t it would
save her; but she was not in her practice a false woman, her courage
being too high for falsehood. It now seemed to her that by this
lie she was owning herself to be quelled and brought into absolute
subjection by her husband. So she burst out into truth. "Now I think
of it, I did say a word to Mr. Sprugeon. I told him that--that I
hoped Mr. Lopez would be returned. I don't know whether you call that
canvassing."

"I desired you not to speak to Mr. Sprugeon," he thundered forth.

"That's all very well, Plantagenet, but if you desire me to hold my
tongue altogether, what am I to do?"

"What business is this of yours?"

"I suppose I may have my political sympathies as well as another.
Really you are becoming so autocratic that I shall have to go in for
women's rights."

"You mean me to understand then that you intend to put yourself in
opposition to me."

"What a fuss you make about it all!" she said. "Nothing that one can
do is right! You make me wish that I was a milkmaid or a farmer's
wife." So saying she bounced out of the room, leaving the Duke sick
at heart, low in spirit, and doubtful whether he were right or wrong
in his attempts to manage his wife. Surely he must be right in
feeling that in his high office a clearer conduct and cleaner way of
walking was expected from him than from other men! Noblesse oblige!
To his uncle the privilege of returning a member to Parliament had
been a thing of course; and when the Radical newspapers of the day
abused his uncle, his uncle took that abuse as a thing of course. The
old Duke acted after his kind, and did not care what others said of
him. And he himself, when he first came to his dukedom, was not as
he was now. Duties, though they were heavy enough, were lighter then.
Serious matters were less serious. There was this and that matter
of public policy on which he was intent, but, thinking humbly of
himself, he had not yet learned to conceive that he must fit his
public conduct in all things to a straight rule of patriotic justice.
Now it was different with him, and though the change was painful, he
felt it to be imperative. He would fain have been as other men, but
he could not. But in this change it was so needful to him that he
should carry with him the full sympathies of one person;--that she
who was the nearest to him of all should act with him! And now she
had not only disobeyed him, but had told him, as some grocer's wife
might tell her husband, t