Robert Kennedy.

What was he to do?  He had already begun to feel rather uncomfortable at the prospect of being separated from all his new friends as soon as the session should be over.  Laurence Fitzgibhon had asked him to make another visit to county Mayo, but that he had declined.  Lady Laura had said something to him about going abroad with her brother, and since that there had sprung up a sort of intimacy between him and Lord Chiltern; but nothing had been fixed about this foreign trip, and there were pecuniary objections to it which put it almost out of his power.  The Christmas holidays he would of course pass with his family at Killaloe, but he hardly liked the idea of hurrying off to Killaloe immediately the session should be over.  Everybody around him seemed to be looking forward to pleasant leisure doings in the country.  Men talked about grouse, and of the ladies at the houses to which they were going and of the people whom they were to meet.  Lady Laura had said nothing of her own movements for the early autumn, and no invitation had come to him to go to the Earl’s country house.  He had already felt that every one would depart and that he would be left,—­and this had made him uncomfortable.  What was he to do with the invitation from Mr. Kennedy?  He disliked the man, and had told himself half a dozen times that he despised him.  Of course he must refuse it.  Even for the sake of the scenery, and the grouse, and the pleasant party, and the feeling that going to Loughlinter in August would be the proper sort of thing to do, he must refuse it!  But it occurred to him at last that he would call in Portman Square before he wrote his note.

“Of course you will go,” said Lady Laura, in her most decided tone.

“And why?”

“In the first place it is civil in him to ask you, and why should you be uncivil in return?”

“There is nothing uncivil in not accepting a man’s invitation,” said Phineas.

“We are going,” said Lady Laura, “and I can only say that I shall be disappointed if you do not go too.  Both Mr. Gresham and Mr. Monk will be there, and I believe they have never stayed together in the same house before.  I have no doubt there are a dozen men on your side of the House who would give their eyes to be there.  Of course you will go.”

Of course he did go.  The note accepting Mr. Kennedy’s invitation was written at the Reform Club within a quarter of an hour of his leaving Portman Square.  He was very careful in writing to be not more familiar or more civil than Mr. Kennedy had been to himself, and then he signed himself “Yours truly, Phineas Finn.”  But another proposition was made to him, and a most charming proposition, during the few minutes that he remained in Portman Square.  “I am so glad,” said Lady Laura, “because I can now ask you to run down to us at Saulsby for a couple of days on your way to Loughlinter.  Till this was fixed I couldn’t ask you to come all