll walk into the village by myself. Mr. Spooner, however, did not seem inclined to obey this injunction, and stood his ground, and when she moved on, walked on beside her. I must insist on being left alone, she said. I haven't done anything out of the way, said the lover. I think it's very much out of the way I've hardly ever spoken to you before, if you will only leave me now, there shall not be a word more said about it. But Mr. Spooner was a man of spirit. I'm not in the least ashamed of what I've done, he said. But you might as well go away when it can't be of any use. I don't know why it shouldn't be of any use. Ms. Patterson, I'm a man of good property. My great-great-grandfather lived at Spoon Hall, and we've been there ever since. My mother was one of the platters of Platterhouse. I don't see that I've done anything out of the way. As for chili, shally, and hanging about, I never knew any good came from it. Don't let us quarrel, Ms. Patterson. Say that you'll take a week to think of it. But I won't think of it at all, and I won't go on walking with you. If you'll go one way, Mr. Spooner, I'll go the other. Then Mr. Spooner waxed angry. Why am I to be treated with disdain, he said? I don't want to treat you with disdain. I only want you to go away. You seem to think that I'm something altogether beneath you. And so in truth she did. Ms. Patterson had never analyzed her own feelings and emotions about the Spooners whom she met in society, but she probably conceived that there were people in the world who, from certain accidents, were accustomed to sit at dinner with her, but who were no more fitted for her intimacy than were the servants who waited upon her. Such people were to her little more than the tables and chairs with which she was brought in contact. They were persons with whom it seemed to her to be impossible that she should have anything in common, who were her inferiors as completely as were the menials around her. Why she should thus despise Mr. Spooner, while in her heart of hearts she'd loved Gerard Mall, it would be difficult to explain. It was not simply an affair of age, nor of good looks, nor altogether of education. Gerard Mall was by no means wonderfully erudite. They were both addicted to hunting, neither of them did anything useful. In that respect Mr. Spooner stood the higher, as he managed his own property successfully. But Gerard Mall so wore his clothes and so carried his limbs and so pronounced his words that he was to be regarded as one entitled to make love to any lady. Whereas poor Mr. Spooner was not justified in proposing to marry any woman much more gifted than his own housemaid. Such, at least, were Adelaide Palace's ideas. I don't think anything of the kind, she said, only I want you to go away. I shall go back to the house, and I hope you won't accompany me. If you do, I shall turn the other way. Whereupon she did retire at once, and he was left standing in the path. There was a seat there, and he sat down for a moment to think of it all. Should he persevere in his suit, or should he rejoice that he had escaped from such an ill-conditioned minx? He remembered that he had read in his younger days that lovers in novels generally do persevere, and that they are almost always successful at last. In affairs of the heart such perseverance was, he thought, the correct thing. But in this instance, the conduct of the lady had not given him the slightest encouragement. When a horse bolted with him at an offence, it was his habit to force the animal till it jumped it, as the groom had recommended in Phineas to do. But when he had encountered a decided fall, it was not sensible practice to ride the horse at the same place again. There was probably some occult cause for failure. He could not but own that he had been thrown on the present occasion, and upon the whole he thought that he better give it up. He found his way back to the house, put up his things, and got away to Spoon Hall in time for dinner, without seeing Lady Chilton or any of her guests. What has become of Mr. Spooner? Maul asked as soon as he returned to Harrington Hall. Nobody knows, said Lady Chilton, but I believe he has gone. Has anything happened? I have heard no tidings, but if you ask for my opinion, I think something has happened. A certain lady seemed to have been ruffled, and a certain gentleman has disappeared. I am inclined to think that a few unsuccessful words have been spoken. Gerard Maul saw that there was a smile in her eye, and he was satisfied. My dear, what did Mr. Spooner say to you during his walk? This question was asked by the ill-natured old lady in the presence of nearly all the party. We were talking of hunting, said Adelaide. And did the poor old woman get her half-sovereign? No, he forgot that. We did not go into the village at all. I was tired and came back. Poor old woman, and poor Mr. Spooner! Everybody in the house knew what had occurred, as Mr. Spooner's discretion in the conduct of this affair had not been equal to his valour. But Miss Palliser never confessed openly, and almost taught herself to believe that the man had been mad or dreaming during that special hour. I thought that perhaps he would have written to me from Harrington. Violet has told me of the meeting between you and Madam Gersler, and says that the old friendship seems to have been perfectly re-established. She used to think once that there might be more than friendship, but I never quite believed that. She tells me that Chilton is quarreling with the Pallisers. You ought not to let him quarrel with people. I know that he would listen to you. He always did. I write now especially because I have just received so dreadful a letter from Mr. Kennedy. I would send it to you, were it not that there are any of the few words which on his behalf I shrink from showing even to you. It is full of threats. He begins by quoting from the scriptures and from the prayer-book to show that a wife has no right to leave her husband, and then he goes on to the law. One knows all that, of course, and then he asks whether he ever ill-used me. Was he ever false to me? Do I think that were I to choose to submit the matter to the iniquitous practices of the present divorce court? I could prove anything against him, by which even that low earthly judge would be justified in taking from him his marital authority. And if not, have I no conscience? Can I reconcile it to myself to make his life utterly desolate and wretched simply because duties which I took upon myself with my marriage have become distasteful to me? These questions would be very hard to answer. Were they not other questions that I could ask? Of course I was wrong to marry him. I know that now, and I repent my sin in sackcloth and ashes. But I did not leave him after I married him till he brought against me horrid accusations, accusations which a woman could not bear, which he believed them himself, must have made it impossible for him to live with me.  And in this very letter he says that which almost repeats the accusation. He has asked me how I kind of dared to receive you, and has asked me never either to see you or to wish to see you again. And yet he sent for you to Loch Linter before you came, in order that you might act as a friend between us. How could I possibly return to a man whose prior judgment has so absolutely left him? I have a conscience in the matter, a conscience that is very far from being at ease. I have done wrong, and have shipwrecked every hope in this world. No woman was ever more severely punished. My life is a burden to me, and I may truly say that I look for no peace this side of the grave. I am conscious to have continued sin, a sin unlike other sins, not to be avoided of daily occurrence, a sin which weighs me to the ground. But I should not sin the less were I to return to him. Of course he complete his marriage. The thing is done. But it can't be right that a woman should pretend to love a man whom she loathes. I couldn't live with him. If it were simply to go and die so that his pride would be gratified by my return, I would do it. But I should not die. There would come some horrid scene, and I should be no more a wife to him than I am while living here. He now threatens me with publicity. He declares that unless I return to him he will put it into some of the papers a statement of the whole case. Of course this would be very bad. To be obscure and untalked of is all the comfort that now remains to me. And he might say things that would be prejudicial to others, especially to you. Could this in any way be prevented? I suppose the papers will publish anything. And you know how greedily people will read slander about those whose names are in any way remarkable. In my heart I believe he is insane. But it is very hard that one's