all questions of fire-arms to be arranged between the
Horse Guards and the War Office. I have heard a good deal about it
since I saw you, and I retract a part of what I said. But a duel is a
foolish thing,--a very foolish thing. Come;--here is dinner." And the
Earl walked off with Lady Cantrip, and Lord Cantrip walked off with
Lady Laura. Barrington Erle followed, and Phineas had an opportunity
of saying a word to his friend, Lord Chiltern, as they went down
together.

"It's all right between you and your father?"

"Yes;--after a fashion. There is no knowing how long it will last. He
wants me to do three things, and I won't do any one of them."

"What are the three?"

"To go into Parliament, to be an owner of sheep and oxen, and to hunt
in his own county. I should never attend the first, I should ruin
myself with the second, and I should never get a run in the third."
But there was not a word said about his marriage.

There were only seven who sat down to dinner, and the six were all
people with whom Phineas was or had been on most intimate terms.
Lord Cantrip was his official chief, and, since that connection had
existed between them, Lady Cantrip had been very gracious to him.
She quite understood the comfort which it was to her husband to have
under him, as his representative in the House of Commons, a man whom
he could thoroughly trust and like, and therefore she had used her
woman's arts to bind Phineas to her lord in more than mere official
bondage. She had tried her skill also upon Laurence Fitzgibbon,--but
altogether in vain. He had eaten her dinners and accepted her
courtesies, and had given for them no return whatever. But Phineas
had possessed a more grateful mind, and had done all that had been
required of him;--had done all that had been required of him till
there had come that terrible absurdity in Ireland. "I knew very well
what sort of things would happen when they brought such a man as Mr.
Monk into the Cabinet," Lady Cantrip had said to her husband.

But though the party was very small, and though the guests were all
his intimate friends, Phineas suspected nothing special till an
attack was made upon him as soon as the servants had left the room.
This was done in the presence of the two ladies, and, no doubt, had
been preconcerted. There was Lord Cantrip there, who had already said
much to him, and Barrington Erle who had said more even than Lord
Cantrip. Lord Brentford, himself a member of the