Yes;—­Madame Goesler was at home.  The door was opened by Madame Goesler’s own maid, who, smiling, explained that the other servants were all at church.  Phineas had become sufficiently intimate at the cottage in Park Lane to be on friendly terms with Madame Goesler’s own maid, and now made some little half-familiar remark as to the propriety of his visit during church time.  “Madame will not refuse to see you, I am thinking,” said the girl, who was a German.  “And she is alone?” asked Phineas.  “Alone?  Yes;—­of course she is alone.  Who should be with her now?” Then she took him up into the drawing-room; but, when there, he found that Madame Goesler was absent.  “She shall be down directly,” said the girl.  “I shall tell her who is here, and she will come.”

It was a very pretty room.  It may almost be said that there could be no prettier room in all London.  It looked out across certain small private gardens,—­which were as bright and gay as money could make them when brought into competition with London smoke,—­right on to the park.  Outside and inside the window, flowers and green things were so arranged that the room itself almost looked as though it were a bower in a garden.  And everything in that bower was rich and rare; and there was nothing there which annoyed by its rarity or was distasteful by its richness.  The seats, though they were costly as money could buy, were meant for sitting, and were comfortable as seats.  There were books for reading, and the means of reading them.  Two or three gems of English art were hung upon the walls, and could be seen backwards and forwards in the mirrors.  And there were precious toys lying here and there about the room,—­toys very precious, but placed there not because of their price, but because of their beauty.  Phineas already knew enough of the art of living to be aware that the woman who had made that room what it was, had charms to add a beauty to everything she touched.  What would such a life as his want, if graced by such a companion,—­such a life as his might be, if the means which were hers were at his command?  It would want one thing, he thought,—­the self-respect which he would lose if he were false to the girl who was trusting him with such sweet trust at home in Ireland.

In a very few minutes Madame Goesler was with him, and, though he did not think about it, he perceived that she was bright in her apparel, that her hair was as soft as care could make it, and that every charm belonging to her had been brought into use for his gratification.  He almost told himself that he was there in order that he might ask to have all those charms bestowed upon himself.  He did not know who had lately come to Park Lane and been a suppliant for the possession of those rich endowments; but I wonder whether they would have been more precious in his eyes had he known that they had so moved the heart of the great Duke as to have induced him to lay his coronet at the lady’s feet.  I think that had he known that the lady had refused the coronet, that knowledge would have enhanced the value of the prize.