“I would rather not offend him, as is natural.  Indeed, I do not wish to offend any one.”

“Exactly so; and least of all the duke, who has the whole property in his own hands.  We may say the whole, for he can marry to-morrow if he pleases.  And then his life is so good.  I don’t know a stouter man of his age, anywhere.”

“I’m very glad to hear it.”

“I’m sure you are, Mr Palliser.  But if he were to take offence, you know?”

“I should put up with it.”

“Yes, exactly; that’s what you would do.  But it would be worth while to avoid it, seeing how much he has in his power.”

“Has the duke sent you to me now, Mr Fothergill?”

“No, no, no,—­nothing of the sort.  But he dropped words the other day which made me fancy that he was not quite—­quite—­quite at ease about you.  I have long known that he would be very glad indeed to see an heir born to the property.  The other morning,—­I don’t know whether there was anything in it,—­but I fancied he was going to make some change in the present arrangements.  He did not do it, and it might have been fancy.  Only think, Mr Palliser, what one word of his might do!  If he says a word, he never goes back from it.”  Then, having said so much, Mr Fothergill went his way.

Mr Palliser understood the meaning of all this very well.  It was not the first occasion on which Mr Fothergill had given him advice,—­advice such as Mr Fothergill himself had no right to give him.  He always received such counsel with an air of half-injured dignity, intending thereby to explain to Mr Fothergill that he was intruding.  But he knew well whence the advice came; and though, in all such cases, he had made up his mind not to follow such counsel, it had generally come to pass that Mr Palliser’s conduct had more or less accurately conformed itself to Mr Fothergill’s advice.  A word from the duke might certainly do a great deal!  Mr Palliser resolved that in that affair of Lady Dumbello he would follow his own devices.  But, nevertheless, it was undoubtedly true that a word from the duke might do a great deal!

We, who are in the secret, know how far Mr Palliser had already progressed in his iniquitous passion before he left Hartlebury.  Others, who were perhaps not so well informed, gave him credit for a much more advanced success.  Lady Clandidlem, in her letter to Lady de Courcy, written immediately after the departure of Mr Palliser, declared that, having heard of that gentleman’s intended matutinal departure, she had confidently expected to learn at the breakfast-table that Lady Dumbello had flown with him.  From the tone of her ladyship’s language, it seemed as though she had been robbed of an anticipated pleasure by Lady Dumbello’s prolonged sojourn in the halls of her husband’s ancestors.  “I feel, however, quite convinced,” said Lady Clandidlem, “that it cannot go on longer than the spring.  I never yet saw a man so infatuated as Mr Palliser.  He did not leave her for one moment all the time he was here.  No one but Lady Hartletop would have permitted it.  But, you know, there is nothing so pleasant as good old family friendships.”