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Then he turned his back and walked away. The few words he had spoken, and the manner in which he had carried himself, had been such as to make all those around them notice it. Each of them knew that Lady Glencora's name should not have been in Burgo's mouth, and all felt a fear not easily to be defined that something terrible would come of it.
Mr Palliser would have rejected any such suggestion, and Mrs Marsham knew that he would do so; but she had let a word or two drop, hinting that Lady Glencora was very young, hinting that Lady Glencora's manners were charming in their childlike simplicity; but hinting also that precaution was, for that reason, the more necessary.
Fothergill had made a little attempt at dictation himself, but had receded with fingers very much scorched in the attempt. It was indeed possible that the Duke was becoming in the slightest degree weary of Lady Glencora's thraldom, and that he thought that Madame Max Goesler might be more tender with him. Madame Max Goesler, however, intended to be tender only on one condition.
There had frequently been in the mind of this young man an idea that there was something almost false in his own position, that his life was a pretence, and that he would ultimately be subject to that ruin which always comes, sooner or later, on things which are false; and now as he wandered alone about Lady Glencora's gardens, this feeling was very strong within his bosom, and robbed him altogether of the honour and glory of having been one of the Duke of Omnium's guests.
"Of course I shall not wish to see him while he chooses to entertain such an idea," she had said, "but I shall not keep out of his way. You would not wish me to keep out of his way, Frank?" When she received a card for Lady Glencora's party, very soon after this, she was careful to answer it in such a manner as to impress Lady Glencora with a remembrance of her assent.
Lady Glencora was certainly very powerful, and Lady Glencora's husband was Chancellor of the Exchequer. He did not suppose that the duke cared in the least whether Lizzie Eustace was or was not married; but Lady Glencora had certainly interested herself about Lizzie, and might make London almost too hot to hold him if she chose to go about everywhere saying that he ought to marry the lady.
Lady Glencora's state of mind was, in its nature, nearly the same as that of the lady in the post-chaise. Whether or no she would use her charm, she had not yet decided, but the power of doing so was still hers. Alice came, and the greeting between the cousins was very affectionate.
It must have been so, for at the moment Lady Glencora's eye met Alice's for an instant, and was then withdrawn, so that Alice was compelled to think that her friend and cousin was not always quite successful in those struggles she made to be proper. Then the gentlemen came in one after another, and other ladies, till about thirty people were assembled.
All this is wearing me, perhaps more than you think." "I will come soon," said Lord Fawn, and then he returned among Lady Glencora's guests, very uncomfortable. Lizzie got home in safety and locked up her diamonds in the iron box. "And I Have Nothing to Give"
All her feelings had been too violent, and it might well have been that she should have driven this woman to do the very thing that she was so anxious to avoid. "You owe me some little apology," Madame Goesler had said. It was true, and she would apologise. Undue pride was not a part of Lady Glencora's character. Indeed, there was not enough of pride in her composition.
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