“Oh yes, I know her. She is closely connected
with the Kennedys, who are friends of mine.”
“So I have heard. They tell me that scores
of men are raving about her. Are you one of them?”
“Oh yes;—I don’t mind being
one of sundry scores. There is nothing particular
in owning to that.”
“But you admire her?”
“Of course I do,” said Phineas.
“Ah, I see you are joking. I do amazingly.
They say women never do admire women, but I most sincerely
do admire Miss Effingham.”
“Is she a friend of yours?”
“Oh no;—I must not dare to say so
much as that. I was with her last winter for
a week at Matching, and of course I meet her about
at people’s houses. She seems to me to
be the most independent girl I ever knew in my life.
I do believe that nothing would make her marry a man
unless she loved him and honoured him, and I think
it is so very seldom that you can say that of a girl.”
“I believe so also,” said Phineas.
Then he paused a moment before he continued to speak.
“I cannot say that I know Miss Effingham very
intimately, but from what I have seen of her, I should
think it very probable that she may not marry at all.”
“Very probably,” said Madame Max Goesler,
who then again turned away to Mr. Grey.
Ten minutes after this, when the moment was just at
hand in which the ladies were to retreat, Madame Max
Goesler again addressed Phineas, looking very full
into his face as she did so. “I wonder whether
the time will ever come, Mr. Finn, in which you will
give me an account of that day’s journey to
Blankenberg?”
“To Blankenberg!”
“Yes;—to Blankenberg. I am not
asking for it now. But I shall look for it some
day.” Then Lady Glencora rose from her seat,
and Madame Max Goesler went out with the others.
Lord Fawn
What had Madame Max Goesler to do with his journey
to Blankenberg? thought Phineas, as he sat for a while
in silence between Mr. Palliser and Mr. Grey; and
why should she, who was a perfect stranger to him,
have dared to ask him such a question? But as
the conversation round the table, after the ladies
had gone, soon drifted into politics and became general,
Phineas, for a while, forgot Madame Max Goesler and
the Blankenberg journey, and listened to the eager
words of Cabinet Ministers, now and again uttering
a word of his own, and showing that he, too, was as
eager as others. But the session in Mr. Palliser’s
dining-room was not long, and Phineas soon found himself
making his way amidst a throng of coming guests into
the rooms above. His object was to meet Violet
Effingham, but, failing that, he would not be unwilling
to say a few more words to Madame Max Goesler.
He first encountered Lady Laura, to whom he had not
spoken as yet, and, finding himself standing close
to her for a while, he asked her after his late neighbour.
“Do tell me one thing, Lady Laura;—who
is Madame Max Goesler, and why have I never met her
before?”
