I will not ask you
to dine here as yet, because we are so frightfully dull. Do your best
on Tuesday, and then let us see you on Wednesday. Good-bye."
Phineas as he walked across the park towards his club made up his
mind that he would forget the scene by the waterfall. He had never
quite known what it had meant, and he would wipe it away from his
mind altogether. He acknowledged to himself that chivalry did demand
of him that he should never allow himself to think of Lady Laura's
rash words to him. That she was not happy with her husband was very
clear to him;--but that was altogether another affair. She might be
unhappy with her husband without indulging any guilty love. He had
never thought it possible that she could be happy living with such a
husband as Mr. Kennedy. All that, however, was now past remedy, and
she must simply endure the mode of life which she had prepared for
herself. There were other men and women in London tied together for
better and worse, in reference to whose union their friends knew that
there would be no better;--that it must be all worse. Lady Laura must
bear it, as it was borne by many another married woman.
On the Monday morning Phineas called at Moroni's Hotel at ten
o'clock, but in spite of Lady Laura's assurance to the contrary, he
found that Lord Chiltern was out.
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