x Lord Chancellor. After that
anybody may hope to be anything. Well,--I suppose we may go to bed.
Is your carriage here, my dear?"

"I hope so."

"Ring the bell, Plantagenet, for somebody to see her down. Come to
lunch to-morrow because I shall have so many groans to utter. What
beasts, what brutes, what ungrateful wretches men are!--worse than
women when they get together in numbers enough to be bold. Why have
they deserted you? What have we not done for them? Think of all the
new bedroom furniture that we sent to Gatherum merely to keep the
party together. There were thousands of yards of linen, and it has
all been of no use. Don't you feel like Wolsey, Plantagenet?"

"Not in the least, my dear. No one will take anything away from me
that is my own."

"For me, I am almost as much divorced as Catherine, and have had my
head cut off as completely as Anne Bullen and the rest of them. Go
away, Marie, because I am going to have a cry by myself."

The Duke himself on that night put Mrs. Finn into her carriage; and
as he walked with her downstairs he asked her whether she believed
the Duchess to be in earnest in her sorrow. "She so mixes up her
mirth and woe together," said the Duke, "that I myself sometimes can
hardly understand her."

"I think she does regret it, Duke."

"She told me but the other day that she would be contented."

"A few weeks will make her so. As for your Grace, I hope I may
congratulate you."

"Oh yes;--I think so. We none of us like to be beaten when we have
taken a thing in hand. There is always a little disappointment at
first. But, upon the whole, it is better as it is. I hope it will not
make your husband unhappy."

"Not for his own sake. He will go again into the middle of the
scramble and fight on one side or the other. For my own part I think
opposition the pleasantest. Good night, Duke. I am so sorry that I
should have troubled you."

Then he went alone to his own room, and sat there without moving for
a couple of hours. Surely it was a great thing to have been Prime
Minister of England for three years,--a prize of which nothing now
could rob him. He ought not to be unhappy; and yet he knew himself
to be wretched and disappointed. It had never occurred to him to be
proud of being a duke, or to think of his wealth otherwise than a
chance incident of his life, advantageous indeed, but by no means
a source of honour. And he had been aware that he had owed his
first seat in Parliame