By the time that Mr Mildmay’s great bill was going into committee Phineas was able to move about London in comfort — with his arm, however, still in a sling¹. There had been nothing more about him and his wound in the People’s Banner, and he was beginning to hope that that nuisance would also be allowed to die away. He had seen Lady Laura — having dined in Grosvenor Place, where he had been petted to his heart’s content. His dinner had been cut up for him, and his wound had been treated with the tenderest sympathy. And, singular to say, no questions were asked. He had been to Kent and had come by an accident. No more than that was told, and his dear sympathising friends were content to receive so much information, and to ask for no more. But he had not as yet seen Violet Effingham, and he was beginning to think that this romance about Violet might as well be brought to a close. He had not, however, as yet been able to go into crowded rooms, and unless he went out to large parties he could not be sure that he would meet Miss Effingham.

At last he resolved that he would tell Lady Laura the whole truth — not the truth about the duel², but the truth about Violet Effingham, and ask for her assistance. When making this resolution, I think that he must have forgotten much that he had learned of his friend’s character; and by making it, I think that he showed also that he had not learned as much as his opportunities might have taught him. He knew Lady Laura’s obstinacy³ of purpose, he knew her devotion to her brother, and he knew also how desirous she had been that her brother should win Violet Effingham for himself. This knowledge should, I think, have sufficed to show him how improbable it was that Lady Laura should assist him in his enterprise. But beyond all this was the fact — a fact as to the consequences of which Phineas himself was entirely⁴ blind, beautifully ignorant — that Lady Laura had once condescended⁶ to love himself. Nay⁷ — she had gone farther than this, and had ventured to tell him, even after her marriage, that the remembrance of some feeling that had once dwelt in her heart in regard to him was still a danger to her. She had warned him from Loughlinter, and then had received him in London — and now he selected her as his confidante in this love affair! Had he not been beautifully ignorant and most modestly blind, he would surely have placed his confidence elsewhere.

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