Lord Goring’s imperturbable butler, who caters to Lord Goring’s whims with a mixture of affection and strained tolerance. His perfect seriousness stands in counterpoint to Lord Goring’s perfect frivolousness, because both attitudes are seamless, opaque masks. Phipps’ seriousness has more in common, aesthetically, with Lord Goring’s frivolousness than with Lord Caversham’s seriousness, which is awkward and transparent.