Some one had come in and lighted the candles and drawn down the
blinds while he was sitting there, and now, as he looked at his
watch, he found that it was past five o'clock. He was engaged to dine
with Madame Max Goesler at eight, and in his agony he half-resolved
that he would send an excuse. Madame Max would be full of wrath, as
she was very particular about her little dinner-parties;--but, what
did he care now about the wrath of Madame Max Goesler? And yet only
this morning he had been congratulating himself, among his other
successes, upon her favour, and had laughed inwardly at his own
falseness,--his falseness to Violet Effingham,--as he did so. He
had said something to himself jocosely about lovers' perjuries, the
remembrance of which was now very bitter to him. He took up a sheet
of note-paper and scrawled an excuse to Madame Goesler. News from the
country, he said, made it impossible that he should go out to-night.
But he did not send the note. At about half-past five he opened the
door of his private secretary's room and found the young man fast
asleep, with a cigar in his mouth. "Halloa, Charles," he said.
"All right!" Charles Standish was a first cousin of Lady Laura's,
and, having been in the office before Phineas had joined it, and
being a great favourite with his cousin, had of course become the
Under-Secretary's private secretary.
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