“Dear Mrs. Bonteen,” she said afterwards,
“why did you not come and join us? The
Duke was so pleasant.”
“Two is company, and three is none,” said
Mrs. Bonteen, who in her anger was hardly able to
choose her words quite as well as she might have done
had she been more cool.
“Our friend Madame Max has made quite a new
conquest,” said Mrs. Bonteen to Lady Glencora.
“I am so pleased,” said Lady Glencora,
with apparently unaffected delight. “It
is such a great thing to get anybody to amuse my uncle.
You see everybody cannot talk to him, and he will not
talk to everybody.”
“He talked enough to her in all conscience,”
said Mrs. Bonteen, who was now more angry than ever.
The Duellists Meet
Lord Chiltern arrived, and Phineas was a little nervous
as to their meeting. He came back from shooting
on the day in question, and was told by the servant
that Lord Chiltern was in the house. Phineas went
into the billiard-room in his knickerbockers, thinking
probably that he might be there, and then into the
drawing-room, and at last into the library,—but
Lord Chiltern was not to be found. At last he
came across Violet.
“Have you seen him?” he asked.
“Yes;—he was with me half an hour
since, walking round the gardens.”
“And how is he? Come;—tell me
something about him.”
“I never knew him to be more pleasant.
He would give no promise about Saulsby, but he did
not say that he would not go.”
“Does he know that I am here?”
“Yes;—I told him so. I told
him how much pleasure I should have in seeing you
two together,—as friends.”
“And what did he say?”
“He laughed, and said you were the best fellow
in the world. You see I am obliged to be explicit.”
“But why did he laugh?” Phineas asked.
“He did not tell me, but I suppose it was because
he was thinking of a little trip he once took to Belgium,
and he perceived that I knew all about it.”
“I wonder who told you. But never mind.
I do not mean to ask any questions. As I do not
like that our first meeting should be before all the
people in the drawing-room, I will go to him in his
own room.”
“Do, do;—that will be so nice of
you.”
Phineas sent his card up by a servant, and in a few
minutes was standing with his hand on the lock of
Lord Chiltern’s door. The last time he
had seen this man, they had met with pistols in their
hands to shoot at each other, and Lord Chiltern had
in truth done his very best to shoot his opponent.
The cause of quarrel was the same between them as
ever. Phineas had not given up Violet, and had
no intention of giving her up. And he had received
no intimation whatever from his rival that there was
to be a truce between them. Phineas had indeed
written in friendship to Lord Chiltern, but he had
