He had told himself over and over again that that
life which he had lived in London had been, if not a dream, at any
rate not more significant than a parenthesis in his days, which,
as of course it had no bearing on those which had gone before, so
neither would it influence those which were to follow. The dear
friends of that period of feverish success would for the future
be to him as--nothing. That was the lesson of wisdom which he had
endeavoured to teach himself, and the facts of the last two years had
seemed to show that the lesson was a true lesson. He had disappeared
from among his former companions, and had heard almost nothing from
them. From neither Lord Chiltern or his wife had he received any
tidings. He had expected to receive none,--had known that in the
common course of things none was to be expected. There were many
others with whom he had been intimate--Barrington Erle, Laurence
Fitzgibbon, Mr. Monk, a politician who had been in the Cabinet, and
in consequence of whose political teaching he, Phineas Finn, had
banished himself from the political world;--from none of these had he
received a line till there came that letter summoning him back to the
battle.
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