ceive that Madame Max Goesler's
dress was unlike the dress of other women, but seeing that it was
unlike in make, unlike in colour, and unlike in material, the
ordinary observer would not see also that it was unlike in form for
any other purpose than that of maintaining its general peculiarity
of character. In colour she was abundant, and yet the fabric of
her garment was always black. My pen may not dare to describe the
traceries of yellow and ruby silk which went in and out through
the black lace, across her bosom, and round her neck, and over her
shoulders, and along her arms, and down to the very ground at her
feet, robbing the black stuff of all its sombre solemnity, and
producing a brightness in which there was nothing gaudy. She wore
no vestige of crinoline, and hardly anything that could be called a
train. And the lace sleeves of her dress, with their bright traceries
of silk, were fitted close to her arms; and round her neck she wore
the smallest possible collar of lace, above which there was a short
chain of Roman gold with a ruby pendant. And she had rubies in her
ears, and a ruby brooch, and rubies in the bracelets on her arms.
Such, as regarded the outward woman, was Madame Max Goesler; and
Phineas, as he took his place by her side, thought that fortune for
the nonce had done well with him,--only that he should have liked it
so much better could he have been seated next to Violet Effingham!

I have said that in the matter of conversation his morsel of seed was
not thrown into barren ground. I do not know that he can truly be
said to have produced even a morsel. The subjects were all mooted
by the lady, and so great was her fertility in discoursing that all
conversational grasses seemed to grow with her spontaneously. "Mr.
Finn," she said, "what would I not give to be a member of the British
Parliament at such a moment as this!"

"Why at such a moment as this particularly?"

"Because there is something to be done, which, let me tell you,
senator though you are, is not always the case with you."

"My experience is short, but it sometimes seems to me that there is
too much to be done."

"Too much of nothingness, Mr. Finn. Is not that the case? But now
there is a real fight in the lists. The one great drawback to the
life of women is that they cannot act in politics."

"And which side would you take?"

"What, here in England?" said Madame Max Goesler,--from which
expression, and from one or two others