with her husband.
Use yours in that direction, my dear.«
    The Rector felt that he was acquitting himself of a duty here, and giving
something like the aspect of a public benefit to his niece's match. To Gwendolen
the whole speech had the flavour of bitter comedy. If she had been merry, she
must have laughed at her uncle's explanation to her that he had not heard
Grandcourt express himself very fully on politics. And the wife's great
influence! General maxims about husbands and wives seemed now of a precarious
usefulness. Gwendolen herself had once believed in her future influence as an
omnipotence in managing - she did not know exactly what. But her chief concern
at present was to give an answer that would be felt appropriate.
    »I should be very glad, uncle. But I think Mr. Grandcourt would not like the
trouble of an election - at least, unless it could be without his making
speeches. I thought candidates always made speeches.«
    »Not necessarily - to any great extent,« said Mr. Gascoigne. »A man of
position and weight can get on without much of it. A county member need have
very little trouble in that way, and both out of the House and in it is liked
the better for not being a speechifier. Tell Mr. Grandcourt that I say so.«
    »Here comes Jocosa with my chocolate after all,« said Gwendolen, escaping
from a promise to give information that would certainly have been received in a
way inconceivable to the good Rector, who, pushing his chair a little aside from
the table and crossing his leg, looked as well as felt like a worthy specimen of
a clergyman and magistrate giving experienced advice. Mr. Gascoigne had come to
the conclusion that Grandcourt was a proud man, but his own self-love, calmed
through life by the consciousness of his general value and personal advantages,
was not irritable enough to prevent him from hoping the best about his niece's
husband because her uncle was kept rather haughtily at a distance. A certain
aloofness must be allowed to the representative of an old family; you would not
expect him to be on intimate terms even with abstractions. But Mrs. Gascoigne
was less dispassionate on her husband's account, and felt Grandcourt's
haughtiness as something a little blameable in Gwendolen.
    »Your uncle and Anna will very likely be in town about Easter,« she said,
with a vague sense of expressing a slight discontent. »Dear Rex hopes to come
out with honours and a fellowship, and he wants his father and Anna