Our pages have lately been taken up almost exclusively with the troubles of Phineas Finn, and indeed have so far not unfairly represented the feelings and interest of people generally at the time. Not to have talked of Phineas Finn from the middle of May to the middle of July in that year would have exhibited great ignorance or a cynical¹ disposition². But other things went on also. Moons waxed and waned³; children were born; marriages were contracted; and the hopes and fears of the little world around did not come to an end because Phineas Finn was not to be hung. Among others who had interests of their own there was poor Adelaide Palliser, whom we last saw under the affliction of Mr Spooner’s love — but who before that had encountered the much deeper affliction of a quarrel with her own lover. She had desired him to free her — and he had gone. Indeed, as to his going at that moment there had been no alternative, as he considered himself to have been turned out of Lord Chiltern’s house. The red-headed lord, in the fierceness of his defence of Miss Palliser, had told the lover that under such and such circumstances he could not be allowed to remain at Harrington Hall. Lord Chiltern had said something about “his roof’. Now, when a host questions the propriety⁴ of a guest remaining under his roof, the guest is obliged to go. Gerard Maule had gone; and, having offended his sweetheart by a most impolite allusion⁵ to Boulogne, had been forced to go as a rejected lover. From that day to this he had done nothing — not because he was contented⁶ with the lot assigned to him, for every morning, as he lay on his bed, which he usually did till twelve, he swore to himself that nothing should separate him from Adelaide Palliser — but simply because to do nothing was customary with him. “What is a man to do?” he not unnaturally⁷ asked his friend Captain Boodle at the club. “Let her out on the grass for a couple of months”, said Captain Boodle, “and she’ll come up as clean as a whistle. When they get these humours there’s nothing like giving them a run.” Captain Boodle

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