r arm out, have you?" said Ratler, observing the sling for
the first time. "I'm sorry for that. But you'll stop and vote?"

"Yes;--I'll stop and vote. I've come up for the purpose. But I hope
it won't be very late."

"There are both Daubeny and Gresham to speak yet, and at least three
others. I don't suppose it will be much before three. But you're
all right now. You can go down and smoke if you like!" In this way
Phineas Finn spoke in the debate, and heard the end of it, voting for
his party, and fought his duel with Lord Chiltern in the middle of
it.

He did go and sit on a well-cushioned bench in the smoking-room, and
then was interrogated by many of his friends as to his mysterious
absence. He had, he said, been down in Kent, and had had an accident
with his arm, by which he had been confined. When this questioner and
that perceived that there was some little mystery in the matter, the
questioners did not push their questions, but simply entertained
their own surmises. One indiscreet questioner, however, did trouble
Phineas sorely, declaring that there must have been some affair in
which a woman had had a part, and asking after the young lady of
Kent. This indiscreet questioner was Laurence Fitzgibbon, who, as
Phineas thought, carried his spirit of intrigue a little too far.
Phineas stayed and voted, and then he went painfully home to his
lodgings.

How singular would it be if this affair of the duel should pass away,
and no one be a bit the wiser but those four men who had been with
him on the sands at Blankenberg! Again he wondered at his own luck.
He had told himself that a duel with Lord Chiltern must create
a quarrel between him and Lord Chiltern's relations, and also
between him and Violet Effingham; that it must banish him from
his comfortable seat for Loughton, and ruin him in regard to his
political prospects. And now he had fought his duel, and was back in
town,--and the thing seemed to have been a thing of nothing. He had
not as yet seen Lady Laura or Violet, but he had no doubt but they
both were as much in the dark as other people. The day might arrive,
he thought, on which it would be pleasant for him to tell Violet
Effingham what had occurred, but that day had not come as yet.
Whither Lord Chiltern had gone, or what Lord Chiltern intended to
do, he had not any idea; but he imagined that he should soon hear
something of her brother from Lady Laura. That Lord Chiltern should
say a word to Lady Lau