‘How many, sir, do neither?’

‘Yes, I know,’ said the Duke.  ’Such a doctrine nowadays is caviare to the general.  One must live as others live around one, I suppose.  I could not see her suffer.  It was too much for me.  When I became convinced that this was no temporary passion, no romantic love which time might banish, that she was of such a temperament that she could not change,—­that I had to give way.  Gerald I suppose will bring me some kitchen-maid for his wife.’

‘Oh sir, you should not say that to me.’

’No;—­I should not have said it to you.  I beg your pardon, Silverbridge.’  Then he paused a moment, turning over certain thoughts within his own bosom.  ’Perhaps after all it is well that a pride of which I am conscious should be rebuked.  And it may be that the rebuke has come in such a form that I should be thankful.  I know that I can love Isabel.’

‘That to me will be everything.’

’And this young man has nothing that should revolt me.  I think he has been wrong.  But now that I have said it I will let all that pass from me.  He will dine with us today.’

Silverbridge then went to see his sister.  ’So you have settled your little business, Mary.’

‘Oh Silverbridge, you will wish me joy?’

‘Certainly.  Why not?’

’Papa is so stern with me.  Of course he has given way, and of course I am grateful.  But he looks at me as though I had done something to be forgiven.’

’Take the good the gods provide you, Mary.  That will all come right.’

‘But I have not done anything wrong, have I?’

’That is a matter of opinion.  How can I answer you when I don’t quite know whether I have done anything wrong or not myself.  I am going to marry the girl that I have chosen.  That’s enough for me.’

‘But you did change.’

‘We need not say anything about that.’

’But I have never changed.  Papa just told me that he would consent, and that I might write to him.  So I did write, and he came.  But papa looks at me as though I had broken his heart.’

’I tell you what it is, Mary.  You expect too much from him.  He has not had his own way with either of us, and of course he feels it.’

As Tregear had said there was quite a family party in Carlton Terrace, though as yet the family was not bound together by family ties.  All the Boncassens were there, the father, the mother, and the promised bride.  Mr Boncassen bore himself with more ease than anyone in the company, having at his command a gift of manliness which enabled him to regard this marriage exactly as he would have done any other.  America was not so far distant but what he would be able to see his girl occasionally.  He liked the young man and he believed in the comfort of wealth.  Therefore he was satisfied.  But when the marriage was spoken of, or written of, as an ‘alliance’, then he would say a hard word or two about dukes and lords in general.  On such an occasion as this he was happy and at his ease.