Then Lord Cantrip slipped into the club, and
Phineas went on alone.
A spark of his old ambition with reference to Brooks's was the first
thing to make him forget his misery for a moment. He had asked Lord
Brentford to put his name down, and was not sure whether it had been
done. The threat of Mr. Broderick's opposition had been of no use
towards the strengthening of his broken back, but the sight of Lord
Cantrip hurrying in at the coveted door did do something. "A man
can't cut his throat or blow his brains out," he said to himself;
"after all, he must go on and do his work. For hearts will break, yet
brokenly live on." Thereupon he went home, and after sitting for an
hour over his own fire, and looking wistfully at a little treasure
which he had,--a treasure obtained by some slight fraud at Saulsby,
and which he now chucked into the fire, and then instantly again
pulled out of it, soiled but unscorched,--he dressed himself for
dinner, and went out to Madame Max Goesler's. Upon the whole, he was
glad that he had not sent the note of excuse. A man must live, even
though his heart be broken, and living he must dine.
Madame Max Goesler was fond of giving little dinners at this period
of the year, before London was crowded, and when her guests might
probably not be called away by subsequent social arrangements.
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