So much could not be said for his wife, with whom the Duke attempted to place himself on terms of family equality.  But in doing this he failed to hide the attempt even from her, and she broke down under it.  Had he simply walked into the room with her as he would have done on any other occasion, and then remarked that the frost was keen or the thaw disagreeable, it would have been better for her.  But when he told her that he hoped that she would often make herself at home in that house, and looked, as he said it, as though he were asking her to take a place among the goddesses of Olympus, she was troubled as to her answer.  ’Oh, my Lord Duke,’ she said, ’when I think of Isabel living here and being called by such a name, it almost upsets me.’

Isabel had all her father’s courage, but she was more sensitive; and though she would have borne her honours well, was oppressed by the feeling that the weight was too much for her mother.  She could not keep her ear from listening to her mother’s words, or her eye from watching her mother’s motions.  She was prepared to carry her mother everywhere.  ’As other girls have to be taken with their belongings, so must I, if I be taken at all.’  This she had said plainly enough.  There should be no division between her and her mother.  But still knowing that her mother was not quite at ease, she was hardly at ease herself.

Silverbridge came in at the last moment, and of course occupied a chair next to Isabel.  As the House was sitting, it was natural that he should come in a flurry.  ‘I left Phineas,’ he said, ’pounding away in his old style at Sir Timothy.  By-the-bye, Isabel, you must come down some day and hear Sir Timothy badgered.  I must be back again about ten.  Well, Gerald, how are they all at Lazarus?’ He made an effort to be free and easy, but even he soon found that it was an effort.

Gerald had come up from Oxford for the occasion that he might make acquaintance with the Boncassens.  He had taken Isabel in to dinner, but had been turned out of his place when his brother came in.  He had been a little confused by the first impression made upon him by Mrs Boncassen, and had involuntarily watched his father.  ‘Silver is going to have an odd sort of mother-in-law,’ he said afterwards to Mary, who remarked in reply that this would not signify, as the mother-in-law would be in New York.

Tregear’s part was very difficult to play.  He could not but feel that though he had succeeded, still he was looked upon askance.  Silverbridge had told him that by degrees the Duke would be won round, but that it was not to be expected that he should swallow at once all his regrets.  The truth of this could not but be accepted.  The immediate inconvenience, however, was not the less felt.  Each and everyone there knew the position of each and everyone;—­but Tregear felt it difficult to act up to his.  He could not play the well-pleased lover openly, as did Silverbridge.  Mary herself was disposed to be very silent.  The heart-breaking tedium of her dull life had been removed.  Her determination had been rewarded.  All that she had wanted had been granted to her, and she was happy.  But she was not prepared to show off her happiness before others.  And she was aware that she was thought to have done evil by introducing her lover into her august family.