If it were not for your sake, I
should not in the least regret it."
He had been with Madame Goesler frequently in the winter, and had
discussed with her so often the question of his official position
that she had declared that she was coming at last to understand the
mysteries of an English Cabinet. "I think you are quite right, my
friend," she said,--"quite right. What--you are to be in Parliament
and say that this black thing is white, or that this white thing is
black, because you like to take your salary! That cannot be honest!"
Then, when he came to talk to her of money,--that he must give up
Parliament itself, if he gave up his place,--she offered to lend him
money. "Why should you not treat me as a friend?" she said. When he
pointed out to her that there would never come a time in which he
could pay such money back, she stamped her foot and told him that
he had better leave her. "You have high principle," she said, "but
not principle sufficiently high to understand that this thing could
be done between you and me without disgrace to either of us." Then
Phineas assured her with tears in his eyes that such an arrangement
was impossible without disgrace to him.
But he whispered to this new friend no word of the engagement with
his dear Irish Mary.
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