of making love.  They two were to put their shoulders together to help Lord Chiltern, and while doing so he could not continue a suit which would be felt by both of them to be hostile to Lord Chiltern.  There might be opportunity for a chance word, and if so the chance word should be spoken; but he could not make a deliberate attack, such as he had made in Portman Square.  Violet also probably understood that she had not now been caught in a mousetrap.

The Duke was to spend four days at Matching, and on the third day,—­the day before Lord Chiltern was expected,—­he was to be seen riding with Madame Max Goesler by his side.  Madame Max Goesler was known as a perfect horsewoman,—­one indeed who was rather fond of going a little fast on horseback, and who rode well to hounds.  But the Duke seldom moved out of a walk, and on this occasion Madame Max was as steady in her seat and almost as slow as the mounted ghost in Don Juan.  But it was said by some there, especially by Mrs. Bonteen, that the conversation between them was not slow.  And on the next morning the Duke and Madame Max Goesler were together again before luncheon, standing on a terrace at the back of the house, looking down on a party who were playing croquet on the lawn.

“Do you never play?” said the Duke.

“Oh yes;—­one does everything a little.”

“I am sure you would play well.  Why do you not play now?”

“No;—­I shall not play now.”

“I should like to see you with your mallet.”

“I am sorry your Grace cannot be gratified.  I have played croquet till I am tired of it, and have come to think it is only fit for boys and girls.  The great thing is to give them opportunities for flirting, and it does that.”

“And do you never flirt, Madame Goesler?”

“Never at croquet, Duke.”

“And what with you is the choicest time?”

“That depends on so many things,—­and so much on the chosen person.  What do you recommend?”

“Ah,—­I am so ignorant.  I can recommend nothing.”

“What do you say to a mountain-top at dawn on a summer day?” asked Madame Max Goesler.

“You make me shiver,” said the Duke.

“Or a boat on a lake on a summer evening, or a good lead after hounds with nobody else within three fields, or the bottom of a salt-mine, or the deck of an ocean steamer, or a military hospital in time of war, or a railway journey from Paris to Marseilles?”

“Madame Max Goesler, you have the most uncomfortable ideas.”

“I have no doubt your Grace has tried each of them,—­successfully.  But perhaps, after all, a comfortable chair over a good fire, in a pretty room, beats everything.”

“I think it does,—­certainly,” said the Duke.  Then he whispered something at which Madame Max Goesler blushed and smiled, and immediately after that she followed those who had already gone in to lunch.

Mrs. Bonteen had been hovering round the spot on the terrace on which the Duke and Madame Max Goesler had been standing, looking on with envious eyes, meditating some attack, some interruption, some excuse for an interpolation, but her courage had failed her and she had not dared to approach.  The Duke had known nothing of the hovering propinquity of Mrs. Bonteen, but Madame Goesler had seen and had understood it all.