“What shall I say to you?”
“The truth.”
“In truth, then, I do not sympathise with you. The thing lost is too small, too mean to justify unhappiness.”
“But, Madame Goesler, you are a rich woman.”
“Well?”
“If you were to lose it all, would you not be unhappy? It has been my ambition to live here in London as one of a special set which dominates all other sets in our English world. To do so a man should have means of his own. I have none; and yet I have tried it—thinking that I could earn my bread at it as men do at other professions. I acknowledge that I should not have thought so. No man should attempt what I have attempted without means, at any rate to live on if he fail; but I am not the less unhappy because I have been silly.”
“What will you do?”
“Ah—what? Another friend asked me that the other day, and I told her that I should vanish.”
“Who was that friend?”
“Lady Laura.”
“She is in London again now?”
“Yes; she and her father are in Portman Square.”
“She has been an injurious friend to you.”
“No, by heaven,” exclaimed Phineas. “But for her I should never have been here at all, never have had a seat in Parliament, never have been in office, never have known you.”
“And might have been the better without any of these things.”
“No man ever had a better friend than Lady Laura has been to me. Malice, wicked and false as the devil, has lately joined our names together to the incredible injury of both of us; but it has not been her fault.”
“You are energetic in defending her.”
“And so would she be in defending me. Circumstances threw us together and made us friends. Her father and her brother were my friends. I happened to be of service to her husband. We belonged to the same party. And therefore—because she has been unfortunate in her marriage—people tell lies of her.”
“It is a pity he should—not die, and leave her,” said Madame Goesler slowly.
“Why so?”
“Because then you might justify yourself in defending her by making her your wife.” She paused, but he made no answer to this. “You are in love with her,” she said.
“It is untrue.”
“Mr. Finn!”
“Well, what would you have? I am not in love with her. To me she is no more than my sister. Were she as free as air I should not ask her to be my wife. Can a man and woman feel no friendship without being in love with each other?”
“I hope they may,” said Madame Goesler. Had he been lynx-eyed he might have seen that she blushed; but it required quick eyes to discover a blush on Madame Goesler’s face. “You and I are friends.”
“Indeed we are,” he said, grasping her hand as he took his leave.
XLI
“I Hope I’m Not Distrusted”
Gerard Maule, as the reader has been informed, wrote three lines to his dearest Adelaide to inform her that his father would not assent to the suggestion respecting Maule Abbey which had been made by Lady Chiltern, and then took no further steps in the matter. In the fortnight next after the receipt of his letter nothing was heard of him at Harrington Hall, and Adelaide, though she made no complaint, was unhappy. Then came the letter from Mr. Spooner—with all its rich offers, and Adelaide’s mind was for a while occupied with wrath against her second suitor. But as the egregious folly of Mr. Spooner—for to her thinking the aspirations of Mr. Spooner were egregiously foolish—died out of her mind, her thoughts reverted to her engagement. Why did not the man come to her, or why did he not write?
She had received from Lady Chiltern an invitation to remain with them—the Chilterns—till her marriage. “But, dear Lady Chiltern, who knows when it will be?” Adelaide had said. Lady Chiltern had good-naturedly replied that the longer it was put off the better for herself. “But you’ll be going to London or abroad before that day comes.” Lady Chiltern declared that she looked forward to no festivities which could under any circumstances remove her four-and-twenty hours travelling distance from the kennels. Probably she might go up to London for a couple of months as soon as the hunting was over, and the hounds had been drafted, and the horses had been coddled, and every covert had been visited. From the month of May till the middle of July she might, perhaps, be allowed to be in town, as communications by telegram could now be made day and night. After that, preparations for cub-hunting would be imminent, and, as a matter of course, it would be necessary that she should be at Harrington Hall at so important a period of the year. During those couple of months she would be very happy to have the companionship of her friend, and she hinted that Gerard Maule would certainly be in town. “I begin to think it would have been better that I should never have seen Gerard Maule,” said Adelaide Palliser.
This happened about the middle of March, while hunting was still in force. Gerard’s horses were standing in the neighbourhood, but Gerard himself was not there. Mr. Spooner, since that short, disheartening note had been sent to him by Lord Chiltern, had not been seen at Harrington. There was a Harrington Lawn Meet on one occasion, but he had not appeared till the hounds were at the neighbouring covert side. Nevertheless he had declared that he did not intend to give up the pursuit, and had even muttered something of the sort to Lord Chiltern. “I am one of those fellows who stick to a thing, you know,” he said.
“I am afraid you had better give up sticking to her, because she’s going to marry somebody else.”
“I’ve heard all about that, my lord. He’s a very nice sort of young man, but I’m told he hasn’t got his house ready yet for a family.”
