Day after day, and clause after clause, the bill was fought in committee, and few men fought with more constancy on the side of the Ministers than did the member for Loughton. Troubled though he was by his quarrel with Lord Chiltern, by his love for Violet Effingham, by the silence of his friend Lady Laura — for since he had told her of the duel¹ she had become silent to him, never writing to him, and hardly speaking to him when she met him in society — nevertheless Phineas was not so troubled but what he could work at his vocation². Now, when he would find himself upon his legs in the House, he would wonder at the hesitation³ which had lately troubled him so sorely. He would sit sometimes and speculate upon that dimness of eye, upon that tendency of things to go round, upon that obtrusive⁴ palpitation of heart, which had afflicted⁵ him so seriously for so long a time. The House now was no more to him than any other chamber⁶, and the members no more than other men. He guarded himself from orations⁷, speaking always very shortly — because he believed that policy and good judgment⁸ required that he should be short. But words were very easy to him, and he would feel as though he could talk for ever. And there quickly came to him a reputation for practical usefulness. He was a man with strong opinions, who could yet be submissive. And no man seemed to know how his reputation had come. He had made one good speech after two or three failures. All who knew him, his whole party, had been aware of his failure; and his one good speech had been regarded by many as no very wonderful effort. But he was a man who was pleasant to other men — not combative⁹, not self-asserting beyond the point at which self-assertion ceases to be a necessity of

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