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?"

"That will be two things, Mr. Finn; but I will answer both questions
as well as I can. You have not met her before, because she was in
Germany last spring and summer, and in the year before that you were
not about so much as you have been since. Still