privacy should be at the mercy of a madman. He says that he can get an order from the Court of Queen's Bench which will oblige the judges in Saxony to send me back to England in the custody of the police. But that I do not believe. I had the opinion of Segrigar E. Grogram before I came away, and he told me that it was not so. I do not fear his power over my person while I remain here, but that the matter should be dragged forward before the public. I have not answered him yet, nor have I shown his letter to papa. I hardly liked to tell you when you were here, but I almost fear to talk to papa about it. He never urges me to go back, but I know that he wishes that I should do so. He has ideas about money which seem singular to me, knowing as I do how very generous he has been himself. When I married, my fortune, as you knew, had been just used in paying children's debts. Mr. Kennedy had had led himself to be quite indifferent about it, though the sum was large. The whole thing was explained to him, and he was satisfied. Before a year was over, he complained to papa, and then papa and children together raised the money, forty thousand pounds, and it was paid to Mr. Kennedy. He has written more than once to papa's lawyer to say that, though the money is altogether useless to him, he will not return a penny of it, because by doing so he would seem to abandon his rights. Nobody has asked him to return it. Nobody has asked him to defray a penny on my account since I left him. But papa continues to say that the money should not be lost to the family. I cannot however return to such a husband for the sake of forty thousand pounds. Papa is very angry about the money, because he says that if it had been paid in the usual way at my marriage, settlements would have been required that it should come back to the family after Mr. Kennedy's death, in the event of my having no child. But, as it is now, the money would go into his estate after my death. I don't understand why it should be so, but papa is always harping on about it, and declaring that Mr. Kennedy's pretended generosity has robbed us all. Papa thinks that, were I to return, this could be a range. But I could not go back to him for such a reason. What does it matter? Children and violets will have enough. And of what use would it be to such a one as I am to have a sum of money to leave behind me? I should leave it to your children, Phineas, and not to children's. He bids me neither see you nor write to you, but how can I obey a man whom I believe to be mad? And when I will not obey him in that greater matter by returning to him, have we been absurd were I to attempt to obey him in smaller details? I didn't suppose I shall see you very often. His letter has, at any rate, made me feel that it would be impossible for me to return to England, and it is not likely that you will soon come here again. I will not even ask you to do so, though your presence gave a brightness to my life for a few days, which nothing else could have produced. But when the lamp for a while burns with special brightness, that always comes afterwards a corresponding dullness. I had to pay for your visit, and for the comfort of my confession to you at Konigsstein. I was determined that you should know it all, but having told you, I did not want to see you again. As for writing, he shall not deprive me of the consolation, nor I trust, will you. Do you think that I should answer his letter, or would it be better that I should show it to Pippa? I am very averse to doing this, as I have explained to you, but I would do so if I thought that Mr. Kennedy really intended to act upon his threats.  Can anything be done to prevent it? If he were known to be mad, of course the papers would not publish his statements. But I suppose that if he were to send a letter from Loch Linter with his name to it, they would print it. It would be very, very cruel. God bless you. I need not say how faithfully I am your friend, L.K. This letter was addressed to Phineas at his club, and there he received it on the evening before the meeting of Parliament. He sat up for a while, and he said, He sat up for nearly an hour, thinking of it after he read it. He must answer it at once. That was a matter, of course, but he could not give her any advice that would be of any service to her. He was indeed of all men the least fitted to give her counsel in her present emergency. It seemed to him that as she was safe from any attack on her person, she need only remain at Dresden, answering his letter by what softest negatives she could use. It was clear to him that in his present condition she could take no steps whatever in regards to the money. That must be left to his conscience, to time, and to chance. As to the threat of publicity, the probability thought was that it would lead to nothing. He doubted whether any respectable newspaper would insert such a statement as that suggested. Where it published, the evil must be born. No diligence on her part, or on the part of her lawyers, could prevent it. But what had she meant when she wrote of continual sin, sin not to be avoided, of sin repeated daily, which nevertheless weighed her to the ground? Was it expected of him that he should answer that portion of her letter? It amounted to a passionate renewal of that declaration of affection for himself, which he had made at Koenigstein, and which had pervaded her whole life since some periodance is evened to her wretched marriage. Phineas, as he thought of it, has tried to analyse the nature of such a love. He also, in those old days, had loved her, and had at once resolved that he must tell her so, though his hopes of success had been poor indeed. He had taken the first opportunity, and had declared his purpose. She, with the imperturbable serenity of a matured, kind-hearted woman, had patted him on the back as it were, as she told him of her existing engagement with Mr. Kennedy. Could it be, at that moment, she could have loved him as she now said she did, and that she should have been so cold, so calm, and so kind? While at that very moment this coldness, calmness, and kindness was but a thin crust over so strong a passion. How different had been his own love! He had been neither calm nor kind. He had felt himself for a day or two to be terribly knocked about, that the world was nothing to him. For a month or two he had regarded himself as a man peculiarly circumstanced, marked for misfortune, and for a solitary life. Then he had retricked his beams, and before twelve months had passed had almost forgotten his love. He knew now, or thought that he knew, that the continued indulgence of a hopeless passion was a folly opposed to the very instincts of man and woman. A weakness showing want of fibre and of muscle in the character. But here was a woman who could calmly conceal her passion in its early days, a married man whom she did not love in spite of it, who could make her heart, her feelings, and all her feminine delicacy subordinate to material considerations, and nevertheless could not rid herself of her passion in the course of years, although she felt its existence be an intolerable burden on her conscience. On which side lay strength of character, and on which side weakness? Was he strong, or was she? And he tried to examine his own feelings in regards to her. The thing was so long ago that she was to him as some aunt or sister, so much the elders, to be almost venerable. He acknowledged to himself a feeling which made it incumbent upon him to spend himself on her service. Could he serve her by any work of his? He was, or would be, devoted to her. He owed her a never-dying gratitude. But were she free to marry again tomorrow? He knew that he could not marry her. She half herself had said the same thing. She had said that she would be his sister. She had specially required of him that he should make known to her his wife should he ever marry again. She had declared that she was incapable of further jealousy, and yet she now told him of daily sin of which her conscience could not aside itself. Phineas, said a voice close to his ears, are you repenting all sins? Oh, certainly, what sins? It was barring to me. You know that we're going to do nothing tomorrow, continued he. So I am told. We shall let the address pass almost without a word. Gresham will simply express his determination to oppose the church-built of the knife. He means to be very plain spoken about it. Whatever may be the merits of the build, it must be regarded as an unconstitutional effort to retain power in the hands of the minority, coming from such hands as those of Mr. Dormony. I take it. He would go at length into the quest of majorities and show how inexpedient it is on behalf of the nation that any ministry should remain in power who cannot command