At this moment Lady Glencora came up to Phineas, and took him across to the Duke.  The Duke had expressed a desire to be introduced to him.  Phineas, half-pleased and half-disgusted, had no alternative, and followed Lady Glencora.  The Duke shook hands with him, and made a little bow, and said something about the garrotters, which Phineas, in his confusion, did not quite understand.  He tried to reply as he would have replied to anybody else, but the weight of the Duke’s majesty was too much for him, and he bungled.  The Duke made another little bow, and in a moment was speaking a word of condescension to some other favoured individual.  Phineas retreated altogether disgusted,—­hating the Duke, but hating himself worse; but he would not retreat in the direction of Madame Max Goesler.  It might suit that lady to take an instant little revenge for her discomfiture, but it did not suit him to do so.  The question with him would be, whether in some future part of his career it might not be his duty to assist in putting down Dukes of Omnium.

At dinner Phineas sat between Mrs. Bonteen and the Duchess of St. Bungay, and did not find himself very happy.  At the other end of the table the Duke,—­the great Duke, was seated at Lady Glencora’s right hand, and on his other side Fortune had placed Madame Max Goesler.  The greatest interest which Phineas had during the dinner was in watching the operations,—­the triumphantly successful operations of that lady.  Before dinner she had been wounded by the Duke.  The Duke had not condescended to accord the honour of his little bow of graciousness to some little flattering morsel of wit which the lady had uttered on his behoof.  She had said a sharp word or two in her momentary anger to Phineas; but when Fortune was so good to her in that matter of her place at dinner, she was not fool enough to throw away her chance.  Throughout the soup and fish she was very quiet.  She said a word or two after her first glass of champagne.  The Duke refused two dishes, one after another, and then she glided into conversation.  By the time that he had his roast mutton before him she was in full play, and as she eat her peach, the Duke was bending over her with his most gracious smile.

“Didn’t you think the session was very long, Mr. Finn?” said the Duchess to Phineas.

“Very long indeed, Duchess,” said Phineas, with his attention still fixed on Madame Max Goesler.

“The Duke found it very troublesome.”

“I daresay he did,” said Phineas.  That duke and that duchess were no more than any other man and any other man’s wife.  The session had not been longer to the Duke of St. Bungay than to all the public servants.  Phineas had the greatest possible respect for the Duke of St. Bungay, but he could not take much interest in the wailings of the Duchess on her husband’s behalf.

“And things do seem to be so very uncomfortable now,” said the Duchess,—­thinking partly of the resignation of Mr. Mildmay, and partly of the fact that her own old peculiar maid who had lived with her for thirty years had retired into private life.