If this Mr Trenchard and three or four
others choose to make themselves of importance--you see? The
danger is imminent, it must be met with decision."
"And what do you propose doing?"
"Has he a wife?"
"I really do not know. I wish Charles would come, perhaps he
could tell us."
"I have no doubt he has," said Lady St Julians. "One would
have met him, somehow or other in the course of two years, if
he had not been married. Well, married or unmarried, with his
wife, or without his wife,--I shall send him a card for
Wednesday." And Lady St Julians paused, overwhelmed as it
were by the commensurate vastness of her idea and her
sacrifice.
"Do not you think it would be rather sudden?" said Lady
Deloraine.
"What does that signify? He will understand it; he will have
gained his object; and all will be right."
"But are you sure it is his object? We do not know the man."
"What else can be his object?" said Lady St Julians. "People
get into Parliament to get on; their aims are indefinite. If
they have indulged in hallucinations about place before they
enter the House, they are soon freed from such distempered
fancies; they find they have no more talent than other people,
and if they had, they learn that power, patronage and pay are
reserved for us and our friends.
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