a majority in the house on ordinary questions. I don't know whether he will do that tomorrow or the second reading of the bill. I quite agree with him. Of course you do. Everybody agrees with him. No gentleman can have a doubt on the subject. Personally, I hate the idea of church reform. Dear old mild-mayer who taught me all I know hates it too, but Mr. Gresham is the head of our party now, and much as I may differ from him on many things, I am bound to follow him. If he proposes church reform in my time or anything else, I shall support him. I know those are your ideas. Of course they are. There are no other ideas on which things can be made to work. Were it not that men get drilled into it by the force of circumstances, any government in this country would be impossible. Were it not so, what shall we come to? The Queen would find herself justified in keeping in any set of ministers who could get her favour, and ambitious men would prevail without any support from the country. The Queen must submit to dictation from some quarter. She must submit to advice, certainly. Oh, don't cavil at a word which you know to be true, said Barrington energetically. The Constitution of the country requires that she should submit to dictation. Can it come safely from any other quarter than that of a majority of the House of Commons? I think not. We all agreed upon that. Not a single man in either House would dare to deny it. And if it be so, what man in his senses can think of running counter to the party which he believes to be right in its general views? A man so burdened with the scruples as to be unable to act in this way should keep himself aloof from public life. Such a one cannot serve the country and parliament. He may possibly do so with pen and ink in his closet. I wonder then that you should have asked me to come forward again after what I did about the Irish land question, said Phineas. Our first fault may be forgiven when the sinner has in other respects been useful. The longer the short of it is, that you must vote with us against Bourdieu's bill. Braubra sees it plainly a knife. He supported his chief and the teeth of all his protestations at Tankerville. I'm not Braubra, nor half so good a man if you desert us, so Barrington Earl, with anger. I say nothing about that. He has his ideas of duty, and I have mine. I will go so far as this. I have not yet made up my mind. I shall ask advice. But you must not quarrel with me if I say that I must seek it from someone who is less distinctly a partisan than you are. From Monk? Yes, from Mr. Monk. I do think it will be bad for the country that this measure should come from the hands of Mr. Dorbony. And why the devil should you support it and oppose your own party at the same time? After that you can't do it. Well, Ratler, my guided philosopher, how is it going to be? Mr. Ratler had joined them, but was still standing before the seat they occupied, not condescending to sit down in amiable intercourse with a man as to whom he did not know whether to regard him as a friend or foe. He shall be very quiet for the next month or six weeks, said Ratler. And then, as finished, well, then it depended on what may be the number of a few insane men who never ought to have been seats in the house. Such as Mr. Monk and Mr. Turnbull? Now, it was well known that both those gentlemen who were recognized as leading men were strong radicals, and it was supposed that they both would support any bill come whence it might, which would separate church and state. Such as Mr. Monk, said Ratler, I will grant the Turnbull may be an exception. It is his business to go in for everything in the way of agitation, and he at any rate is consistent. But when a man has once been in office, why then? When he has taken the shitting, said Finis, just so I confess I do not like a deserter. Ah, Finis would be all right, said Barrington Earl. I hope so, said Mr. Ratler, as he passed on. Ratler and I run very much in the same groove, said Barrington, but I fancy there is some little difference in the motive power. Ratler wants place. Ah, so do I. He wants it just as most men want professional success, said Finis. But if I understand your object, it is chiefly the maintenance of the old established political power of the Whigs. You believe in families? I do believe in the patriotism of certain families, I believe that the mild maze, fit-howards, and palaces have for some centuries brought up their children to regard the well-being of their country as their highest personal interest, and that such teaching has been generally efficacious. Of course there have been failures. Every child won't learn his lesson, however well it may be taught. But the school in which good training is most practised will, as a rule, turn out the best scholars. In this way I believe in families. You have come in for some of the teaching, and I expect to see you as scholar yet. The house met on the following day, and the address was moved and seconded. But there was no debate. There was not even a full house. The same ceremony had taken place so short a time previously that the whole affair was flat and uninteresting. It was understood that nothing would in fact be done. Mr Gresham was leader as his side of the house, confined himself to asserting that he would give his firmest opposition to the proposed measure, which was it seemed so popular with a gentleman who sat on the other side and who supported the so-called conservative government of the day. His reasons for doing so had been stated very lately, and must unfortunately be repeated very soon, and he would not therefore now trouble the house with them. He did not on this occasion explain his ideas as to majorities, and the address was carried by seven o'clock in the evening. Mr Dormony named a day a month hence for the first reading of his bill, and was asked the cause of the delay by some member on a bank bench. "'Because it cannot be read you sooner,' said Mr Dormony. When the honorable gentleman has achieved a position which will throw upon him the responsibility of bringing forward some great measure for the benefit of his country, he will probably find it expedient to devote at some little time to details. If he do not, he will be less anxious to avoid the attack than I am.' A minister can always give a reason, and if he be clever he can generally, when doing so, punish the man who asks for it. The punishing of an influential enemy is an indiscretion, but an obscure questioner may often be crushed with good effect. Mr Monk's advice to Phineas was both simple and agreeable. He intended to support Mr Gresham, and of course counseled his friend to do the same. "'But you supported Mr Dormony on the address before Christmas,' said Phineas. "'And you will therefore be bound to explain why I oppose him?' "'No, but the task will not be difficult. The Queen's speech to Parliament was in my judgment right, and therefore I concurred in the address. But I certainly cannot trust Mr Dormony with church reform. I do not know that many will make the same distinction, but I shall do so.' Phineas soon found himself sitting in the house as though he had never left it. His absence had not been long enough to make the place feel strange to him. He was on his legs before a fortnight was over, asking some question of some minister, and, of course, insinuating as he did so, that the minister in question had been guilty of some enormity of a mission or commission. It all came back upon him as though he had been born in the very manner. And as it became known to the Rattlers that he meant to vote right on the great coming question, to vote right and to speak right in spite of his doings at Tankerville, everybody was civil to him. Mr Bonteen did express an opinion to Mr Rattler that it was quite impossible that Phineas Finch would ever again accept office, as, of course, the Tankervilleans would never replace him into his seat after manifest opposites to his pledge. But Mr Rattler seemed to think very little of that. He won't remember, Lord bless you, and then he's one of those fiddlers that always gets in somewhere. He's not a man I particularly like, but you'll always see him in the house, up and down, you know. When a fellow begins early and has got it in him, it's hard to shake him off. And thus even Mr Rattler was civil to our hero. Lady Laura Kennedy's letter had, of course, been answered, not without very great difficulty.  