his friend that he would be made welcome in Portman Square.  “I think I shall leave those diggings altogether,” Lord Chiltern said to him.  “My father annoys me by everything he says and does, and I annoy him by saying and doing nothing.”  Then there came an invitation to him from Lady Laura and Mr. Kennedy.  Would he come to Grosvenor Place?  Lady Laura pressed this very much, though in truth Mr. Kennedy had hardly done more than give a cold assent.  But Lord Chiltern would not hear of it.  “There is some reason for my going to my father’s house,” said he, “though he and I are not the best friends in the world; but there can be no reason for my going to the house of a man I dislike so much as I do Robert Kennedy.”  The matter was settled in the manner told above.  Miss Pouncefoot’s rooms were prepared for him at Mr. Bunce’s house, and Phineas Finn went down to Willingford and brought him up.  “I’ve sold Bonebreaker,” he said,—­“to a young fellow whose neck will certainly be the sacrifice if he attempts to ride him.  I’d have given him to you, Phineas, only you wouldn’t have known what to do with him.”

Lord Chiltern when he came up to London was still in bandages, though, as the surgeon said, his bones seemed to have been made to be broken and set again; and his bandages of course were a sufficient excuse for his visiting the house neither of his father nor his brother-in-law.  But Lady Laura went to him frequently, and thus became acquainted with our hero’s home and with Mrs. Bunce.  And there were messages taken from Violet to the man in bandages, some of which lost nothing in the carrying.  Once Lady Laura tried to make Violet think that it would be right, or rather not wrong, that they two should go together to Lord Chiltern’s rooms.

“And would you have me tell my aunt, or would you have me not tell her?” Violet asked.

“I would have you do just as you pleased,” Lady Laura answered.

“So I shall,” Violet replied, “but I will do nothing that I should be ashamed to tell any one.  Your brother professes to be in love with me.”

“He is in love with you,” said Lady Laura.  “Even you do not pretend to doubt his faith.”

“Very well.  In those circumstances a girl should not go to a man’s rooms unless she means to consider herself as engaged to him, even with his sister;—­not though he had broken every bone in his skin.  I know what I may do, Laura, and I know what I mayn’t; and I won’t be led either by you or by my aunt.”

“May I give him your love?”

“No;—­because you’ll give it in a wrong spirit.  He knows well enough that I wish him well;—­but you may tell him that from me, if you please.  He has from me all those wishes which one friend owes to another.”

But there were other messages sent from Violet through Phineas Finn which she worded with more show of affection,—­perhaps as much for the discomfort of Phineas as for the consolation of Lord Chiltern.  “Tell him to take care of himself,” said Violet, “and bid him not to have any more of those wild brutes that are not fit for any Christian to ride.  Tell him that I say so.  It’s a great thing to be brave; but what’s the use of being foolhardy?”