came
an invitation to him from Lady Laura and Mr. Kennedy. Would he come
to Grosvenor Place? Lady Laura pressed this very much, though in
truth Mr. Kennedy had hardly done more than give a cold assent. But
Lord Chiltern would not hear of it. "There is some reason for my
going to my father's house," said he, "though he and I are not the
best friends in the world; but there can be no reason for my going
to the house of a man I dislike so much as I do Robert Kennedy." The
matter was settled in the manner told above. Miss Pouncefoot's rooms
were prepared for him at Mr. Bunce's house, and Phineas Finn went
down to Willingford and brought him up. "I've sold Bonebreaker," he
said,--"to a young fellow whose neck will certainly be the sacrifice
if he attempts to ride him. I'd have given him to you, Phineas, only
you wouldn't have known what to do with him."

Lord Chiltern when he came up to London was still in bandages,
though, as the surgeon said, his bones seemed to have been made to be
broken and set again; and his bandages of course were a sufficient
excuse for his visiting the house neither of his father nor his
brother-in-law. But Lady Laura went to him frequently, and thus
became acquainted with our hero's home and with Mrs. Bunce. And there
were messages taken from Violet to the man in bandages, some of which
lost nothing in the carrying. Once Lady Laura tried to make Violet
think that it would be right, or rather not wrong, that they two
should go together to Lord Chiltern's rooms.

"And would you have me tell my aunt, or would you have me not tell
her?" Violet asked.

"I would have you do just as you pleased," Lady Laura answered.

"So I shall," Violet replied, "but I will do nothing that I should be
ashamed to tell any one. Your brother professes to be in love with
me."

"He is in love with you," said Lady Laura. "Even you do not pretend
to doubt his faith."

"Very well. In those circumstances a girl should not go to a man's
rooms unless she means to consider herself as engaged to him, even
with his sister;--not though he had broken every bone in his skin. I
know what I may do, Laura, and I know what I mayn't; and I won't be
led either by you or by my aunt."

"May I give him your love?"

"No;--because you'll give it in a wrong spirit. He knows well enough
that I wish him well;--but you may tell him that from me, if you
please. He has from me all those wishes which one friend owes to
another."

But there