The session was to be closed at the end of June, to the great dismay of London tradesmen and of young ladies who had not been entirely successful in the early season.  But before the old Parliament was closed, and the writs for the new election were despatched, there occurred an incident which was of very much importance to Phineas Finn.  Near the end of June, when the remaining days of the session were numbered by three or four, he had been dining at Lord Brentford’s house in Portman Square in company with Mr. Kennedy.  But Lady Laura had not been there.  At this time he saw Lord Brentford not unfrequently, and there was always a word said about Lord Chiltern.  The father would ask how the son occupied himself, and Phineas would hope,—­though hitherto he had hoped in vain,—­that he would induce the Earl to come and see Lord Chiltern.  Lord Brentford could never be brought to that; but it was sufficiently evident that he would have done so, had he not been afraid to descend so far from the altitude of his paternal wrath.  On this evening, at about eleven, Mr. Kennedy and Phineas left the house together, and walked from the Square through Orchard Street into Oxford Street.  Here their ways parted, but Phineas crossed the road with Mr. Kennedy, as he was making some reply to a second invitation to Loughlinter.  Phineas, considering what had been said before on the subject, thought that the invitation came late, and that it was not warmly worded.  He had, therefore, declined it, and was in the act of declining it, when he crossed the road with Mr. Kennedy.  In walking down Orchard Street from the Square he had seen two men standing in the shadow a few yards up a mews or small alley that was there, but had thought nothing of them.  It was just that period of the year when there is hardly any of the darkness of night; but at this moment there were symptoms of coming rain, and heavy drops began to fall; and there were big clouds coming and going before the young moon.  Mr. Kennedy had said that he would get a cab, but he had seen none as he crossed Oxford Street, and had put up his umbrella as he made his way towards Park Street.  Phineas as he left him distinctly perceived the same two figures on the other side of Oxford Street, and then turning into the shadow of a butcher’s porch, he saw them cross the street in the wake of Mr. Kennedy.  It was now raining in earnest, and the few passengers who were out were scudding away quickly, this way and that.

It hardly occurred to Phineas to think that any danger was imminent to Mr. Kennedy from the men, but it did occur to him that he might as well take some notice of the matter.  Phineas knew that Mr. Kennedy would make his way down Park Street, that being his usual route from Portman Square towards his own home, and knew also that he himself could again come across Mr. Kennedy’s track by going down North Audley Street to the corner of Grosvenor Square, and thence by Brook Street into Park Street.  Without much