But there was no Duke of Omnium there tonight. At this time the Duke of Omnium was, of course, not in London. But Lord Fawn was there; and our old friend Laurence Fitzgibbon, who had—resigned his place at the Colonial Office; and there were Mr. and Mrs. Bonteen. They, with our hero, made up the party. No one doubted for a moment to what source Mr. Bonteen owed his dinner. Mrs. Bonteen was good-looking, could talk, was sufficiently proper, and all that kind of thing—and did as well as any other woman at this time of year to keep Madame Max Goesler in countenance. There was never any sitting after dinner at the cottage; or, I should rather say, there was never any sitting after Madame Goesler went; so that the two ladies could not weary each other by being alone together. Mrs. Bonteen understood quite well that she was not required there to talk to her hostess, and was as willing as any woman to make herself agreeable to the gentlemen she might meet at Madame Goesler’s table. And thus Mr. and Mrs. Bonteen not unfrequently dined in Park Lane.
“Now we have only to wait for that horrible man, Mr. Fitzgibbon,” said Madame Max Goesler, as she welcomed Phineas. “He is always late.”
“What a blow for me!” said Phineas.
“No—you are always in good time. But there is a limit beyond which good time ends, and being shamefully late at once begins. But here he is.” And then, as Laurence Fitzgibbon entered the room, Madame Goesler rang the bell for dinner.
Phineas found himself placed between his hostess and Mr. Bonteen, and Lord Fawn was on the other side of Madame Goesler. They were hardly seated at the table before someone stated it as a fact that Lord Brentford and his son were reconciled. Now Phineas knew, or thought that he knew, that this could not as yet be the case; and indeed such was not the case, though the father had already received the son’s letter. But Phineas did not choose to say anything at present about Lord Chiltern.
“How odd it is,” said Madame Goesler; “how often you English fathers quarrel with your sons!”
“How often we English sons quarrel with our fathers rather,” said Lord Fawn, who was known for the respect he had always paid to the fifth commandment.
“It all comes from entail and primogeniture, and old-fashioned English prejudices of that kind,” said Madame Goesler. “Lord Chiltern is a friend of yours, Mr. Finn, I think.”
“They are both friends of mine,” said Phineas.
“Ah, yes; but you—you—you and Lord Chiltern once did something odd together. There was a little mystery, was there not?”
“It is very little of a mystery now,” said Fitzgibbon.
“It was about a lady;—was it not?” said Mrs. Bonteen, affecting to whisper to her neighbour.
“I am not at liberty to say anything on the subject,” said Fitzgibbon; “but I have no doubt Phineas will tell you.”
“I don’t believe this about Lord Brentford,” said Mr. Bonteen. “I happen to know that Chiltern was down at Loughlinter three days ago, and that he passed through London yesterday on his way to the place where he hunts. The Earl is at Saulsby. He would have gone to Saulsby if it were true.”
“It all depends upon whether Miss Effingham will accept him,” said Mrs. Bonteen, looking over at Phineas as she spoke.
As there were two of Violet Effingham’s suitors at table, the subject was becoming disagreeably personal; and the more so, as every one of the party knew or surmised something of the facts of the case. The cause of the duel at Blankenberg had become almost as public as the duel, and Lord Fawn’s courtship had not been altogether hidden from the public eye. He on the present occasion might probably be able to carry himself better than Phineas, even presuming him to be equally eager in his love—for he knew nothing of the fatal truth. But he was unable to hear Mrs. Bonteen’s statement with indifference, and showed his concern in the matter by his reply. “Any lady will be much to be pitied,” he said, “who does that. Chiltern is the last man in the world to whom I would wish to trust the happiness of a woman for whom I cared.”
“Chiltern is a very good fellow,” said Laurence Fitzgibbon.
“Just a little wild,” said Mrs. Bonteen.
“And never had a shilling in his pocket in his life,” said her husband.
“I regard him as simply a madman,” said Lord Fawn.
“I do so wish I knew him,” said Madame Max Goesler. “I am fond of madmen, and men who haven’t shillings, and who are a little wild. Could you not bring him here, Mr. Finn?”
Phineas did not know what to say, or how to open his mouth without showing his deep concern. “I shall be happy to ask him if you wish it,” he replied, as though the question had been put to him in earnest; “but I do not see so much of Lord Chiltern as I used to do.”
“You do not believe that Violet Effingham will accept him?” asked Mrs. Bonteen.
He paused a moment before he spoke, and then made his answer in a deep solemn voice—with a seriousness which he was unable to repress. “She has accepted him,” he said.
“Do you mean that you know it?” said Madame Goesler.
“Yes;—I mean that I know it.”
Had anybody told him beforehand that he would openly make this declaration at Madame Goesler’s table, he would have said that of all things it was the most impossible. He would have declared that nothing would have induced him to speak of Violet Effingham in his existing frame of mind, and that he would have had his tongue cut out before he spoke of her as the promised bride of his rival. And now he had declared the whole truth of his own
