affectionate. She was happy with her
children, happy with her friends, in the enjoyment of perfect health,
and capable of taking an exaggerated interest in anything that might
come uppermost for the moment. One would have been inclined to say
that politics were altogether unnecessary to her, and that as Duchess
of Omnium, lately known as Lady Glencora Palliser, she had a wider
and a pleasanter influence than could belong to any woman as wife
of a Prime Minister. And she was essentially one of those women who
are not contented to be known simply as the wives of their husbands.
She had a celebrity of her own, quite independent of his position,
and which could not be enhanced by any glory or any power added to
him. Nevertheless, when he left her to go down to the Queen with
the prospect of being called upon to act as chief of the incoming
ministry, her heart throbbed with excitement. It had come at last,
and he would be, to her thinking, the leading man in the greatest
kingdom in the world.

But she felt in regard to him somewhat as did Lady Macbeth towards
her lord.

"What thou would'st highly,
That would'st thou holily."

She knew him to be full of scruples, unable to bend when aught was to
be got by bending, unwilling to domineer when men might be brought to
subjection only by domination. The first duty never could be taught
to him. To win support by smiles when his heart was bitter within him
would never be within the power of her husband. He could never be
brought to buy an enemy by political gifts,--would never be prone to
silence his keenest opponent by making him his right hand supporter.
But the other lesson was easier and might she thought be learned.
Power is so pleasant that men quickly learn to be greedy in the
enjoyment of it, and to flatter themselves that patriotism requires
them to be imperious. She would be constant with him day and night to
make him understand that his duty to his country required him to be
in very truth its chief ruler. And then with some knowledge of things
as they are,--and also with much ignorance,--she reflected that he
had at his command a means of obtaining popularity and securing
power, which had not belonged to his immediate predecessors, and had
perhaps never to the same extent been at the command of any minister
in England. His wealth as Duke of Omnium had been great; but hers,
as available for immediate purposes, had been greater even than his.
After some fa