Certainly I think that the duel did him no harm in society.  Otherwise he would hardly have been asked to a semi-political dinner at Lady Glencora Palliser’s, even though he might have been invited to make one of the five hundred guests who were crowded into her saloons and staircases after the dinner was over.  To have been one of the five hundred was nothing; but to be one of the sixteen was a great deal,—­was indeed so much that Phineas, not understanding as yet the advantage of his own comeliness, was at a loss to conceive why so pleasant an honour was conferred upon him.  There was no man among the eight men at the dinner-party not in Parliament,—­and the only other except Phineas not attached to the Government was Mr. Palliser’s great friend, John Grey, the member for Silverbridge.  There were four Cabinet Ministers in the room,—­the Duke, Lord Cantrip, Mr. Gresham, and the owner of the mansion.  There was also Barrington Erle and young Lord Fawn, an Under-Secretary of State.  But the wit and grace of the ladies present lent more of character to the party than even the position of the men.  Lady Glencora Palliser herself was a host.  There was no woman then in London better able to talk to a dozen people on a dozen subjects; and then, moreover, she was still in the flush of her beauty and the bloom of her youth.  Lady Laura was there;—­by what means divided from her husband Phineas could not imagine; but Lady Glencora was good at such divisions.  Lady Cantrip had been allowed to come with her lord;—­but, as was well understood, Lord Cantrip was not so manifestly a husband as was Mr. Kennedy.  There are men who cannot guard themselves from the assertion of marital rights at most inappropriate moments.  Now Lord Cantrip lived with his wife most happily; yet you should pass hours with him and her together, and hardly know that they knew each other.  One of the Duke’s daughters was there,—­but not the Duchess, who was known to be heavy;—­and there was the beauteous Marchioness of Hartletop.  Violet Effingham was in the room also,—­giving Phineas a blow at the heart as he saw her smile.  Might it be that he could speak a word to her on this occasion?  Mr. Grey had also brought his wife;—­and then there was Madame Max Goesler.  Phineas found that it was his fortune to take down to dinner,—­not Violet Effingham, but Madame Max Goesler.  And, when he was placed at dinner, on the other side of him there sat Lady Hartletop, who addressed the few words which she spoke exclusively to Mr. Palliser.  There had been in former days matters difficult of arrangement between those two; but I think that those old passages had now been forgotten by them both.  Phineas was, therefore, driven to depend exclusively on Madame Max Goesler for conversation, and he found that he was not called upon to cast his seed into barren ground.