“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.

CHAPTER XLI

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?”