She had told him to treat her as a brother would do, and he thought it best to comply with her instructions. But beyond that, till he declared himself at the end to be hers affectionately, he made no further protestation of affection. He made no allusion to that sin which weighed so heavily on her, but answered all her questions. He advised her to remain at Dresden. He assured that no power could be used to enforce her return. He expressed his belief that Mr Kennedy would be stained from making any public statement, but suggested that if any were made, the answering of it should be left to the family lawyer. In regard to the money, he thought it impossible that any step should be taken. He then told her all there was to tell of Lord and Lady Chilton and something also of himself. When the letter was written, he found that it was cold and almost constrained. To his own ears it did not sound like the hearty letter of a generous friend. It savoured of the caution with which it had been prepared. But what could he do? Would he not sin against her and increase her difficulties if he addressed her with warm affection? Were he to say a word that ought not to be addressed to any woman, he might do her an irreparable injury. And yet the tone of his own letter was odious to him. CHAPTER XXI. Mr. Moll Sr. The life of Mr. Morris Moll of Moll Abbey, the father of Gerard Moll, had certainly not been prosperous. He had from his boyhood enjoyed a reputation for cleverness, and at school had done great things, winning prizes, spouting speeches on speech-days, playing in elevens, and looking always handsome. He had been one of those show-boys of which two or three are generally to be found at our great schools, and all manner of good things had been prophesied on his behalf. He had been in love before he was eighteen, and very nearly succeeded in running away with the young lady. His father had died when he was an infant, so that at twenty-one he was thought to be in possession of comfortable wealth. At Oxford he was considered to have got into a good set, men of fashion who were always given to talking of books, who spent money, read poetry, and had opinions of their own respecting the tracts and Mr. Newman. He took his degree and then started himself in the world upon that career which is of all the most difficult to follow with respect and self-comfort. He proposed to himself the life of an idle man with a moderate income, a life which should be luxurious, refined, and graceful, but to which should be attached to the burden of no necessary occupation. His small estate gave him but little to do, as he would not farm any portion of his own acres. He became a magistrate in his county, but he would not interest himself for the price of a good yoke of bullocks, as did Mr. Justice Shallow, nor do he ever care how a score of views went at any fare. There is no harder life than this. Here and there we may find a man who has so trained himself that day after day he can devote his mind without compulsion to healthy pursuits, who can induce himself to work, though work be not required from him for any ostensible object, who can save himself from the curse of misusing his time, though he has it for no defined and necessary use. But such men are few, and are made of better metal than was Mr. Maul. He became an idler, a man of luxury, and then a spendthrift. He was now hardly beyond middle life, and he assumed for himself the character of a man of taste. He loved music, and pictures, and books, and pretty women. He loved also good eating and drinking, but conceived of himself that in his love for them he was an artist and not a glutton. He married early, and his wife had died soon. He had not given himself up with any special zeal to the education of his children, nor to the preservation of his property. The result of his indifference has been told in a previous chapter. His house was deserted, and his children were scattered about the world. His eldest son, having means of his own, was living an idle, desultory life, hardly with prospects of better success than had attended his father. Mr. Maul was now something about fifty-five years of age, and almost considered himself young. He lived in chambers on a flat in Westminster, and belonged to two excellent clubs. He had not been near his property for the last ten years, and as he was addicted to no country sport there were ten weeks in the air which were terrible to him. From the middle of August to the end of October for him there was no wist, no society, it may almost be said, no dinner. He tried going to the seaside, he tried going to Paris, he did endeavour to enjoy Switzerland and the Italian lakes. But all had failed, and he had acknowledged to himself that this sad period of the year must always be endured without relaxation and without comfort. Of his children he now took but little notice. His daughter was married and in India. His younger son had disappeared, and the father was perhaps thankful that he was thus saved from trouble. With his elder son he did maintain some amicable intercourse, but it was very slight in its nature. They never corresponded unless the one had something special to say to the other. They had no recognised ground. For meeting they did not belong to the same clubs, they did not live in the same circles, they did not follow the same pursuits. They were interested in the same property, but, as on that subject there had been something approaching to a quarrel, and as neither looked for assistance from the other, they were now silent on the matter. The father believed himself to be a poor man than his son, and was very sore on the subject. But he had nothing beyond a life interest in his property, and there remained to him a certain amount of prudence which induced him to abstain from eating more of his pudding, lest absolute starvation and the poor house should befall him. There still remained to him the power of spending some five or six hundred a year, and upon this practice had taught him to live with a very considerable amount of self-indulgent. He dined out a great deal, and was known everywhere as Mr. Maul of Maul Abbey. He was a slight bright-eyed, grey-haired, good-looking man who had once been very handsome. He had married, let us say, for love, probably very much by chance. He had ill-used his wife, and had continued a long, continued liaison with a complacent friend.  He had come to see the necessity of employing his good looks, his conversational powers, and his excellent manners on a second marriage which might be lucrative. But the complacent lady had stood in his way. Perhaps there had been a little cardiness on his part, but at any rate he had, hitherto, failed. The season for such a motive of relief was not, however, as yet clean gone with him, and he was still on the lookout. There are women always in the market ready to buy for themselves the right to hang on the arm of a real gentleman. That Mr. Maul was a real gentleman, no judge in such matters had ever doubted. On a certain morning just at the end of February, Mr. Maul was sitting in his library, so-called, eating his breakfast at about twelve o'clock, and at his side there lay a note from his son Gerard. Gerard written to say that he would call on that morning, and the promised visit somewhat disturbed the father's comfort. He was in his dressing-gown and slippers, and had his newspaper at his hand. When his newspaper and breakfast should be finished, as they would be certainly at the same moment, they were in store for him two cigarettes and perhaps some new French novel which had just reached him. They would last him till two o'clock. Then he would dress and sort her out in his great coat, made luxurious with furs. He would see a picture or perhaps some china vase of which news had reached him, and would talk of them as though he might be a possible buyer. Everybody knew that he never bought anything, but he was a man whose opinion on such matters was worth having. Then he would call on some lady whose acquaintance at the moment might be of service to him. For that idea of blazing once more out into the world on a wife's fortune was always present to him. At about five he would saunter into his club, and play a rubber in a gentle, unexcited manner till seven. He never played for high points and would never be enticed into any bet beyond the limits of his club's stakes. Were he to lose ten pounds or twenty pounds at a sitting, his arrangements would be greatly disturbed and his comfort seriously affected. But he played well, taking pains with his game, and some who knew him well declared that his wist was worth a hundred a year to him. Then he would dress and generally dine in society. He was known as a good diner out, though in what his excellence consisted they who entertained him might find it difficult to say. He was not witty, nor did he deal in anecdotes. He spoke with a low voice, never addressing himself to any but his neighbour, and even to his neighbour saying but little. But he looked like a gentleman, was well dressed, and never awkward. After dinner he would occasionally play another rubber, but twelve