t me have your question again,"
said Phineas, "and I will answer it if I find that I can do so
without loss of self-respect."

"I ask you in what position you stand towards Miss Effingham. Mind,
I do not doubt at all, but I choose to have a reply from yourself."

"You will remember, of course, that I can only answer to the best of
my belief."

"Answer to the best of your belief."

"I think she regards me as an intimate friend."

"Had you said as an indifferent acquaintance, you would, I think,
have been nearer the mark. But we will let that be. I presume I
may understand that you have given up any idea of changing that
position?"

"You may understand nothing of the kind, Lord Chiltern."

"Why;--what hope have you?"

"That is another thing. I shall not speak of that;--at any rate not
to you."

"Then, sir,--" and now Lord Chiltern advanced another step and raised
his hand as though he were about to put it with some form of violence
on the person of his rival.

"Stop, Chiltern," said Phineas, stepping back, so that there was some
article of furniture between him and his adversary. "I do not choose
that there should be a riot here."

"What do you call a riot, sir? I believe that after all you are a
poltroon. What I require of you is that you shall meet me. Will you
do that?"

"You mean,--to fight?"

"Yes,--to fight; to fight; to fight. For what other purpose do you
suppose that I can wish to meet you?" Phineas felt at the moment that
the fighting of a duel would be destructive to all his political
hopes. Few Englishmen fight duels in these days. They who do so
are always reckoned to be fools. And a duel between him and Lord
Brentford's son must, as he thought, separate him from Violet, from
Lady Laura, from Lord Brentford, and from his borough. But yet how
could he refuse? "What have you to think of, sir, when such an offer
as that is made to you?" said the fiery-red lord.

"I have to think whether I have courage enough to refuse to make
myself an ass."

"You say that you do not wish to have a riot. That is your way to
escape what you call--a riot."

"You want to bully me, Chiltern."

"No, sir;--I simply want this, that you should leave me where you
found me, and not interfere with that which you have long known I
claim as my own."

"But it is not your own."

"Then you can only fight me."

"You had better send some friend to me, and I will name some one,
whom he shall meet."

"Of course I wil