Page:Eliot - Felix Holt, the Radical, vol. I, 1866.djvu/185

Rh the plain English of the matter. And I do beg of you, my dear, to set aside all these gossiping niceties, and exert yourself, like a woman of sense and spirit as you are, to bring the right people together."

Here Sir Maximus gave a deep cough, took out his snuff-box, and tapped it: he had made a serious marital speech, an exertion to which he was rarely urged by anything smaller than a matter of conscience. And this outline of the whole duty of a Tory was matter of conscience with him; though the Duffield Watchman had pointed expressly to Sir Maximus Debarry amongst others, in branding the co-operation of the Tories as a conscious selfishness and reckless immorality, which, however, would be defeated by the co-operation of all the friends of truth and liberty, who, the Watchman trusted, would subordinate all non-political differences in order to return representatives pledged to support the present Government.

"I am sure. Sir Maximus," Lady Debarry answered, "you could not have observed that anything was wanting in my manners to Mrs Transome."

"No, no, my dear; but I say this by way of caution. Never mind what was done at Smyrna, or whether Transome likes to sit with his heels