Even all that she could have easily settled to her own satisfaction by the simple apparatus of a separate establishment carried on in the same house; but here too she was foiled, for his Grace had stubborn notions on that score also, and plainly hinted that any separation must be final and decided; and Adelaide could not yet resolve upon taking so formidable a step in the first year of her marriage.  She was therefore compelled to drag the chain by which, with her own will, she had bound herself for life to one she already despised and detested.  And bound she was, in the strictest sense of the metaphor; for, though the Duke had not the smallest pleasure in the society of his wife, he yet attached great ideas of propriety to their being always seen together, side by side.  Like his sister, Lady Matilda, he had a high reverence for appearances, though he had not her finesse in giving them effect.  He had merely been accustomed to do what he thought looked well, and gave him an air of additional dignity.  He had married Aidelaide because he thought she had a fine presence, and would look well as Duchess of Altamont; and, for the same reason, now that she was his wedded wife, he thought it looked well to be seen always together.  He therefore made a point of having no separate engagements; and even carried his sense of propriety so far, that as regularly as the Duchess’s carriage came to the door the Duke was prepared to hand her in, in due form, and take his station by her side.  This alone would have been sufficient to have embittered Adelaide’s existence, and she had tried every expedient, but in vain, to rid herself of this public display of conjugal duty.  She had opened her landaulet in cold weather, and shut it, even to the glasses, in a scorching sun; but the Duke was insensible to heat and cold.  He was most provokingly healthy; and she had not even the respite which an attack of rheumatism or toothache would have afforded.  As his Grace was not a person of keen sensation, this continual effort to keep up appearances cost him little or nothing; but to the Duchess’s nicer tact it was martyrdom to be compelled to submit to the semblance of affection where there was no reality.  Ah, nothing but a sense of duty, early instilled and practically enforced, can reconcile a refined mind to the painful task of bearing with meekness and gentleness the ill-temper, adverse will, and opposite sentiments of those with whom we can acknowledge no feeling in common!

But Adelaide possessed no sense of duty, and was a stranger to self-command; and though she boasted refinement of mind, yet it was of that spurious sort which, far from elevating and purifying the heart, tends only to corrupt and debase the soul, while it sheds a false and dazzling lustre upon those perishable graces which captivate the senses.