will be a duchess then,
and I shall no longer be wanted."

"But even if you were wanted--?"

"Oh, of course. It must last the Duke's time, and last no longer. It
would not be a healthy kind of life were it not that I do my very
best to make the evening of his days pleasant for him, and in that
way to be of some service in the world. It has done me good to think
that I have in some small degree sacrificed myself. Let me see;--we
are to turn here to the left. That goes to Copperhouse Cross, no
doubt. Is it not odd that I should have told you all this history?"

"Just because this brute would not jump over the fence."

"I dare say I should have told you, even if he had jumped over; but
certainly this has been a great opportunity. Do you tell your friend
Lord Chiltern not to abuse the poor Duke any more before me. I dare
say our host is all right in what he says; but I don't like it.
You'll come and see me in London, Mr. Finn?"

"But you'll be at Matching?"

"I do get a few days at home sometimes. You see I have escaped for
the present,--or otherwise you and I would not have come to grief
together in Broughton Spinnies."

Soon after this they were overtaken by others who were returning
home, and who had been more fortunate than they in getting away with
the hounds. The fox had gone straight for Trumpeton Wood, not daring
to try the gorse on the way, and then had been run to ground.
Chiltern was again in a towering passion, as the earths, he said,
had been purposely left open. But on this matter the men who had
overtaken our friends were both of opinion that Chiltern was wrong.
He had allowed it to be understood that he would not draw Trumpeton
Wood, and he had therefore no right to expect that the earths should
be stopped. But there were and had been various opinions on this
difficult point, as the laws of hunting are complex, recondite,
numerous, traditional, and not always perfectly understood. Perhaps
the day may arrive in which they shall be codified under the care of
some great and laborious master of hounds.

"And they did nothing more?" asked Phineas.

"Yes;--they chopped another fox before they left the place,--so that
in point of fact they have drawn Trumpeton. But they didn't mean it."

When Madame Max Goesler and Phineas had reached Harrington Hall
they were able to give their own story of the day's sport to Lady
Chiltern, as the remainder of the party had not as yet returned.

CHAPTER XVIII