“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.” “May I say we 'll come for her? The great mystery will be so perfectly in keeping with one of the household carriages and your Excellency's liveries.” “Won't that be too strong, Balfour?” said the Viceroy, laughing. “Nothing is too strong, my Lord, in this country. They take their blunders neat as they do their sherry, and I'm sure that this part of the arrangement will, in the gossip it will give rise to, be about the best of the whole exploit.” “Take your own way, then; only make no such mistake as you made with the husband. No documents, Balfour,--no documents, I beg;” and with this warning laughingly given, but by no means so pleasantly taken, his Excellency went off and left him. CHAPTER XLIII. MR. BALFOUR'S MISSION Lady Lendrick was dictating to her secretary, Miss Morse, the Annual Report of the “Benevolent Ballad-Singers' Aid Society,” when her servant announced the arrival of Mr. Cholmondely Balfour. She stopped abruptly short at a pathetic bit of description,--“The aged minstrel, too old for erotic poetry, and yet debarred by the stern rules of a repressive policy from the strains of patriotic song,”--for, be it said parenthetically, Lady Lendrick affected “Irishry” to a large extent,--and, dismissing Miss Morse to an adjoining room, she desired the servant to introduce Mr. Balfour.