“They'd only say it for a week or two,” mumbled Balfour.
“So I remarked: you'll have discontent, but it will be passing. Some newspaper letters will appear, but Themis and Aristides will soon tire, and if they should not, the world who reads them will tire; and probably the only man who will remember the event three months after will be the silversmith who is cresting the covered dishes of the new creation. You think you can't go and see him, Balfour?”
“Impossible, my Lord, after what occurred between us the last time.”
“I don't take it in that way. I suspect he 'll not bear any malice. Lawyers are not thin-skinned people; they give and take such hard knocks that they lose that nice sense of injury other folks are endowed with. I think you might go.”
“I 'd rather not, my Lord,” said he, shaking his head.
“Try his wife, then.”
“They don't live together. I don't know if they're on speaking terms.”
“So much the better,—she'll know every chink of his armor, and perhaps tell us where he is vulnerable. Wait a moment. There has been some talk of a picnic on Dalkey Island. It was to be a mere household affair. What if you were to invite her?—making of course the explanation that it was a family party, that no cards had been sent out; in fact, that it was to be so close a thing the world was never to hear of it.”
“I think the bait would be irresistible, particularly when she found out that all her own set and dear friends had been passed over.”
“Charge her to secrecy,—of course she'll not keep her word.”