o'clock always saw him back into his own rooms. No one knew better than Mr. Maul that the continual bloom of lasting summer which he affected requires great accuracy in living. Later hours, nocturnal cigars, and midnight drinkings, pleasurable though there may be, consumed too quickly the free flowing lamps of youth, and a fatal at once to the husbandly candle-ends of age. But, such as his days were, every minute of them was precious to him. He possessed the rare merit of making a property at his time, a not a burden. He had so shuffled off his duties that he had now rarely anything to do that was positively disagreeable. He had been a spend-thrift, but his creditors, though perhaps never satisfied, had been quieted. He did not now deal with reluctant and hard-tasked tenants, but with punctual, the inimical, trustees, who paid to him with charming regularity that portion of his income which he was allowed to spend. But that he was still tormented by the ambition of a splendid marriage, it might be said of him that he was completely at ease. Now, as he lit his cigarette, he would have been thoroughly comfortable, worried not that he was threatened with disturbance by his son. Why should his son wish to see him and thus break in upon him at the most charming hour of the day? Of course his son would not come to him without having some business in hand which must be disagreeable. He had not the least desire to see his son, and yet as they were on amicable terms he could not deny himself after the receipt of his son's note. Just at one, as he finished his first cigarette, Gerard was announced. Well, Gerard, well, Father, how are you? You are looking as fresh as paint, sir. Thanks for the compliment. If you mean one, I am pretty well. I thought you were hunting somewhere. So I am, but I have just come up to town to see you. I find you have been smoking. May I light a cigar? I never do smoke cigars here, Gerard. I'll offer you a cigarette. The cigarette was reluctantly offered and accepted with a shrug. But you didn't come here merely to smoke, I daresay. Certainly not, sir. We do not often trouble each other, Father, but there are things about which I suppose we had better speak. I am going to be married. To be married. The tone in which Mr. Maul Sr. repeated the words was much the same as might be used by any ordinary Father if his son expressed an intention of going into the shoe-black business. Yes, sir, it's a kind of thing men do sometimes. No doubt, and it's a kind of thing that they sometimes repent of having done. Let us hope for the best. It is too late at any rate to think about that, and as it is to be done I have come to tell you. Very well, I suppose you are right to tell me. Of course you know that I can do nothing for you, and I don't suppose that you can do anything for me. As far as your own welfare goes, if she has a large fortune, she has no fortune. No fortune? Two or three thousand pounds, perhaps? Then I look at what it is an act of simple madness, and can only say that as such I shall treat it. I have nothing in my power, and therefore I can neither do you good or harm, but I am not here any particulars, and I can only advise you to break it off, let the trouble be what it may. I certainly shall not do that, sir. Then I have nothing more to say. Don't ask me to be present, and don't ask me to see her. You haven't heard her name yet. I do not care one straw what her name is. It is Adelaide Palace, sir. Adelaide Muggins would be exactly the same to me. My dear Gerrard, I have lived too long in the world to believe that men can coin into money the noble blood of well-born wives. Twenty thousand pounds is worth more than all the blood of all the harbours, and a wife even with twenty thousand pounds would make you a poor, embarrassing, half-famished man. Then I suppose I shall be whole-famished, as she certainly has not got a quarter of that sum. No doubt you will. Yet, sir, married men with families have lived on my income, and are less than a quarter of it. The very respectful man who brushes my clothes, no doubt does, sir. But then you see he's been bought up in that way. I suppose that you, as a bachelor, put by every year at least half your income? I never put by a shilling, sir. Indeed, I owe a few hundred pounds. And yet you expect to keep a house over your head and an expensive wife and family with ladies, maid, nurses, cook, footmen, and grooms on a sum which has been hitherto insufficient for your own once?  Thank you, sir. What will her dress cost? I have not the slightest idea. I dare say not. Probably she's a horsewoman. As far as I know anything of your life, that is a sphere in which you will have made the ladies acquaintance. She does ride. No doubt, and so do you, and it will be very easy to say whether you will ride together if you are full enough to get married. I can only advise you to do nothing of the kind. Is there anything else? There was much more to be said if Gerard could succeed in forcing his father to hear him. Mr. Maul, who'd hitherto been standing, seated himself as he asked that last question, and took up the book which had been prepared for his morning's delectation. He was evidently his intention that his son should leave him. The news had been communicated to him, and he had said all that he could say on the subject. He had at once determined to confine himself to a general view of the matter, and to avoid details which might be personal to himself. But Gerard had been specially required to force his father into details. Had he been left to himself he would certainly have thought that the conversation had gone far enough. He was inclined, almost as well as his father, to avoid present discomfort. But when Miss Palliser had suddenly—almost suddenly—accepted him, and when he had found himself describing the prospects of his life in her presence, and in that of lady children, the question of the Maul-Abbey inheritance had of necessity been discussed. At Maul-Abbey there might be found a home for the married couple, and, so thought Lady Children, the only fitting home. Mr. Maul, the father, certainly did not desire to live there. Probably arrangements might be made for repairing the house and furnishing it with Adelaide's money. Then, if Gerard Maul could be prudent and give up hunting and farm a little himself, and, if Adelaide would do her own housekeeping and dress upon forty pounds a year, and if they would both live an exemplary, model, energetic, and strictly economical life, both ends might be made to meet. Adelaide had been quite enthusiastic as to the forty pounds, and had suggested that she would do it for thirty. The housekeeping was a matter of course, and the Maul-Abbey, as a leg of mutton roast or boiled, would be the beginning and the end of it. To Adelaide the discussion had been exciting and pleasurable, and she had been quite in earnest when looking forward to a new life at Maul-Abbey. After all, there could be no such great difficulty for a young married couple to live on eight hundred pounds a year with a house and garden of their own. There would be no carriage and no man-servant till old Mr. Maul was dead. The suggestion as to the ultimate and desirable haven was wrapped up in ambiguous words. The property must be yours some day, suggested Lady Chorten. If I had lived my father, we'd take that for granted, and then you know, say Lady Chorten went on, dilating upon a future state of squaricical bliss and rural independence. Adelaide was enthusiastic, but Gerard Maul, after he had ascended to the abandonment of his hunting, much as a man a sense to be hung when the antecedents of his life have put any option in the matter out of his power, had sat silent and almost moody while the joys of his coming life were described to him. Lady Chorten, however, had been urgent in pointing out to him that the scheme of living at Maul-Abbey could not be carried on without his father's assistance. They all knew that Mr. Maul himself could not be affected by the matter, and they also knew that he had but very little power in reference to the property. But the plan could not be matured without some sanction from him. Therefore there was still much more to be said when the father had completed the exposition of his views on marriage in general. I wanted to speak to you about the property, said Gerard. He'd been specially enjoined to be staunch in bringing his father to the point. And what about the property? Of course, my marriage will not affect your interests. I should say not to be very odd if it did, as it is your income is much larger than mine. I don't know how that is, sir, but I suppose you will not refuse to give me a helping hand if you can do so without disturbance to your own comfort. In what sort of way? Don't you think anything of that kind can be managed better by the lawyer? Is there is a thing I hate at his business? Gerard, remembering his promise to Lady Chilton, did persevere that the perseverance went much against the grain with him. We thought, sir, that if you were consent we might live at Maul Abbey. Oh, you did, did you? Is there any objection?  