"
"Never. You will be his wife."
"Laura, you are the most capricious of women. You have two dear
friends, and you insist that I shall marry them both. Which shall I
take first?"
"Oswald will be here in a day or two, and you can take him if you
like it. No doubt he will ask you. But I do not think you will."
"No; I do not think I shall. I shall knock under to Mr. Mill, and
go in for women's rights, and look forward to stand for some female
borough. Matrimony never seemed to me to be very charming, and
upon my word it does not become more alluring by what I find at
Loughlinter."
It was thus that Violet and Lady Laura discussed these matters
together, but Violet had never showed to her friend the cards in her
hand, as Lady Laura had shown those which she held. Lady Laura had
in fact told almost everything that there was to tell,--had spoken
either plainly with true words, or equally plainly with words that
were not true. Violet Effingham had almost come to love Phineas
Finn;--but she never told her friend that it was so. At one time
she had almost made up her mind to give herself and all her wealth
to this adventurer. He was a better man, she thought, than Lord
Chiltern; and she had come to persuade herself that it was almost
imperative on her to take the one or the other.
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