a Thursday.  He had condescended to remember the information, and had acted upon it,—­and now she was not at home!  She was not at home, though he had come on a Thursday at the very hour she had named to him.  Any duke would have been cross, but the Duke of Omnium was particularly cross.  No;—­he certainly would give himself no further trouble by going to the cottage in Park Lane.  And yet Madame Max Goesler had been in her own drawing-room, while the Duke was handing out his card from the brougham below.

On the next morning there came to him a note from the cottage,—­such a pretty note!—­so penitent, so full of remorse,—­and, which was better still, so laden with disappointment, that he forgave her.

   MY DEAR DUKE,

I hardly know how to apologise to you, after having told you that I am always at home on Thursdays; and I was at home yesterday when you called.  But I was unwell, and I had told the servant to deny me, not thinking how much I might be losing.  Indeed, indeed, I would not have given way to a silly headache, had I thought that your Grace would have been here.  I suppose that now I must not even hope for the photograph.

   Yours penitently,

   MARIE M. G.

The note-paper was very pretty note-paper, hardly scented, and yet conveying a sense of something sweet, and the monogram was small and new, and fantastic without being grotesque, and the writing was of that sort which the Duke, having much experience, had learned to like,—­and there was something in the signature which pleased him.  So he wrote a reply,—­

   DEAR MADAME MAX GOESLER,

   I will call again next Thursday, or, if prevented, will
   let you know.

   Yours faithfully,

   O.

When the green brougham drew up at the door of the cottage on the next Thursday, Madame Goesler was at home, and had no headache.

She was not at all penitent now.  She had probably studied the subject, and had resolved that penitence was more alluring in a letter than when acted in person.  She received her guest with perfect ease, and apologised for the injury done to him in the preceding week, with much self-complacency.  “I was so sorry when I got your card,” she said; “and yet I am so glad now that you were refused.”

“If you were ill,” said the Duke, “it was better.”

“I was horribly ill, to tell the truth;—­as pale as a death’s head, and without a word to say for myself.  I was fit to see no one.”

“Then of course you were right.”

“But it flashed upon me immediately that I had named a day, and that you had been kind enough to remember it.  But I did not think you came to London till the March winds were over.”

“The March winds blow everywhere in this wretched island, Madame Goesler, and there is no escaping them.  Youth may prevail against them; but on me they are so potent that I think they will succeed in driving me out of my country.  I doubt whether an old man should ever live in England if he can help it.”