receive it from a pretty woman.  One would be disposed to think that at such a moment he would be profoundly indifferent to such a matter, that no delight could come to him from female beauty, and that all he would want would be the softness of a simply sympathetic soul.  But he generally wants a soft hand as well, and an eye that can be bright behind the mutual tear, and lips that shall be young and fresh as they express their concern for his sorrow.  All these things were added to Phineas when he went to Madame Goesler in his grief.

“I am so glad to see you,” said Madame Max.

“You are very good-natured to let me come.”

“No;—­but it is so good of you to trust me.  But I was sure you would come after what took place the other night.  I saw that you were pained, and I was so sorry for it.”

“I made such a fool of myself.”

“Not at all.  And I thought that you were right to tell them when the question had been asked.  If the thing was not to be kept a secret, it was better to speak it out.  You will get over it quicker in that way than in any other.  I have never seen the young lord, myself.”

“Oh, there is nothing amiss about him.  As to what Lord Fawn said, the half of it is simply exaggeration, and the other half is misunderstood.”

“In this country it is so much to be a lord,” said Madame Goesler.

Phineas thought a moment of that matter before he replied.  All the Standish family had been very good to him, and Violet Effingham had been very good.  It was not the fault of any of them that he was now wretched and back-broken.  He had meditated much on this, and had resolved that he would not even think evil of them.  “I do not in my heart believe that that has had anything to do with it,” he said.

“But it has, my friend,—­always.  I do not know your Violet Effingham.”

“She is not mine.”

“Well;—­I do not know this Violet that is not yours.  I have met her, and did not specially admire her.  But then the tastes of men and women about beauty are never the same.  But I know she is one that always lives with lords and countesses.  A girl who always lived with countesses feels it to be hard to settle down as a plain Mistress.”

“She has had plenty of choice among all sorts of men.  It was not the title.  She would not have accepted Chiltern unless she had—.  But what is the use of talking of it?”

“They had known each other long?”

“Oh, yes,—­as children.  And the Earl desired it of all things.”

“Ah;—­then he arranged it.”

“Not exactly.  Nobody could arrange anything for Chiltern,—­nor, as far as that goes, for Miss Effingham.  They arranged it themselves, I fancy.”

“You had asked her?”

“Yes;—­twice.  And she had refused him more than twice.  I have nothing for which to blame her; but yet I had thought,—­I had thought—­”

“She is a jilt then?”