Kennedy.
There are men who cannot guard themselves from the assertion of
marital rights at most inappropriate moments. Now Lord Cantrip lived
with his wife most happily; yet you should pass hours with him and
her together, and hardly know that they knew each other. One of the
Duke's daughters was there,--but not the Duchess, who was known to be
heavy;--and there was the beauteous Marchioness of Hartletop. Violet
Effingham was in the room also,--giving Phineas a blow at the heart
as he saw her smile. Might it be that he could speak a word to her on
this occasion? Mr. Grey had also brought his wife;--and then there
was Madame Max Goesler. Phineas found that it was his fortune to take
down to dinner,--not Violet Effingham, but Madame Max Goesler. And,
when he was placed at dinner, on the other side of him there sat Lady
Hartletop, who addressed the few words which she spoke exclusively
to Mr. Palliser. There had been in former days matters difficult of
arrangement between those two; but I think that those old passages
had now been forgotten by them both. Phineas was, therefore, driven
to depend exclusively on Madame Max Goesler for conversation, and
he found that he was not called upon to cast his seed into barren
ground.
Up to that moment he had never heard of Madame Max Goesler.
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