He found the Earl’s carriage waiting for him at the station, and thought of many former days, as he was carried through the little town for which he had sat in Parliament, up to the house which he had once visited in the hope of wooing Violet Effingham. The women whom he had loved had all, at any rate, become his friends, and his thorough friendships were almost all with women. He and Lord Chiltern regarded each other with warm affection; but there was hardly ground for real sympathy between them. It was the same with Mr. Low and Barrington Erle. Were he to die there would be no gap in their lives;—were they to die there would be none in his. But with Violet Effingham—as he still loved to call her to himself—he thought it would be different. When the carriage stopped at the hall door he was thinking of her rather than of Lady Laura Kennedy.
He was shown at once to his bedroom—the very room in which he had written the letter to Lord Chiltern which had brought about the duel at Blankenberg. He was told that he would find Lady Laura in the drawing-room waiting for dinner for him. The Earl had already dined.
“I am so glad you are come,” said Lady Laura, welcoming him. “Papa is not very well and dined early, but I have waited for you, of course. Of course I have. You did not suppose I would let you sit down alone? I would not see you before you dressed because I knew that you must be tired and hungry, and that the sooner you got down the better. Has it not been hot?”
“And so dusty! I only left Matching yesterday, and seem to have been on the railway ever since.”
“Government officials have to take frequent journeys, Mr. Finn. How long will it be before you have to go down to Scotland twice in one week, and back as often to form a Ministry? Your next journey must be into the dining-room;—in making which will you give me your arm?”
She was, he thought, lighter in heart and pleasanter in manner than she had been since her return from Dresden. When she had made her little joke about his future ministerial duties the servant had been in the room, and he had not, therefore, stopped her by a serious answer. And now she was solicitous about his dinner—anxious that he should enjoy the good things set before him, as is the manner of loving women, pressing him to take wine, and playing the good hostess in all things. He smiled, and ate, and drank, and was gracious under her petting; but he had a weight on his bosom, knowing, as he did, that he must say that before long which would turn all her playfulness either to anger or to grief. “And who had you at Matching?” she asked.
“Just the usual set.”
“Minus the poor old Duke?”
“Yes; minus the old Duke certainly. The greatest change is in the name. Lady Glencora was so specially Lady Glencora that she ought to have been Lady Glencora to the end. Everybody calls her Duchess, but it does not sound half so nice.”
“And is he altered?”
“Not in the least. You can trace the lines of lingering regret upon his countenance when people be-Grace him; but that is all. There was always about him a simple dignity which made it impossible that anyone should slap him on the back; and that of course remains. He is the same Planty Pall; but I doubt whether any man ever ventured to call him Planty Pall to his face since he left Eton.”
“The house was full, I suppose?”
“There were a great many there; among others Sir Gregory Grogram, who apologised to me for having tried to—put an end to my career.”
“Oh, Phineas!”
“And Sir Harry Coldfoot, who seemed to take some credit to himself for having allowed the jury to acquit me. And Chiltern and his wife were there for a day or two.”
“What could take Oswald there?”
“An embassy of State about the foxes. The Duke’s property runs into his country. She is one of the best women that ever lived.”
“Violet?”
“And one of the best wives.”
“She ought to be, for she is one of the happiest. What can she wish for that she has not got? Was your great friend there?”
He knew well what great friend she meant. “Madame Max Goesler was there.”
“I suppose so. I can never quite forgive Lady Glencora for her intimacy with that woman.”
“Do not abuse her, Lady Laura.”
“I do not intend—not to you at any rate. But I can better understand that she should receive the admiration of a gentleman than the affectionate friendship of a lady. That the old Duke should have been infatuated was intelligible.”
“She was very good to the old Duke.”
“But it was a kind of goodness which was hardly likely to recommend itself to his nephew’s wife. Never mind; we won’t talk about her now. Barrington was there?”
“For a day or two.”
“He seems to be wasting his life.”
“Subordinates in office generally do, I think.”
“Do not say that, Phineas.”
“Some few push through, and one can almost always foretell who the few will be. There are men who are destined
