"I am so sorry to have kept you waiting," she said, as she gave him
her hand. "I was an owl not to be ready for you when you told me that
you would come."
"No;--but a bird of paradise to come to me so sweetly, and at an
hour when all the other birds refuse to show the feather of a single
wing."
"And you,--you feel like a naughty boy, do you not, in thus coming
out on a Sunday morning?"
"Do you feel like a naughty girl?"
"Yes;--just a little so. I do not know that I should care for
everybody to hear that I received visitors,--or worse still, a
visitor,--at this hour on this day. But then it is so pleasant to
feel oneself to be naughty! There is a Bohemian flavour of picnic
about it which, though it does not come up to the rich gusto of
real wickedness, makes one fancy that one is on the border of that
delightful region in which there is none of the constraint of
custom,--where men and women say what they like, and do what they
like."
"It is pleasant enough to be on the borders," said Phineas.
"That is just it. Of course decency, morality, and propriety, all
made to suit the eye of the public, are the things which are really
delightful. We all know that, and live accordingly,--as well as we
can. I do at least."
"And do not I, Madame Goesler?"
"I know nothing about that, Mr.
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