“Of what then were you thinking?”

“Simply of what you told me.  I do not in the least mean to interfere.”

“I hope not, Plantagenet.”

“But I could not hear such a statement from you without some surprise.  Whatever you do I hope will tend to make you happy.”

So much passed between the uncle and the nephew, and what the uncle told to the nephew, the nephew of course told to his wife.  “He was with her again, yesterday,” said Lady Glencora, “for more than an hour.  And he had been half the morning dressing himself before he went to her.”

“He is not engaged to her, or he would have told me,” said Plantagenet Palliser.

“I think he would, but there is no knowing.  At the present moment I have only one doubt,—­whether to act upon him or upon her.”

“I do not see that you can do good by going to either.”

“Well, we will see.  If she be the woman I take her to be, I think I could do something with her.  I have never supposed her to be a bad woman,—­never.  I will think of it.”  Then Lady Glencora left her husband, and did not consult him afterwards as to the course she would pursue.  He had his budget to manage, and his speeches to make.  The little affair of the Duke and Madame Goesler, she thought it best to take into her own hands without any assistance from him.  “What a fool I was,” she said to herself, “to have her down there when the Duke was at Matching!”

Madame Goesler, when she was left alone, felt that now indeed she must make up her mind.  She had asked for two days.  The intervening day was a Sunday, and on the Monday she must send her answer.  She might doubt at any rate for this one night,—­the Saturday night,—­and sit playing, as it were, with the coronet of a duchess in her lap.  She had been born the daughter of a small country attorney, and now a duke had asked her to be his wife,—­and a duke who was acknowledged to stand above other dukes!  Nothing at any rate could rob her of that satisfaction.  Whatever resolution she might form at last, she had by her own resources reached a point of success in remembering which there would always be a keen gratification.  It would be much to be Duchess of Omnium; but it would be something also to have refused to be a Duchess of Omnium.  During that evening, that night, and the next morning, she remained playing with the coronet in her lap.  She would not go to church.  What good could any sermon do her while that bauble was dangling before her eyes?  After church-time, about two o’clock, Phineas Finn came to her.  Just at this period Phineas would come to her often;—­sometimes full of a new decision to forget Violet Effingham altogether, at others minded to continue his siege let the hope of success be ever so small.  He had now heard that Violet and Lord Chiltern had in truth quarrelled, and was of course anxious to be advised to continue the siege.  When he first came in and spoke a word or two, in which there was no