"Not lately."
"Nor Mr. Kennedy?"
"I sometimes see him in the House." The visit to the Colonial Office of which the reader has been made aware had not at that time as yet been made.
"I am sorry for all that," she said. Upon which Phineas smiled and shook his head. "I am very sorry that there should be a quarrel between you two."
"There is no quarrel."
"I used to think that you and he might do so much for each other,—that is, of course, if you could make a friend of him."
"He is a man of whom it is very hard to make a friend," said Phineas, feeling that he was dishonest to Mr. Kennedy in saying so, but thinking that such dishonesty was justified by what he owed to Lady Laura.
"Yes;—he is hard, and what I call ungenial. We won't say anything about him,—will we? Have you seen much of the Earl?" This she asked as though such a question had no reference whatever to Lord Chiltern.
"Oh dear,—alas, alas!"
"You have not quarrelled with him too?"