“It’s all right between you and your father?”

“Yes;—­after a fashion.  There is no knowing how long it will last.  He wants me to do three things, and I won’t do any one of them.”

“What are the three?”

“To go into Parliament, to be an owner of sheep and oxen, and to hunt in his own county.  I should never attend the first, I should ruin myself with the second, and I should never get a run in the third.”  But there was not a word said about his marriage.

There were only seven who sat down to dinner, and the six were all people with whom Phineas was or had been on most intimate terms.  Lord Cantrip was his official chief, and, since that connection had existed between them, Lady Cantrip had been very gracious to him.  She quite understood the comfort which it was to her husband to have under him, as his representative in the House of Commons, a man whom he could thoroughly trust and like, and therefore she had used her woman’s arts to bind Phineas to her lord in more than mere official bondage.  She had tried her skill also upon Laurence Fitzgibbon,—­but altogether in vain.  He had eaten her dinners and accepted her courtesies, and had given for them no return whatever.  But Phineas had possessed a more grateful mind, and had done all that had been required of him;—­had done all that had been required of him till there had come that terrible absurdity in Ireland.  “I knew very well what sort of things would happen when they brought such a man as Mr. Monk into the Cabinet,” Lady Cantrip had said to her husband.

But though the party was very small, and though the guests were all his intimate friends, Phineas suspected nothing special till an attack was made upon him as soon as the servants had left the room.  This was done in the presence of the two ladies, and, no doubt, had been preconcerted.  There was Lord Cantrip there, who had already said much to him, and Barrington Erle who had said more even than Lord Cantrip.  Lord Brentford, himself a member of the Cabinet, opened the attack by asking whether it was actually true that Mr. Monk meant to go on with his motion.  Barrington Erle asserted that Mr. Monk positively would do so.  “And Gresham will oppose it?” asked the Earl.  “Of course he will,” said Barrington.  “Of course he will,” said Lord Cantrip.  “I know what I should think of him if he did not,” said Lady Cantrip.  “He is the last man in the world to be forced into a thing,” said Lady Laura.  Then Phineas knew pretty well what was coming on him.

Lord Brentford began again by asking how many supporters Mr. Monk would have in the House.  “That depends upon the amount of courage which the Conservatives may have,” said Barrington Erle.  “If they dare to vote for a thoroughly democratic measure, simply for the sake of turning us out, it is quite on the cards that they may succeed.”  “But of our own people?” asked Lord Cantrip.  “You had better inquire that of Phineas Finn,” said Barrington.  And then the attack was made.