"Lord Brentford would put me down at once if I spoke to him on such a
subject."

"I am sure he would not. You are too big to be put down, and no man
can really dislike to hear his son well spoken of by those who are
well spoken of themselves. Won't you try, Mr. Finn?" Phineas said
that he would think of it,--that he would try if any fit opportunity
could be found. "Of course you know how intimate I have been with the
Standishes," said Violet; "that Laura is to me a sister, and that
Oswald used to be almost a brother."

"Why do not you speak to Lord Brentford;--you who are his favourite?"

"There are reasons, Mr. Finn. Besides, how can any girl come forward
and say that she knows the disposition of any man? You can live with
Lord Chiltern, and see what he is made of, and know his thoughts, and
learn what is good in him, and also what is bad. After all, how is
any girl really to know anything of a man's life?"

"If I can do anything, Miss Effingham, I will," said Phineas.

"And then we shall all of us be so grateful to you," said Violet,
with her sweetest smile.

Phineas, retreating from this conversation, stood for a while alone,
thinking of it. Had she spoken thus of Lord Chiltern because she did
love him or because she did not? And the sweet commendations which
had fallen from her lips upon him,--him, Phineas Finn,--were they
compatible with anything like a growing partiality for himself, or
were they incompatible with any such feeling? Had he most reason to
be comforted or to be discomfited by what had taken place? It seemed
hardly possible to his imagination that Violet Effingham should
love such a nobody as he. And yet he had had fair evidence that one
standing as high in the world as Violet Effingham would fain have
loved him could she have followed the dictates of her heart. He had
trembled when he had first resolved to declare his passion to Lady
Laura,--fearing that she would scorn him as being presumptuous. But
there had been no cause for such fear as that. He had declared his
love, and she had not thought him to be presumptuous. That now was
ages ago,--eight months since; and Lady Laura had become a married
woman. Since he had become so warmly alive to the charms of Violet
Effingham he had determined, with stern propriety, that a passion for
a married woman was disgraceful. Such love was in itself a sin, even
though it was accompanied by the severest forbearance and the most
rigid propriety of conduct.