“He’d give up those little things if you asked him.”

“I shouldn’t have the heart to do it.  Besides, this isn’t his time of the year for making proposals.  His love fever, which is of a very low kind, and intermits annually, never comes on till the autumn.  It is a rural malady, against which he is proof while among his clubs!”

“Well, Violet,—­I am like your aunt.”

“Like Lady Baldock?”

“In one respect.  I, too, will vary my prescription.”

“What do you mean, Laura?”

“Just this,—­that if you like to marry Phineas Finn, I will say that you are right.”

“Heaven and earth!  And why am I to marry Phineas Finn?”

“Only for two reasons; because he loves you, and because—­”

“No,—­I deny it.  I do not.”

“I had come to fancy that you did.”

“Keep your fancy more under control then.  But upon my word I can’t understand this.  He was your great friend.”

“What has that to do with it?” demanded Lady Laura.

“And you have thrown over your brother, Laura?”

“You have thrown him over.  Is he to go on for ever asking and being refused?”

“I do not know why he should not,” said Violet, “seeing how very little trouble it gives him.  Half an hour once in six months does it all for him, allowing him time for coming and going in a cab.”

“Violet, I do not understand you.  Have you refused Oswald so often because he does not pass hours on his knees before you?”

“No, indeed!  His nature would be altered very much for the worse before he could do that.”

“Why do you throw it in his teeth then that he does not give you more of his time?”

“Why have you come to tell me to marry Mr. Phineas Finn?  That is what I want to know.  Mr. Phineas Finn, as far as I am aware, has not a shilling in the world,—­except a month’s salary now due to him from the Government.  Mr. Phineas Finn I believe to be the son of a country doctor in Ireland,—­with about seven sisters.  Mr. Phineas Finn is a Roman Catholic.  Mr. Phineas Finn is,—­or was a short time ago,—­in love with another lady; and Mr. Phineas Finn is not so much in love at this moment but what he is able to intrust his cause to an ambassador.  None short of a royal suitor should ever do that with success.”

“Has he never pleaded his cause to you himself?”

“My dear, I never tell gentlemen’s secrets.  It seems that if he has, his success was so trifling that he has thought he had better trust some one else for the future.”

“He has not trusted me.  He has not given me any commission.”

“Then why have you come?”

“Because,—­I hardly know how to tell his story.  There have been things about Oswald which made it almost necessary that Mr. Finn should explain himself to me.”

“I know it all;—­about their fighting.  Foolish young men!  I am not a bit obliged to either of them,—­not a bit.  Only fancy, if my aunt knew it, what a life she would lead me!  Gustavus knows all about it, and I feel that I am living at his mercy.  Why were they so wrong-headed?”