Phineas as he walked across the park towards his club made up his mind that he would forget the scene by the waterfall.  He had never quite known what it had meant, and he would wipe it away from his mind altogether.  He acknowledged to himself that chivalry did demand of him that he should never allow himself to think of Lady Laura’s rash words to him.  That she was not happy with her husband was very clear to him;—­but that was altogether another affair.  She might be unhappy with her husband without indulging any guilty love.  He had never thought it possible that she could be happy living with such a husband as Mr. Kennedy.  All that, however, was now past remedy, and she must simply endure the mode of life which she had prepared for herself.  There were other men and women in London tied together for better and worse, in reference to whose union their friends knew that there would be no better;—­that it must be all worse.  Lady Laura must bear it, as it was borne by many another married woman.

On the Monday morning Phineas called at Moroni’s Hotel at ten o’clock, but in spite of Lady Laura’s assurance to the contrary, he found that Lord Chiltern was out.  He had felt some palpitation at the heart as he made his inquiry, knowing well the fiery nature of the man he expected to see.  It might be that there would be some actual personal conflict between him and this half-mad lord before he got back again into the street.  What Lady Laura had said about her brother did not in the estimation of Phineas make this at all the less probable.  The half-mad lord was so singular in his ways that it might well be that he should speak handsomely of a rival behind his back and yet take him by the throat as soon as they were together, face to face.  And yet, as Phineas thought, it was necessary that he should see the half-mad lord.  He had written a letter to which he had received no reply, and he considered it to be incumbent on him to ask whether it had been received and whether any answer to it was intended to be given.  He went therefore to Lord Chiltern at once,—­as I have said, with some feeling at his heart that there might be violence, at any rate of words, before he should find himself again in the street.  But Lord Chiltern was not there.  All that the porter knew was that Lord Chiltern intended to leave the house on the following morning.  Then Phineas wrote a note and left it with the porter.

   DEAR CHILTERN,

I particularly want to see you with reference to a letter I wrote to you last summer.  I must be in the House to-day from four till the debate is over.  I will be at the Reform Club from two till half-past three, and will come if you will send for me, or I will meet you anywhere at any hour to-morrow morning.

   Yours, always, P. F.

No message came to him at the Reform Club, and he was in his seat in the House by four o’clock.  During the debate a note was brought to him, which ran as follows:—­