“Who says so?”

“Never mind who says so, but they tell me it’s true.  Take an old friend’s advice, and strike while the iron’s hot.”

Phineas did not believe what he had heard, but though he did not believe it, still the tidings set his heart beating.  He would have believed it less perhaps had he known that Laurence had just received the news from Mrs. Bonteen.

CHAPTER LVII

The Top Brick of the Chimney

Madame Max Goesler was a lady who knew that in fighting the battles which fell to her lot, in arranging the social difficulties which she found in her way, in doing the work of the world which came to her share, very much more care was necessary,—­and care too about things apparently trifling,—­than was demanded by the affairs of people in general.  And this was not the case so much on account of any special disadvantage under which she laboured, as because she was ambitious of doing the very uttermost with those advantages which she possessed.  Her own birth had not been high, and that of her husband, we may perhaps say, had been very low.  He had been old when she had married him, and she had had little power of making any progress till he had left her a widow.  Then she found herself possessed of money, certainly; of wit,—­as she believed; and of a something in her personal appearance which, as she plainly told herself, she might perhaps palm off upon the world as beauty.  She was a woman who did not flatter herself, who did not strongly believe in herself, who could even bring herself to wonder that men and women in high position should condescend to notice such a one as her.  With all her ambition, there was a something of genuine humility about her; and with all the hardness she had learned there was a touch of womanly softness which would sometimes obtrude itself upon her heart.  When she found a woman really kind to her, she would be very kind in return.  And though she prized wealth, and knew that her money was her only rock of strength, she could be lavish with it, as though it were dirt.

But she was highly ambitious, and she played her game with great skill and great caution.  Her doors were not open to all callers;—­were shut even to some who find but few doors closed against them;—­were shut occasionally to those whom she most specially wished to see within them.  She knew how to allure by denying, and to make the gift rich by delaying it.  We are told by the Latin proverb that he who gives quickly gives twice; but I say that she who gives quickly seldom gives more than half.  When in the early spring the Duke of Omnium first knocked at Madame Max Goesler’s door, he was informed that she was not at home.  The Duke felt very cross as he handed his card out from his dark green brougham,—­on the panel of which there was no blazon to tell the owner’s rank.  He was very cross.  She had told him that she was always at home between four and six on