It belongs, I suppose, to the property, and as— As what? asked the father, turning upon the sun with sharp, angry eyes and with something of real animation in his face. Gerard was very awkward in conveying his meaning to his father. And as he continued, as it might come to me, I suppose, someday, and it will be the proper sort of thing that we should live there then, I thought that you would agree that if we went and lived there now it would be a good sort of thing to do. That was your idea? We talked it over with our friend Lady Chilton. Indeed, I am so much obliged to your friend Lady Chilton for the interest she takes in my affairs. Pray make my compliments to Lady Chilton, and tell her at the same time that, though no doubt I have one foot in the grave, I should like to keep my house for the other foot, though too probably I may never be able to drag it so far as Maul Abbey. But you don't think of living there? My dear boy, if you will inquire among any friends you may have to know who understand the world better than Lady Chilton seems to do, they will tell you that a son should not suggest to his father the abandonment of the family property because the father may probably soon be conveniently got rid of underground. There was no thought of such a thing, said Gerard. It isn't decent. I say that with all due deference to Lady Chilton's better judgment. It's not the kind of thing that men do.  No doubt I am old. This assertion, Mr. Maul, made in a weak, quavering voice, which showed that had his intention been that way turned in his youth, he might probably have earned his bread on the stage. Nobody thought of your being old, sir. I shan't last long, of course. I am a poor, feeble creature. But while I do live, I should prefer not to be turned out of my own house, if Lady Chilton could be induced to consent to such an agreement. My doctor seemed to think that I might linger on for a year or two with great care. Father, you know I was thinking of nothing of the kind. We won't act the king and prince any further, have you, please. The prince protested very well, and if I remember right, the father pretended to believe him. In my weak state you have rather upset me. If you have no objection, I would choose to be left to recover myself a little. And is that all you will say to me? Good heavens, what more can you want? I will not consent to give up my house at Maul Abbey for your use as long as I live. Will that do? And if you choose to marry a wife and starve, I won't think that any reason why I should starve, too. Will that do? And your friend, Lady Chilton, may go and be damned. Will that do? Good morning, sir. Good morning, Gerard. So the interview was over, and Gerard Maul left the room. The father, as soon as he was alone, immediately let another cigarette, took up his French novel, and went to work as though he was determined to be happy and comfortable again without losing a moment. But he found this to be beyond his power. He had been really disturbed and could not easily compose himself. The cigarette was almost at once chucked into the fire, and the little volume was laid on one side. Mr. Maul rose almost impetuously from his chair and stood with his back to the fire, contemplating the proposition that had been made to him. It was actually true that he had been offended by the very faint idea of death which had been suggested to him by his son. Then he was a man bearing no palpable signs of decay, in excellent health, with good digestion, who might live to be ninety. He did not like to be warned that his heir would come after him. The claim which had been put forward to Maul Abbey by his son had rested on the fact that when he should die the place must belong to his son. And the fact was unpleasant to him. Lady Children had spoken of him behind his back as being mortal, and in doing so had been guilty of an impertinence. Maul Abbey no doubt was a ruined old house in which he never thought of living, which was not led to a tenant by the creditors of his estate, and because his condition was unfit for tenancy. But now Mr. Maul began to think whether he might not possibly give the lie to these people who were compassing his death by returning to the halls of his ancestors, if not in the bloom of youth, still in the pride of age. Why should he not live at Maul Abbey if this successful marriage could be affected? He almost knew himself well enough to be aware that a month at Maul Abbey would destroy him, but it is the proper thing for a man of fashion to have a place of his own, and he had always been alive to the glory of being Mr. Maul of Maul Abbey. In preparing the way for the marriage that was to come he must be so known, to be spoken of as the father of Maul of Maul Abbey would have been fatal to him. To be the father of a married son at all was disagreeable, and therefore when the communication was made to him he managed to be very unpleasant. As for giving up Maul Abbey, he fretted and fumed as he thought of the proposition through the hour which would have been to him an hour of enjoyment, and his anger grew hot against his son as he remembered all that he was losing. At last, however, he composed himself sufficiently to put on with becoming care his luxurious third great coat, and then he saluted forth in quest of the lady. Finis reduxed by Anthony Trollop, Chapter 22, Purity of Morals, Fin. Mr. Quintus Slide was now, as formerly, the editor of the People's Banner, but a change had come over the spirit of his dream. His newspaper was still the People's Banner, and Mr. Slide still professed to protect the existing rights of the people and to demand new rights for the people. But he did so as a conservative. He had watched the progress of things, and had perceived that duty called upon him to be the organ of Mr. D'Orbini. This duty he performed with great zeal, and with an assumption of consistency and infallibility which was charming. No doubt the somewhat difficult task of veering round without inconsistency and without flaw to his infallibility was eased by Mr. D'Orbini's newly declared view on church matters. The People's Banner could still be a genuine People's Banner, in reference to ecclesiastical policy. And as that was now the subject mainly discussed by the newspapers, the change made was almost entirely confined to the lauding of Mr. D'Orbini instead of Mr. Turnbull. Some other slight touches were no doubt necessary. Mr. D'Orbini was the head of the conservative party in the kingdom, and though Mr. Slide himself might be of all men in the kingdom the most democratic, or even the most destructive, still it was essential that Mr. D'Orbini's organ should support the conservative party all round. It became Mr. Slide's duty to speak of men as heaven-born patriots whom he had designated a month or two since as bladed aristocrats and leeches fattened on the blood of the people. Of course, remarks were made by his brethren of the press, remarks which were intended to be very unpleasant. One evening newspaper took the trouble to divide a column of its own into double commons, printing on one side of the inserted line remarks made by the People's Banner in September respecting the Duke of So-and-So and the Marquis of So-and-So and So-and-So, which were certainly very harsh, and on the other side remarks equally laudatory as to the characters of the same titled politicians. But a journalist with the tact and experience of Mr. Quintus Slide knew his business too well to allow himself to be harassed by any such small stratagem as that. He did not pause to defend himself, but boldly attacked the meanness, the duplicity, the immorality, the grammar, the paper, the type, and the wife of the editor of the evening newspaper. In the storm of wind in which he rode it was unnecessary for him to defend his own conduct. And then, said he, the close of a very virulent and successful articles, the harlings of So-and-So dared to excuse me of inconsistency. The readers of the People's Banner all thought that the Edward editor had beaten his adversary out of the field. Mr. Quintus Slide was certainly well adaptive for his work. He could edit his paper with a clear appreciation of the kind of matter which were best conduced to his success, and he could write telling leading articles himself. He was ineffective, unscrupulous, and devoted to his paper. Perhaps his great value was shown most clearly in his distinct appreciation of the low line of public virtue with which his