“That’s come up again, has it? He’s the handsome Irishman, isn’t he, that came to Matching, the same day that brought you there?”
“He is an Irishman, and he was at Matching, that day.”
“He’s certainly handsome. What a day that was, Marie! When one thinks of it all—of all the perils and all the salvations, how strange it is! I wonder whether you would have liked it now if you were the Dowager Duchess.”
“I should have had some enjoyment, I suppose.”
“I don’t know that it would have done us any harm, and yet how keen I was about it. We can’t give you the rank now, and you won’t take the money.”
“Not the money, certainly.”
“Plantagenet says you’ll have to take it;—but it seems to me he’s always wrong. There are so many things that one must do that one doesn’t do. He never perceives that everything gets changed every five years. So Mr. Finn is the favourite again?”
“He is a friend whom I like. I may be allowed to have a friend, I suppose.”
“A dozen, my dear;—and all of them good-looking. Goodbye, dear. Pray come to us. Don’t stand off and make yourself disagreeable. We shan’t be giving dinner parties, but you can come whenever you please. Tell me at once;—do you mean to be disagreeable?”
Then Madame Goesler was obliged to promise that she would not be more disagreeable than her nature had made her.
XXXII
The World Becomes Cold
A great deal was said by very many persons in London as to the murderous attack which had been made by Mr. Kennedy on Phineas Finn in Judd Street, but the advice given by Mr. Slide in The People’s Banner to the police was not taken. No public or official inquiry was made into the circumstance. Mr. Kennedy, under the care of his cousin, retreated to Scotland; and, as it seemed, there was to be an end of it. Throughout the month of March various smaller bolts were thrust both at Phineas and at the police by the editor of the above-named newspaper, but they seemed to fall without much effect. No one was put in prison; nor was anyone ever examined. But, nevertheless, these missiles had their effect. Everybody knew that there had been a “row” between Mr. Kennedy and Phineas Finn, and that the “row” had been made about Mr. Kennedy’s wife. Everybody knew that a pistol had been fired at Finn’s head; and a great many people thought that there had been some cause for the assault. It was alleged at one club that the present member for Tankerville had spent the greater part of the last two years at Dresden, and at another that he had called on Mr. Kennedy twice, once down in Scotland, and once at the hotel in Judd Street, with a view of inducing that gentleman to concede to a divorce. There was also a very romantic story afloat as to an engagement which had existed between Lady Laura and Phineas Finn before the lady had been induced by her father to marry the richer suitor. Various details were given in corroboration of these stories. Was it not known that the Earl had purchased the submission of Phineas Finn by a seat for his borough of Loughton? Was it not known that Lord Chiltern, the brother of Lady Laura, had fought a duel with Phineas Finn? Was it not known that Mr. Kennedy himself had been as it were coerced into quiescence by the singular fact that he had been saved from garotters in the street by the opportune interference of Phineas Finn? It was even suggested that the scene with the garotters had been cunningly planned by Phineas Finn, that he might in this way be able to restrain the anger of the husband of the lady whom he loved. All these stories were very pretty; but as the reader, it is hoped, knows, they were all untrue. Phineas had made but one short visit to Dresden in his life. Lady Laura had been engaged to Mr. Kennedy before Phineas had ever spoken to her of his love. The duel with Lord Chiltern had been about another lady, and the seat at Loughton had been conferred upon Phineas chiefly on account of his prowess in extricating Mr. Kennedy from the garotters—respecting which circumstance it may be said that as the meeting in the street was fortuitous, the reward was greater than the occasion seemed to require.
While all these things were being said Phineas became something of a hero. A man who is supposed to have caused a disturbance between two married people, in a certain rank of life, does generally receive a certain meed of admiration. A man who was asked out to dinner twice a week before such rumours were afloat, would probably receive double that number of invitations afterwards. And then to have been shot at by a madman in a room, and to be the subject of the venom of a People’s Banner, tends also to Fame. Other ladies besides Madame Goesler were anxious to have the story from the very lips of the hero, and in this way Phineas Finn became a conspicuous man. But Fame begets envy, and there were some who said that the member for Tankerville had injured his prospects with his party. It may be very well to give a dinner to a man who has caused the wife of a late Cabinet Minister to quarrel with her husband; but it can hardly be expected that he should be placed in office by the head of the party to which that late Cabinet Minister belonged. “I never saw such a fellow as you are,” said Barrington Erle to him. “You are always getting into a mess.”
“Nobody ought to know better than you how false all these calumnies are.” This he said because Erle and Lady Laura were cousins.
“Of course they are calumnies; but you had heard
