“Dear Mrs. Bonteen,” she said afterwards, “why did you not come and join us?  The Duke was so pleasant.”

“Two is company, and three is none,” said Mrs. Bonteen, who in her anger was hardly able to choose her words quite as well as she might have done had she been more cool.

“Our friend Madame Max has made quite a new conquest,” said Mrs. Bonteen to Lady Glencora.

“I am so pleased,” said Lady Glencora, with apparently unaffected delight.  “It is such a great thing to get anybody to amuse my uncle.  You see everybody cannot talk to him, and he will not talk to everybody.”

“He talked enough to her in all conscience,” said Mrs. Bonteen, who was now more angry than ever.

CHAPTER XLIX

The Duellists Meet

Lord Chiltern arrived, and Phineas was a little nervous as to their meeting.  He came back from shooting on the day in question, and was told by the servant that Lord Chiltern was in the house.  Phineas went into the billiard-room in his knickerbockers, thinking probably that he might be there, and then into the drawing-room, and at last into the library,—­but Lord Chiltern was not to be found.  At last he came across Violet.

“Have you seen him?” he asked.

“Yes;—­he was with me half an hour since, walking round the gardens.”

“And how is he?  Come;—­tell me something about him.”

“I never knew him to be more pleasant.  He would give no promise about Saulsby, but he did not say that he would not go.”

“Does he know that I am here?”

“Yes;—­I told him so.  I told him how much pleasure I should have in seeing you two together,—­as friends.”

“And what did he say?”

“He laughed, and said you were the best fellow in the world.  You see I am obliged to be explicit.”

“But why did he laugh?” Phineas asked.

“He did not tell me, but I suppose it was because he was thinking of a little trip he once took to Belgium, and he perceived that I knew all about it.”

“I wonder who told you.  But never mind.  I do not mean to ask any questions.  As I do not like that our first meeting should be before all the people in the drawing-room, I will go to him in his own room.”

“Do, do;—­that will be so nice of you.”

Phineas sent his card up by a servant, and in a few minutes was standing with his hand on the lock of Lord Chiltern’s door.  The last time he had seen this man, they had met with pistols in their hands to shoot at each other, and Lord Chiltern had in truth done his very best to shoot his opponent.  The cause of quarrel was the same between them as ever.  Phineas had not given up Violet, and had no intention of giving her up.  And he had received no intimation whatever from his rival that there was to be a truce between them.  Phineas had indeed written in friendship to Lord Chiltern, but he had