“I do not know about that, but I certainly mean to try.  There will be lots of opportunities about the new Reform Bill.  Of course you know that Mr. Mildmay is going to bring it in at once.  You hear all that from Mr. Kennedy.”

“And papa has told me.  I still see papa almost every day.  You must call upon him.  Mind you do.”  Phineas said that he certainly would.  “Papa is very lonely now, and I sometimes feel that I have been almost cruel in deserting him.  And I think that he has a horror of the house,—­especially later in the year,—­always fancying that he will meet Oswald.  I am so unhappy about it all, Mr. Finn.”

“Why doesn’t your brother marry?” said Phineas, knowing nothing as yet of Lord Chiltern and Violet Effingham.  “If he were to marry well, that would bring your father round.”

“Yes,—­it would.”

“And why should he not?”

Lady Laura paused before she answered; and then she told the whole story.  “He is violently in love, and the girl he loves has refused him twice.”

“Is it with Miss Effingham?” asked Phineas, guessing the truth at once, and remembering what Miss Effingham had said to him when riding in the wood.

“Yes;—­with Violet Effingham; my father’s pet, his favourite, whom he loves next to myself,—­almost as well as myself; whom he would really welcome as a daughter.  He would gladly make her mistress of his house, and of Saulsby.  Everything would then go smoothly.”

“But she does not like Lord Chiltern?”

“I believe she loves him in her heart; but she is afraid of him.  As she says herself, a girl is bound to be so careful of herself.  With all her seeming frolic, Violet Effingham is very wise.”

Phineas, though not conscious of anything akin to jealousy, was annoyed at the revelation made to him.  Since he had heard that Lord Chiltern was in love with Miss Effingham, he did not like Lord Chiltern quite as well as he had done before.  He himself had simply admired Miss Effingham, and had taken pleasure in her society; but, though this had been all, he did not like to hear of another man wanting to marry her, and he was almost angry with Lady Laura for saying that she believed Miss Effingham loved her brother.  If Miss Effingham had twice refused Lord Chiltern, that ought to have been sufficient.  It was not that Phineas was in love with Miss Effingham himself.  As he was still violently in love with Lady Laura, any other love was of course impossible; but, nevertheless, there was something offensive to him in the story as it had been told.  “If it be wisdom on her part,” said he, answering Lady Laura’s last words, “you cannot find fault with her for her decision.”

“I find no fault;—­but I think my brother would make her happy.”