“Is she a friend of yours, too?”
“My particular friend. She and I, you know, look after the poor dear Duke between us.”
“I can understand why she should sacrifice herself.”
“But not why I do. I can’t explain it myself; but so it has come to pass, and I must not hear the Duke abused. May I write to Lady Glencora about it?”
“Certainly—if you please; but not as giving her any message from me. Her uncle’s property is mismanaged most damnably. If you choose to tell her that I say so you can. I’m not going to ask anything as a favour. I never do ask favours. But the Duke or Planty Palliser among them should do one of two things. They should either stand by the hunting, or they should let it alone;—and they should say what they mean. I like to know my friends, and I like to know my enemies.”
“I am sure the Duke is not your enemy, Lord Chiltern.”
“These Pallisers have always been running with the hare and hunting with the hounds. They are great aristocrats, and yet are always going in for the people. I’m told that Planty Pall calls foxhunting barbarous. Why doesn’t he say so out loud, and stub up Trumpeton Wood and grow corn?”
“Perhaps he will when Trumpeton Wood belongs to him.”
“I should like that much better than poisoning hounds and trapping foxes.” When they got to the meet, conclaves of men might be seen gathered together here and there, and in each conclave they were telling something new or something old as to the iniquities perpetrated at Trumpeton Wood.
On that evening before dinner Madame Goesler was told by her hostess that Phineas Finn was expected on the following day. The communication was made quite as a matter of course; but Lady Chiltern had chosen a time in which the lights were shaded, and the room was dark. Adelaide Palliser was present, as was also a certain Lady Baldock—not that Lady Baldock who had abused all Papists to poor Phineas, but her son’s wife. They were drinking tea together over the fire, and the dim lights were removed from the circle. This, no doubt, was simply an accident; but the gloom served Madame Goesler during one moment of embarrassment. “An old friend of yours is coming here tomorrow,” said Lady Chiltern.
“An old friend of mine! Shall I call my friend he or she?”
“You remember Mr. Finn?”
That was the moment in which Madame Goesler rejoiced that no strong glare of light fell upon her face. But she was a woman who would not long leave herself subject to any such embarrassment. “Surely,” she said, confining herself at first to the single word.
“He is coming here. He is a great friend of mine.”
“He always was a good friend of yours, Lady Chiltern.”
“And of yours, too, Madame Max. A sort of general friend, I think, was Mr. Finn in the old days. I hope you will be glad to see him.”
“Oh, dear, yes.”
“I thought him very nice,” said Adelaide Palliser.
“I remember mamma saying, before she was mamma, you know,” said Lady Baldock, “that Mr. Finn was very nice indeed, only he was a Papist, and only he had got no money, and only he would fall in love with everybody. Does he go on falling in love with people, Violet?”
“Never with married women, my dear. He has had a wife himself since that, Madame Goesler, and the poor thing died.”
“And now here he is beginning all over again,” said Lady Baldock.
“And as pleasant as ever,” said her cousin. “You know he has done all manner of things for our family. He picked Oswald up once after one of those terrible hunting accidents; and he saved Mr. Kennedy when men were murdering him.”
“That was questionable kindness,” said Lady Baldock.
“And he sat for Lord Brentford’s borough.”
“How good of him!” said Miss Palliser.
“And he has done all manner of things,” said Lady Chiltern.
“Didn’t he once fight a duel?” asked Madame Goesler.
“That was the grandest thing of all,” said his friend, “for he didn’t shoot somebody whom perhaps he might have shot had he been as bloodthirsty as somebody else. And now he has come back to Parliament, and all that kind of thing, and he’s coming here to hunt. I hope you’ll be glad to see him, Madame Goesler.”
“I shall be very glad to see him,” said Madame Goesler, slowly; “I heard about his success at that town, and I knew that I should meet him somewhere.”
XV
“How Well You Knew!”
It was necessary also that some communication should be made to Phineas, so that he might not come across Madame Goesler unawares. Lady Chiltern was more alive to that necessity than she had been to the other, and felt that the gentleman, if not warned of what was to take place, would be much more likely than the lady to be awkward at the trying moment. Madame Goesler would in any circumstances be sure to recover her self-possession very quickly, even were she to lose it for a moment; but so much could hardly be said for the social powers of Phineas Finn. Lady Chiltern therefore contrived to see him alone for a moment on his arrival. “Who do you think is here?”
“Lady Laura has not come!”
“Indeed, no; I wish she had. An old friend, but not so old as Laura!”
“I cannot guess;—not Lord Fawn?”
“Lord Fawn! What would Lord Fawn do here? Don’t you know that Lord Fawn goes nowhere since his last matrimonial trouble? It’s a friend of yours, not of mine.”
“Madame Goesler?” whispered Phineas.
“How well you knew when I said it was a friend of yours. Madame Goesler is here—not altered in the least.”
“Madame Goesler!”
“Does it annoy you?”
“Oh, no. Why should it annoy me?”
“You never quarrelled with her?”
“Never!”
“There is no reason why you should not meet her?”
“None at all;—only I was
