ank. The policy confided
to him and expected at his hands was that of keeping together a
Coalition Ministry. That was a task that did not satisfy him. And
now, gradually,--very slowly indeed at first, but still with a
sure step,--there was creeping upon him the idea that his power of
cohesion was sought for, and perhaps found, not in his political
capacity, but in his rank and wealth. It might, in fact, be the
case that it was his wife the Duchess,--that Lady Glencora of whose
wild impulses and general impracticability he had always been in
dread,--that she with her dinner parties and receptions, with her
crowded saloons, her music, her picnics, and social temptations, was
Prime Minister rather than he himself. It might be that this had been
understood by the coalesced parties,--by everybody, in fact, except
himself. It had, perhaps, been found that in the state of things
then existing, a ministry could be best kept together, not by
parliamentary capacity, but by social arrangements, such as his
Duchess, and his Duchess alone, could carry out. She and she only
would have the spirit and the money and the sort of cleverness
required. In such a state of things he of course, as her husband,
must be the nominal Prime Minister.

There was no anger in his bosom as he thought of this. It would
be hardly just to say that there was jealousy. His nature was
essentially free from jealousy. But there was shame,--and
self-accusation at having accepted so great an office with so little
fixed purpose as to great work. It might be his duty to subordinate
even his pride to the service of his country, and to consent to be
a faineant minister, a gilded Treasury log, because by remaining in
that position he would enable the Government to be carried on. But
how base the position, how mean, how repugnant to that grand idea of
public work which had hitherto been the motive power of all his life!
How would he continue to live if this thing were to go on from year
to year,--he pretending to govern while others governed,--stalking
about from one public hall to another in a blue ribbon, taking the
highest place at all tables, receiving mock reverence, and known to
all men as faineant First Lord of the Treasury? Now, as he had been
thinking of all this, the most trusted of his friends had come to
him, and had at once alluded to the very circumstances which had been
pressing so heavily on his mind. "I was delighted," continued the
elder Duke, "whe