When Phineas Finn left Mr Gresham’s house he had quite resolved what he would do. On the next morning he would tell Lord Cantrip that his resignation was a necessity, and that he would take that nobleman’s advice as to resigning at once, or waiting till the day on which Mr Monk’s Irish Bill would be read for the second time.
“My dear Finn, I can only say that I deeply regret it,” said Lord Cantrip.
“So do I. I regret to leave office, which I like — and which indeed I want. I regret specially to leave this office, as it has been a thorough pleasure to me; and I regret, above all, to leave you. But I am convinced that Monk is right, and I find it impossible not to support him.”
“I wish that Mr Monk was at Bath,” said Lord Cantrip.
Phineas could only smile, and shrug his shoulders, and say that even though Mr Monk were at Bath it would not probably make much difference. When he tendered his letter of resignation, Lord Cantrip begged him to withdraw it for a day or two. He would, he said, speak to Mr Gresham. The debate on the second reading of Mr Monk’s bill would not take place till that day week, and the resignation would be in time if it was tendered before Phineas either spoke or voted against the Government. So Phineas went back to his room, and endeavoured to make himself useful in some work appertaining to his favourite Colonies.
That conversation had taken place on a Friday, and on the following Sunday, early in the day, he left his rooms after a late breakfast — a prolonged breakfast, during which he had been studying tenant-right statistics, preparing his own speech, and endeavouring to look forward into the future which that speech was to do so much to influence — and turned his face towards Park Lane. There had been a certain understanding between him and Madame Goesler that he was to call in Park Lane on this Sunday morning, and then declare to her what was his final resolve as to the office which he held. “It is simply to bid her adieu,” he said to himself, “for I shall hardly see her again.” And yet, as he took off his morning easy coat, and dressed himself for the streets, and stood for a moment before his looking-glass, and saw that his gloves were fresh and that his boots were properly polished, I think there was a care about his person which he would have hardly taken had he been quite assured that he simply intended to say goodbye to the lady whom he was about to visit. But if there were any such conscious feeling, he administered to himself an antidote before he left the house. On returning to the sitting-room he went to a little desk from which he took out the letter from Mary which the reader has seen, and carefully perused every word of it. “She is the best of them all,” he said to himself, as he refolded the letter and put it back into his desk. I am not sure that it is well that a man should have any large number from whom to select a best; as, in such circumstances, he is so very apt to change his judgment from hour to hour. The qualities which are the most attractive before dinner sometimes become the least so in the evening.
The morning was warm, and he took a cab. It would not do that he should speak even his last farewell to such a one as Madame Goesler with all the heat and dust of a long walk upon him. Having been so careful about his boots and gloves he might as well use his care to the end. Madame Goesler was a very pretty woman, who spared herself no trouble in making herself as pretty as Nature would allow, on behalf of those whom she favoured with her smiles; and to such a lady some special attention was due by one who had received so many of her smiles as had Phineas. And he felt, too, that there was something special in this very visit. It was to be made by appointment, and there had come to be an understanding between them that Phineas should tell her on this occasion what was his resolution with reference to his future life. I think that he had been very wise in fortifying himself with a further glance at our dear Mary’s letter, before he trusted himself within Madame Goesler’s door.
Yes — Madame Goesler was at home. The door was opened by Madame Goesler’s own maid, who, smiling, explained that the other servants were all at church. Phineas had become sufficiently intimate at the cottage in Park Lane to be on friendly terms with Madame Goesler’s own maid, and now made some little half-familiar remark as to the propriety of his visit during church time. “Madame will not refuse to see you, I am thinking,” said the girl, who was a German. “And she is alone?” asked Phineas. Alone? Yes — of course she is alone. Who should be with her now?” Then she took him up into the drawing-room; but, when there, he found that Madame Goesler was absent, “She shall be down directly,” said the girl. “I shall tell her who is here, and she will come.”
It was a very pretty room. It may almost be said that there could be no prettier room in all London. It looked out across certain small private gardens — which were as bright and gay as money could make them when brought into competition with London smoke — right on to the park. Outside and inside the window, flowers and green things were so arranged that the room itself almost looked as though it were a bower in a garden. And everything in that bower was rich and rare; and there was nothing there which annoyed by its rarity or was distasteful by its richness. The seats, though they were costly as money could buy, were meant for sitting, and were comfortable as seats. There were books for reading, and the means of reading them. Two or three gems of English art were hung upon the walls, and could be seen backwards and forwards in the mirrors. And there were precious toys lying here and there about the room — toys very precious, but placed there not because of their price, but because of their beauty. Phineas already knew enough of the art of living to be aware that the woman who had made that room what it was had charms to add a beauty to everything she touched. What would such a life as his want, if graced by such a companion — such a life as his might be, if the means which were hers were at his command? It would want one thing, he thought — the self-respect which he would lose if he were false to the girl who was trusting him with such sweet trust at home in Ireland.
In a very few minutes Madame Goesler was with him, and, though he did not think about it, he perceived that she was bright in her apparel, that her hair was as soft as care could make it, and that every charm belonging to her had been brought into use for his gratification. He almost told himself that he was there in order that he might ask to have all those charms bestowed upon himself. He did not know who had lately come to Park Lane and been a suppliant for the possession of those rich endowments; but I wonder whether they would have been more precious in his eyes had he known that they had so moved the heart of the great Duke as to have induced him to lay his coronet at the lady’s feet. I think that had he known that the lady had refused the coronet, that knowledge would have enhanced the value of the prize.
“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 Finn, and want to ask no questions. But if you do, I am sure you agree with me that you often envy the improper people — the Bohemians — the people who don’t trouble themselves about keeping any laws except those for breaking which they would be put into nasty, unpleasant prisons. I envy them. Oh, how I envy them!”
“But you are free as air.”
“The most cabined, cribbed, and confined creature in the world! I have been fighting my way up for the last four years, and have not allowed myself the liberty of one flirtation — not often even the recreation of a natural laugh. And now I shouldn’t wonder if I don’t find myself falling back a year or two, just because I have allowed you to come and see me on a Sunday morning. When I told Lotta that you were coming, she shook her head at me in dismay. But now that you are here, tell me what you have done.”
“Nothing as yet, Madame Goesler.”
“I thought it was to have been settled on Friday?”
“It was settled — before Friday. Indeed, as I look back at it all now, I can hardly tell when it was not settled. It is impossible, and has been impossible, that I should do otherwise. I still hold my place, Madame Goesler, but I have declared that I shall give it up before the debate comes on.”
“It is quite fixed?”
“Quite fixed, my friend.”
“And what next?” Madame Goesler, as she thus interrogated him, was leaning across towards him from the sofa on which she was placed, with both her elbows resting on a small table before her. We all know that look of true interest which the countenance of a real friend will bear when the welfare of his friend is in ques............