e shouldn't
agree and divide the good things between us. The Duke has got some
craze of his own about decimal coinage. He'll amuse himself with
that; but it won't come to anything, and it won't hurt us."

"Isn't the Duchess giving a great many parties?" asked Mrs.
Happerton.

"Well;--yes. That kind of thing used to be done in old Lady Brock's
time, and the Duchess is repeating it. There's no end to their money,
you know. But it's rather a bore for the persons who have to go."
The ministerial Roby knew well how he would make his sister-in-law's
mouth water by such an allusion as this to the great privilege of
entering the Prime Minister's mansion in Carlton Terrace.

"I suppose you in the Government are always asked."

"We are expected to go too, and are watched pretty close. Lady Glen,
as we used to call her, has the eyes of Argus. And of course we
who used to be on the other side are especially bound to pay her
observance."

"Don't you like the Duchess?" asked Mrs. Happerton.

"Oh, yes;--I like her very well. She's mad, you know,--mad as a
hatter,--and no one can ever guess what freak may come next. One
always feels that she'll do something sooner or later that will
startle all the world."

"There was a queer story once,--wasn't there?" asked Mrs. Dick.

"I never quite believed that," said Roby. "It was something
about some lover she had before she was married. She went off to
Switzerland. But the Duke,--he was Mr. Palliser then,--followed her
very soon and it all came right."

"When ladies are going to be duchesses, things do come right; don't
they?" said Mrs. Happerton.

On the other side of Mrs. Happerton was Mr. Wharton, quite unable to
talk to his right-hand neighbour, the Secretary's wife. The elder
Mrs. Roby had not, indeed, much to say for herself, and he during
the whole dinner was in misery. He had resolved that there should
be no intimacy of any kind between his daughter and Ferdinand
Lopez,--nothing more than the merest acquaintance; and there they
were, talking together before his very eyes, with more evident signs
of understanding each other than were exhibited by any other two
persons at the table. And yet he had no just ground of complaint
against either of them. If people dine together at the same house,
it may of course happen that they shall sit next to each other. And
if people sit next to each other at dinner, it is expected that they
shall talk. Nobody could accuse Emily of flirting;