allowed up." Now, Lord Fawn in making his proposals had been
magnanimous in his offers as to settlements and pecuniary provisions
generally.

For some minutes after that Phineas did not speak another word, and
the conversation generally was not so brisk and bright as it was
expected to be at Madame Goesler's. Madame Max Goesler herself
thoroughly understood our hero's position, and felt for him. She
would have encouraged no questionings about Violet Effingham had
she thought that they would have led to such a result, and now she
exerted herself to turn the minds of her guests to other subjects.
At last she succeeded; and after a while, too, Phineas himself was
able to talk. He drank two or three glasses of wine, and dashed
away into politics, taking the earliest opportunity in his power of
contradicting Lord Fawn very plainly on one or two matters. Laurence
Fitzgibbon was of course of opinion that the ministry could not stay
in long. Since he had left the Government the ministers had made
wonderful mistakes, and he spoke of them quite as an enemy might
speak. "And yet, Fitz," said Mr. Bonteen, "you used to be so staunch
a supporter."

"I have seen the error of my way, I can assure you," said Laurence.

"I always observe," said Madame Max Goesler, "that when any of
you gentlemen resign,--which you usually do on some very trivial
matter,--the resigning gentleman becomes of all foes the bitterest.
Somebody goes on very well with his friends, agreeing most cordially
about everything, till he finds that his public virtue cannot swallow
some little detail, and then he resigns. Or some one, perhaps, on the
other side has attacked him, and in the melee he is hurt, and so he
resigns. But when he has resigned, and made his parting speech full
of love and gratitude, I know well after that where to look for the
bitterest hostility to his late friends. Yes, I am beginning to
understand the way in which politics are done in England."

All this was rather severe upon Laurence Fitzgibbon; but he was a man
of the world, and bore it better than Phineas had borne his defeat.

The dinner, taken altogether, was not a success, and so Madame
Goesler understood. Lord Fawn, after he had been contradicted by
Phineas, hardly opened his mouth. Phineas himself talked rather too
much and rather too loudly; and Mrs. Bonteen, who was well enough
inclined to flatter Lord Fawn, contradicted him. "I made a mistake,"
said Madame Goesler afterwards,