"Mr. Maule and I were now speaking of him," she said, as she introduced the two gentlemen. "Mr. Finn and I had the pleasure of meeting your son at Harrington Hall a few weeks since, Mr. Maule."
"I heard that he had been there. Did you know the Duke, Mr. Finn?"
"After the fashion in which such a one as I would know such a one as the Duke, I knew him. He probably had forgotten my existence."
"He never forgot any one," said Madame Goesler.
"I don't know that I was ever introduced to him," continued Mr. Maule, "and I shall always regret it. I was telling Madame Goesler how profound a reverence I had for the Duke's character." Phineas bowed, and Madame Goesler, who was becoming tired of the Duke as a subject of conversation, asked some question as to what had been going on in the House. Mr. Maule, finding it to be improbable that he should be able to advance his cause on that occasion, took his leave. The moment he was gone Madame Goesler's manner changed altogether. She left her former seat and came near to Phineas, sitting on a sofa close to the chair he occupied; and as she did so she pushed her hair back from her face in a manner that he remembered well in former days.
"I am so glad to see you," she said. "Is it not odd that he should have gone so soon after what we were saying but the other day?"
"You thought then that he would not last long."
"Long is comparative. I did not think he would be dead within six weeks, or I should not have been riding there. He was a burden to me, Mr. Finn."
"I can understand that."
"And yet I shall miss him sorely. He had given all the colour to my life which it possessed. It was not very bright, but still it was colour."