On the day of their arrival, the father and mother, with Lord Silverbridge, the eldest son, who was home from Eton, and the private Secretary dined together. As the Duke sat at table, he began to think how long it was since such a state of things had happened to him before, and his heart softened towards her. Instead of being made angry by the strangeness of her proceeding, he took delight in it, and in the course of the evening spoke a word to signify his satisfaction. “I’m afraid it won’t last long,” she said, “for Lady Rosina comes tomorrow.”
“Oh, indeed.”
“You bid me ask her yourself.”
Then he perceived it all;—how she had taken advantage of his former answer to her and had acted upon it in a spirit of contradictory petulance. But he resolved that he would forgive it and endeavour to bring her back to him. “I thought we were both joking,” he said good-humouredly.
“Oh, no! I never suspected you of a joke. At any rate she is coming.”
“She will do neither of us any harm. And Mrs. Finn?”
“You have sent her to sea.”
“She may be at sea—and he too; but it is without my sending. The First Lord, I believe, usually does go a cruise. Is there nobody else?”
“Nobody else—unless you have asked anyone.”
“Not a creature. Well;—so much the better. I dare say Lady Rosina will get on very well.”
“You will have to talk to her,” said the Duchess.
“I will do my best,” said the Duke.
Lady Rosina came and no doubt did think it odd. But she did not say so, and it really did seem to the Duchess as though all her vengeance had been blown away by the winds. And she too laughed at the matter—to herself, and began to feel less cross and less perverse. The world did not come to an end because she and her husband with Lady Rosina and her boy and the private Secretary sat down to dinner every day together. The parish clergyman with the neighbouring squire and his wife and daughter did come one day—to the relief of M. Millepois, who had begun to feel that the world had collapsed. And every day at a certain hour the Duke and Lady Rosina walked together for an hour and a half in the park. The Duchess would have enjoyed it, instead of suffering, could she only have had her friend, Mrs. Finn, to hear her jokes. “Now, Plantagenet,” she said, “do tell me one thing. What does she talk about?”
“The troubles of her family generally, I think.”
“That can’t last forever.”
“She wears cork soles to her boots and she thinks a good deal about them.”
“And you listen to her?”
“Why not? I can talk about cork soles as well as anything else. Anything that may do material good to the world at large, or even to yourself privately, is a fit subject for conversation to rational people.”
“I suppose I never was one of them.”
“But I can talk upon anything,” continued the Duke, “as long as the talker talks in good faith and does not say things that should not be said, or deal with matters that are offensive. I could talk for an hour about bankers’ accounts, but I should not expect a stranger to ask me the state of my own. She has almost persuaded me to send to Mr. Sprout of Silverbridge and get some cork soles myself.”
“Don’t do anything of the kind,” said the Duchess with animation;—as though she had secret knowledge that cork soles were specially fatal to the family of the Pallisers.
“Why not, my dear?”
“He was the man who especially, above all others, threw me over at Silverbridge.” Then again there came upon his brow that angry frown which during the last few days had been dissipated by the innocence of Lady Rosina’s conversation. “Of course I don’t mean to ask you to take any interest in the borough again. You have said that you wouldn’t, and you are always as good as your word.”
“I hope so.”
“But I certainly would not employ a tradesman just at your elbow who has directly opposed what was generally understood in the town to be your interests.”
“What did Mr. Sprout do? This is the first I have heard of it.”
“He got Mr. Du Boung to stand against Mr. Lopez.”
“I am very glad for the sake of the borough that Mr. Lopez did not get in.”
“So am I. But that is nothing to do with it. Mr. Sprout knew at any rate what my wishes were, and went directly against them.”
“You were not entitled to have wishes in the matter, Glencora.”
“That’s all very well;—but I had, and he knew it. As for the future, of course, the thing is over. But you have done everything for the borough.”
“You mean that the borough has done much for me.”
“I know what I mean very well;—and I shall take it very ill if a shilling out of the Castle ever goes into Mr. Sprout’s pocket again.”
It is needless to trouble the reader at length with the sermon which he preached her on the occasion—showing the utter corruption which must come from the mixing up of politics with trade, or with the scorn which she threw into the few words with which she interrupted him from time to time. “Whether a man makes good shoes, and at a reasonable price, and charges for them honestly—that is what you have to consider,” said the Duke impressively.
“I’d rather pay double for bad shoes to a man who did not thwart me.”
“You should not condescend to be thwarted in such a matter. You lower yourself by admitting such a feeling.” And yet he writhed himself under the lashes of Mr. Slide!
“I know an enemy when I see him,” said the Duchess, “and as long as I live I’ll treat an enemy as an enemy.”
There was ever so much of it, in the course of