readers would be satisfied. A highly wrought moral strain would, he knew well, create either disgust or ridicule. If there is any beastly slithered I ate, it is eye-falutin, he had been heard to say to his underlings. The sentiment was the same as that conveyed in the Pointe de Zill of Tadderland. Let's have no damned nonsense, he said on another occasion, when striking out from a leading article a passage in praise of the patriotism of certain public man. Mr. Gresham is as good as another man, no doubt. What we want to know is whether he is along with us. Mr. Gresham was not along with Mr. Slide at present, and Mr. Slide found it very easy to speak ill of Mr. Gresham. Mr. Slide one Sunday morning called the house of Mr. Bunce in Great Walbrook Street, and asked for Phineas Finn. Mr. Slide and Mr. Bunce had an old acquaintance with each other, and the editor was not ashamed to exchange a few friendly words with the law-scravener before he was shown up to the Member of Parliament. Mr. Bunce was an outspoken, eager and honest politician, with very little accurate knowledge of the political conditions by which he was surrounded, but with a strong belief in the merits of his own class. He was a sober, hardworking man, and he hated all men who were not sober and hardworking. He was quite clear in his mind that all nobility should be put down, and that all property and land should be taken away from men who were enabled by such property to live in idleness. What should be done with the land, when so taken away, was a question which he had not yet learnt to answer. At the present moment he was accustomed to say very hard words of Mr. Slide behind his back, because of the change which had been affected in the people's banner. And he certainly was not a man to shrink from asserting in a person's presence ought that he said in his absence. Well, Mr. Conservative Slide, he said, stepping into the little back parlor, in which the editor was left while Mrs. Bunce went up to learn whether the Member of Parliament would receive his visitor. None of your chaff, Bunce! We have enough of your chaff anyhow, don't we, Mr. Slide? I still seize the banner, Mr. Slide. Most days, just for the joke of it. As long as you take it, Bunce, I don't care what the reason is. I suppose I hate it as about the same as a Prime Minister. You've got to keep your place. That's about it, Mr. Slide. We've got to tell the people who's true to him. Do you believe the Gresham would ever have bought in a bill for doing away with the Church? Never. Not if he'd been Prime Minister till doomsday. What you want is progress. That's about it, Mr. Slide. And where are you going to get it? Did you ever hear that arose by any other names smellously sweet? If you can get progress from the Conservatives and you want progress, why not go to the Conservatives for it? Who repealed the Corn Laws? Who gave us our own old suffrage? I think I've been told all that before, Mr. Slide. Then things weren't given by no manner of means as I look at it. We just went in and took them. It was all an accident whether it was Compton or Peel or Glaston or Disraeli, as well as the servants we employed to do our work. But Liberal is Liberal and Conservative is Conservative. What are you, Mr. Slide, today? If you talk things, Bunce, which you understand, you would not talk quite so much nonsense. At this moment Mrs. Bunce entered the room, perhaps preventing a quarrel, and offered to usher Mr. Slide up to the young member's room. Phineas had not at first been willing to receive the gentleman, remembering that when they had last met, the intercourse had not been pleasant. But he knew that enmity is a foolish thing, and it did not become him to perpetuate a quarrel with such a man as Mr. Quintus Slide. I remember him very well, Mrs. Bunce. I know you didn't like him, sir. Not particularly. No more, don't I? No more, don't Bunce! He's one of them, as say, most anything, for a plate of soup and a glass of wine. That's what Bunce says. It won't hurt me to see him.  It would be pity indeed if the likes of him could hurt the likes of you. And so Mr. Quintus Slide was shown up into the room. The first greeting was very affectionate at any rate on the part of the editor. He grasped the young member's hand, congratulated him on his seat, and began his work as though he had never been all but kicked out of that very same room by its present occupant. Now you want to know what I've come about, don't you? No doubt I shall hear in good time, Mr. Slide. It's an important matter, and so you'll say when you do here, and it's one in which I don't know whether you'll be able to see your way quite clear. I'll do my best, if it concerns me. It does! So saying, Mr. Slide, who'd seated himself in an armed chair by the far side opposite to Phineas, crossed his legs, folded his arms on his breast, put his head a little on one side, and sat for a few moments in silence with his eyes fixed on his companion's face. It does concern you, or I shouldn't be here. Do you know Mr. Kennedy, the right honourable Robert Kennedy of Lochlinter in Scotland? I do know Mr. Kennedy. And do you know Lady Laura Kennedy, his wife? Certainly I do. So I supposed. And do you know the Earl of Brentford, who is, I take it, father to the lady in question? Of course I do. You know that I do. For there had been a time in which Phineas had been subjected to the severest censure which the people's banner could inflict upon him because of his adherence to Lord Brentford, and the vials of Roth had been poured out by the hands of Mr. Quintus Slide himself. Very well, it does not signify what I know or what I don't. Those preliminary questions I've been obliged to ask as my justification for coming to you on the present occasion. Mr. Kennedy has, I believe, been greatly wronged. I am not prepared to talk about Mr. Kennedy's affairs," said Phineas gravely. But unfortunately he is prepared to talk about them. That's the rub. He has been ill-used, and he has come to the people's banner for redress. Will you have the kindness to cast your eye down that slip? Whereupon the editor handed to Phineas a long scrap of printed paper, amounting to about a column and a half of the people's banner, containing a letter to the editor dated from Loch Linter and signed Robert Kennedy at full length. You don't mean to say that you're going to publish this? Said Phineas before he had read it. Why not? The man is a madman. There's nothing in the world easier than calling a man mad. It's what we do to dogs when we want to hang them. I believe Mr. Kennedy has the management of his own property. He's not too mad for that. But just cast your eye down and read it. Phineas did cast his eye down and read the whole letter. Nor, as he read it, could he bring himself to believe that the writer of it would be judged to be mad from its contents. Mr. Kennedy had told the whole story of his wrongs, and had told it well, with piteous truthfulness as far as he himself knew and understood the truth. The letter was almost simple in its wailing record of his own desolation. With a marvellous absence of reticence, he'd given the names of all persons concerned. He spoke of his wife as having been and being under the influence of Mr. Phineas Finn. Spoke of his own form of friendship for that gentleman, who'd once saved his life when he fell among thieves, and then accused Phineas of treachery in betraying that friendship. He spoke with bitter agony the injury done to him by the earl, his wife's father, in affording a home to his wife when her proper home was at Loch Linter. And then declared himself willing to take the sinning woman back to his bosom. That she had sinned is certain, he said. I do not believe she has sinned as some sin, but whatever be her sin it is for a man to forgive as he hopes for forgiveness. He expatiated on the absolute and almost divine right which he was intended that a husband should exercise over his wife, and quoted both the Old and New Testament in proof of his assertions. And then he went on to say that he appealed to public sympathy through the public press because, owing to some gross insufficiency in the laws of extradition, he could not call upon the magistracy of a foreign country to restore to him his earring wife. But he thought that public opinion, if loudly expressed, would have an effect both upon her and upon her father, which his private words could not produce. I wonder very greatly that you should put such a letter as that into type, said Phineas, when he had read it all. Why wouldn't we put it into type? You don't mean to say that you'll publish it. Why shouldn't we publish it? It's a private quarrel between a man and his wife, what on earth have the public got to do with that? Private quarrels between gentlemen and ladies have been public affairs for a long time past, you must know that very well. When they come into court they are. In court and out of court, the morale of our aristocracy, what you call the Upper Ten, would be at a low ebb indeed if the public press didn't act as their guardians. Do you know that the Duke of Beetz's wife, Black and Blue, nothing is to be said about it unless the Duchess brings her husband into court? Did you ever know of a separation among the Upper Ten that wasn't handled by the press one way or the other? It's my belief that there isn't a peer among them all as would live with his wife constant if it was not for the press. Only some of the very old ones who couldn't help themselves. And you call yourself a conservative? Never mind what I call myself, that has nothing to do with what we're about now. You see that letter, Finn?  