Lady Baldock was exceedingly gracious to him, bidding Violet use her
influence to persuade him to come to the gathering. "Persuade him to
desert his work to come and hear some fiddlers!" said Miss Effingham.
"Indeed I shall not, aunt. Who can tell but what the colonies might
suffer from it through centuries, and that such a lapse of duty might
drive a province or two into the arms of our mortal enemies?"
"Herr Moll is coming," said Lady Baldock, "and so is Signor Scrubi,
and Pjinskt, who, they say, is the greatest man living on the
flageolet. Have you ever heard Pjinskt, Mr. Finn?" Phineas never had
heard Pjinskt. "And as for Herr Moll, there is nothing equal to him,
this year, at least." Lady Baldock had taken up music this season,
but all her enthusiasm was unable to shake the conscientious zeal of
the young Under-Secretary of State. At such a gathering he would have
been unable to say a word in private to Violet Effingham.
CHAPTER LX
Madame Goesler's Politics
It may be remembered that when Lady Glencora Palliser was shown into
Madame Goesler's room, Madame Goesler had just explained somewhat
forcibly to the Duke of Omnium her reasons for refusing the loan of
his Grace's villa at Como. She had told the Duke in so many words
that she did not mean to give the world an opportunity of maligning
her, and it would then have been left to the Duke to decide whether
any other arrangements might have been made for taking Madame Goesler
to Como, had he not been interrupted.
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