"He must have been a brave man for a foreigner,--to have attacked Mr.
Bonteen all alone in the street, when any one might have seen him.
I don't feel to hate him so very much after all. As for that little
wife of his, she has got no more than she deserved."

"Mr. Finn will surely be acquitted now."

"Of course he'll be acquitted. Nobody doubts about it. That is all
settled, and it is a shame that he should be kept in prison even
over to-day. I should think they'll make him a peer, and give him a
pension,--or at the very least appoint him secretary to something.
I do wish Plantagenet hadn't been in such a hurry about that nasty
Board of Trade, and then he might have gone there. He couldn't very
well be Privy Seal, unless they do make him a peer. You wouldn't
mind,--would you, my dear?"

"I think you'll find that they will console Mr. Finn with something
less gorgeous than that. You have succeeded in seeing him, of
course?"

"Plantagenet wouldn't let me, but I know who did."

"Some lady?"

"Oh, yes,--a lady. Half the men about the clubs went to him, I
believe."

"Who was she?"

"You won't be ill-natured?"

"I'll endeavour at any rate to keep my temper, Duchess."

"It was Lady Laura."

"I supposed so."

"They say she is frantic about him, my dear."

"I never believe those things. Women do not get frantic about men
in these days. They have been very old friends, and have known each
other for many years. Her brother, Lord Chiltern, was his particular
friend. I do not wonder that she should have seen him."

"Of course you know that she is a widow."

"Oh, yes;--Mr. Kennedy had died long before I left England."

"And she is very rich. She has got all Loughlinter for her life, and
her own fortune back again. I will bet you anything you like that she
offers to share it with him."

"It may be so," said Madame Goesler, while the slightest blush in the
world suffused her cheek.

"And I'll make you another bet, and give you any odds."

"What is that?"

"That he refuses her. It is quite a common thing nowadays for ladies
to make the offer, and for gentlemen to refuse. Indeed, it was felt
to be so inconvenient while it was thought that gentlemen had not the
alternative, that some men became afraid of going into society. It is
better understood now."

"Such things have been done, I do not doubt," said Madame Goesler,
who had contrived to avert her face without making the motion
apparent to her friend.