We go in for morals and purity of life, and we mean to do our duty by the public without fear or favour. Your name is mentioned there in a manner that you won't quite like, and I think I'm out to the uncommon kind by you in showing it to you before we publish it. Phineas, who still held the slip in his hand, sat silent thinking of the matter. He hated the man. He could not endure the feeling of being called thin by him without showing his resentment. As regarded himself, he was thoroughly well inclined to kick Mr. Slide and his banner into the street. But he was bound to think first of Lady Laura. Such a publication as this which was now threatened was the misfortune which the poor woman dreaded more than any other. He, personally, had certainly been faultless on the matter. He had never addressed a word of love to Mr. Kennedy's wife since the moment in which she had told him that she was engaged to marry the lad of Loch Linter. Well, the letter to be published, he could answer it, he thought, in such a manner as to defend himself and her without damage to either. But on her behalf he was bound to prevent this publicity if it could be prevented. And he was bound also, for her sake, to allow himself to be called thin by this most obnoxious editor. In the ordinary course of things, Finn, it will come out tomorrow morning, said the obnoxious editor. Every word of it is untrue, said Finneas. You say that, of course. And I should have once declared myself willing to make such a statement on oath. It is a libel of the grossest kind, and of course there will be a prosecution. Both Lord Brentford and I will be driven to that. We should be quite indifferent. Mr. Kennedy would hold us harmless. We're straightforward. My showing it to you would prove that.  Want? You don't suppose we want anything? If you think that the columns of the People's Banner are to be bought, you must have opinions respecting the press of the day which make me pity you as one groveling in the very dust. The daily press of London is pure and immaculate. That is, the morning papers are. Want indeed. What do you think I want? I have not the remotest idea. Purity of morals, Finne. Punishment for the guilty. Defence for the innocent. Support for the weak. Safety for the oppressed. And a rod of iron for the oppressors. But that is a libel. It's very heavy on the old earl and upon you and upon Lady Laura, isn't it? It's a libel, as you know. You tell me the purity of morals can be supported by such a publication as this. Had you meant to go on with it, you would hardly have shown it to me. Near in the wrong box there, Finne.  We'll delay the publication if you all undertake that the lady shall go back to her husband. The lady's not in my hands. She's under your influence. You were with her over at Dresden not much more than a month ago. She'd go sharp enough if you told her. You never made a greater mistake in your life. Say that you'll try. I certainly will not do so. Then it goes in tomorrow, said Mr. Quinter's slide, stretching out his hand and taking back the slip. What on earth is your object? Morals! Morals! We should be able to say that we've done our best to promote pump domestic virtue and secure forgiveness for an erring wife. You've no notion, Finne, in your mind, of what will soon be the extent of the duties, privileges and influence of the daily press? The daily morning press, that is. For I look on these little evening scraps as just so much paper and ink wasted. You won't interfere, then? Yes, I will, if you'll give me time. Where is Mr. Kennedy? What is that to do with it? Do you write over to Lady Laura and the Old Lord and tell them that if she'll undertake to be a clocklinter within a month, this shall be suppressed? Will you do that? Let me first see Mr. Kennedy. Mr. Slide thought a while over that matter. Well, said he at last. You can see Kennedy, if you will. He came up to town four or five days ago, and he stayed at a hotel in Judd Street. An hotel in Judd Street? Yes, MacPherson's in Judd Street. I suppose he's likes to keep among the scotch. I don't think he ever goes out of the house, and he's waiting in London till this thing is published. I'll go and see him. Said Phineas. I shouldn't wonder if he murdered you, but that's between you and him. Just so. And I shall hear from you. Yes, said Phineas, hesitating as he made the promise. Yes, you shall hear from me. We've got our duty to do, and we mean to do it. If we see that we can induce the lady to go back to husband, we shall have stame from publishing, and virtue will be its own reward. I didn't tell you that such a letter as that would sell a great many copies, Phine. Then at last Mr. Slider rose and departed.


Then currently obviously the result wasn't there, but how was the experience and how is that moment when when you gave the team the lead? Yeah, definitely not the way we wanted to end but I mean in general it was Definitely cool to play in this stadium and have that experience you Would definitely want to come out on top of the day like today though Just following up. Sorry Michael. So when when you talk about like you definitely like Aaron Your manager stood here and said, you know what even though the result wasn't there This is one of the greatest experiences that I've had on a baseball field like in that you obviously have been part of very big Moments lots of all-star games. How does the experience compare to those events? It's just so much different. I mean All-star game is is an amazing time, too I mean so many great players around you celebrating You know the the year the talent the city all that but This is just so different from anything I've experienced it That's definitely up there on the on the Special experiences that I've had in baseball Other questions Ken John Carl on top of that to hit a ninth inning to run two out, you know, go ahead home run Obviously things did not work out in the bottom of that thing but just at that moment. What was it like to hit that home run? That's awesome. I mean, I didn't even I didn't I couldn't see out there to tell if it went over if he just hit the wall and You know, maybe got hurt or something and it was still in play But yeah, when I realized it went over it's an awesome moment for me And that I could put the team up and in a good spot Tyler in the third row to your right. What do you think? You know was the most memorable part of this whole experience anything that was better than you expected or different than you expected I mean Everything as a whole is cool. Just to see how the night how the field would look at night and walking into it Seeing the movie set seeing ours coming out from the outfield Just a just a lot of cool moments and and just the view from the dugout and home plate It's very cool. And you had corn stalks in your backpockets while you were taking BP. What was that all about? Yeah, I'll be taking those home with me, too Anything else for Giancarlo Eric Giancarlo, just how difficult of a loss you guys have taken a lot of crushing losses the last six weeks or so Aaron Boone when he was just in here said this doesn't quite rank up there with some of the worst ones, but still price stings a little bit Yeah, it doesn't doesn't rank up top Seeing how we came back and almost, you know gave them a terrible loss, but Yeah, I mean you never want The game to finish like that especially we battled back but Hey, we still get the series and we need the series so We'll wrap up with Randy on your right Yeah, I was gonna ask you about the tough losses, too But it seems like you've had so many this year, but you guys are able to flush them pretty quickly By the time you go to bed at night or these losses over that you guys never recover from these so often Yeah, I mean Because those losses are tough, but they're also fluke to no matter how much they they how often they come You know you had them on the ropes, so Yeah, we just gotta finish finish it out