Erle, with something like dismay in his voice.

"What sort of trick?"

"You're not coming out on the other side?"

"Not if I know it," said Phineas, proudly. "Let me assure you I
wouldn't change my views in politics either for you or for the Earl,
though each of you carried seats in your breeches pockets. If I go
into Parliament, I shall go there as a sound Liberal,--not to support
a party, but to do the best I can for the country. I tell you so, and
I shall tell the Earl the same."

Barrington Erle turned away in disgust. Such language was to him
simply disgusting. It fell upon his ears as false maudlin sentiment
falls on the ears of the ordinary honest man of the world. Barrington
Erle was a man ordinarily honest. He would not have been untrue to
his mother's brother, William Mildmay, the great Whig Minister of the
day, for any earthly consideration. He was ready to work with wages
or without wages. He was really zealous in the cause, not asking
very much for himself. He had some undefined belief that it was much
better for the country that Mr. Mildmay should be in power than
that Lord de Terrier should be there. He was convinced that Liberal
politics were good for Englishmen, and that Liberal politics and the
Mildmay party were one and the same thing. It would be unfair to
Barrington Erle to deny to him some praise for patriotism. But he
hated the very name of independence in Parliament, and when he was
told of any man, that that man intended to look to measures and not
to men, he regarded that man as being both unstable as water and
dishonest as the wind. No good could possibly come from such a one,