"Lord Chiltern was furious," said Miss Palliser, laughing, "and
therefore, of course, I became furious too, and swore that it was
an awful shame. Then they all swore that it was an awful shame, and
everybody was furious. And you might hear one man saying to another
all day long, 'By George, this is too bad.' But I never could quite
make out what was amiss, and I'm sure the men didn't know."

"What was it, Oswald?"

"Never mind now. One doesn't go to Trumpeton Wood expecting to be
happy there. I've half a mind to swear I'll never draw it again."

"I've been asking him what was the matter all the way home," said
Miss Palliser, "but I don't think he knows himself."

"Come upstairs, Phineas, and I'll show you your room," said Lord
Chiltern. "It's not quite as comfortable as the old 'Bull', but we
make it do."

Phineas, when he was alone, could not help standing for awhile with
his back to the fire thinking of it all. He did already feel himself
to be at home in that house, and his doing so was a contradiction to
all the wisdom which he had been endeavouring to teach himself for
the last two years. He had told himself over and over again that that
life which he had lived in London had been, if not a dream, at any
rate not more significant than a parenthesis in his days, which,
as of course it had no bearing on those which had gone before, so
neither would it influence those which were to follow. The dear
friends of that period of feverish success would for the future