e; "you should tell me
something of yourself."

"About me? I am like the knife-grinder, who had no story to
tell,--none at least to be told. We have all, no doubt, got our
little stories, interesting enough to ourselves."

"But your story, Miss Effingham," he said, "is of such intense
interest to me." At that moment, luckily, Lady Baldock came into
the room, and Phineas was saved from the necessity of making a
declaration at a moment which would have been most inopportune.

Lady Baldock was exceedingly gracious to him, bidding Violet use her
influence to persuade him to come to the gathering. "Persuade him to
desert his work to come and hear some fiddlers!" said Miss Effingham.
"Indeed I shall not, aunt. Who can tell but what the colonies might
suffer from it through centuries, and that such a lapse of duty might
drive a province or two into the arms of our mortal enemies?"

"Herr Moll is coming," said Lady Baldock, "and so is Signor Scrubi,
and Pjinskt, who, they say, is the greatest man living on the
flageolet. Have you ever heard Pjinskt, Mr. Finn?" Phineas never had
heard Pjinskt. "And as for Herr Moll, there is nothing equal to him,
this year, at least." Lady Baldock had taken up music this season,
but all her enthusiasm was unable to shake the conscientious zeal of
the young Under-Secretary of State. At such a gathering he would have
been unable to say a word in private to Violet Effingham.

CHAPTER LX

Madame Goesler's Politics

It may be remembered that when Lady Glencora Palliser was shown into
Madame Goesler's room, Madame Goesler had just explained somewhat
forcibly to the Duke of Omnium her reasons for refusing the loan of
his Grace's villa at Como. She had told the Duke in so many words
that she did not mean to give the world an opportunity of maligning
her, and it would then have been left to the Duke to decide whether
any other arrangements might have been made for taking Madame Goesler
to Como, had he not been interrupted. That he was very anxious to
take her was certain. The green brougham had already been often
enough at the door in Park Lane to make his Grace feel that Madame
Goesler's company was very desirable,--was, perhaps, of all things
left for his enjoyment, the one thing the most desirable. Lady
Glencora had spoken to her husband of children crying for the top
brick of the chimney. Now it had come to this, that in the eyes
of the Duke of Omnium Marie Max Goesler was the top br