Laurence Fitzgibbon made his way to Dover by the Saturday night’s boat, and was able to show himself in Portman Square on the Sunday. “Know anything about Phinny Finn?” he said afterwards to Barrington Erle, in answer to an inquiry from that anxious gentleman. “Not a word! I think you’d better send the town-crier round after him.” Barrington, however, did not feel quite so well assured of Fitzgibbon’s truth as Lady Laura had done.
Dr. O’Shaughnessy remained during the Sunday and Monday at Ostend with his patient, and the people at the inn only knew that Mr. Finn had sprained his shoulder badly; and on the Tuesday they came back to London again, via Calais and Dover. No bone had been broken, and Phineas, though his shoulder was very painful, bore the journey well. O’Shaughnessy had received a telegram on the Monday, telling him that the division would certainly take place on the Tuesday—and on the Tuesday, at about ten in the evening, Phineas went down to the House. “By ⸻, you’re here,” said Ratler, taking hold of him with an affection that was too warm. “Yes; I’m here,” said Phineas, wincing in agony; “but be a little careful, there’s a good fellow. I’ve been down in Kent and put my arm out.”
“Put your arm out, have you?” said Ratler, observing the sling for the first time. “I’m sorry for that. But you’ll stop and vote?”
“Yes;—I’ll stop and vote. I’ve come up for the purpose. But I hope it won’t be very late.”
“There are both Daubeny and Gresham to speak yet, and at least three others. I don’t suppose it will be much before three. But you’re all right now. You can go down and smoke if you like!” In this way Phineas Finn spoke in the debate, and heard the end of it, voting for his party, and fought his duel with Lord Chiltern in the middle of it.
He did go and sit on a well-cushioned bench in the smoking-room, and then was interrogated by many of his friends as to his mysterious absence. He had, he said, been down in Kent, and had had an accident with his arm, by which he had been confined. When this questioner and that perceived that there was some little mystery in the matter, the questioners did not push their questions, but simply entertained their own surmises. One indiscreet questioner, however, did trouble Phineas sorely, declaring that there must have been some affair in which a woman had had a part, and asking after the young lady of Kent. This indiscreet questioner was Laurence Fitzgibbon, who, as Phineas thought, carried his spirit of intrigue a little too far. Phineas stayed and voted, and then he went painfully home to his lodgings.
How singular would it be if this affair of the duel should pass away, and no one be a bit the wiser but those four men who had been with him on the sands at Blankenberg! Again he wondered at his own luck. He had told himself that a duel with Lord Chiltern must create a quarrel between him and Lord Chiltern’s relations, and also between him and Violet Effingham; that it must banish him from his comfortable seat for Loughton, and ruin him in regard to his political prospects. And now he had fought his duel, and was back in town—and the thing seemed to have been a thing of nothing. He had not as yet seen Lady Laura or Violet, but he had no doubt but they both were as much in the dark as other people. The day might arrive, he thought, on which it would be pleasant for him to tell Violet Effingham what had occurred, but that day had not come as yet. Whither Lord Chiltern had gone, or what Lord Chiltern intended to do, he had not any idea; but he imagined that he should soon hear something of her brother from Lady Laura. That Lord Chiltern should say a word to Lady Laura of what had occurred—or to any other person in the world—he did not in the least suspect. There could be no man more likely to be reticent in such matters than
