as
supposed to understand Bismarck. Was it possible that a woman who so
filled her own life should accept hunting as a creditable employment
for a young man, when it was admitted to be his sole employment? And,
moreover, she desired that her sister Adelaide should marry a certain
Count Brudi, who, according to her belief, had more advanced ideas
about things in general than any other living human being. Adelaide
Palliser had determined that she would not marry Count Brudi; had,
indeed, almost determined that she would marry Gerard Maule, and
had left her brother-in-law's house in Florence after something
like a quarrel. Mrs. Atterbury had declined to authorise the visit
to Harrington Hall, and then Adelaide had pleaded her age and
independence. She was her own mistress if she so chose to call
herself, and would not, at any rate, remain in Florence at the
present moment to receive the attentions of Signor Brudi. Of the
previous winter she had passed three months with some relatives in
England, and there she had learned to ride to hounds, had first met
Gerard Maule, and had made acquaintance with Lady Chiltern. Gerard
Maule had wandered to Italy after her, appearing at Florence in his
desultory way, having no definite purpose, not even that of asking
Adelaide to be his wife,--but still pursuing her, as though he wanted
her without knowing what he wanted. In the course of the Spring,
however, he had proposed, and had been almost accepted. But Adelaide,
though she would not yield to her sister, had been frightened. She
knew that she loved the man, and she swore to herself a thousand
times that she would not be dictated to by her sister;--but was she
prepared to accept the fate which would at once be hers were she now
to marry Gerard Maule? What could she do with a man who had no ideas
of his own as to what he ought to do with himself?

Lady Chiltern was in favour of the marriage. The fortune, she said,
was as much as Adelaide was entitled to expect, the man was a
gentleman, was tainted by no vices, and was truly in love. "You had
better let them fight it out somewhere else," Lord Chiltern had said
when his wife proposed that the invitation to Gerard Maule should be
renewed; but Lady Chiltern had known that if "fought out" at all, it
must be fought out at Harrington Hall. "We have asked him to come
back," she said to Adelaide, "in order that you may make up your
mind. If he chooses to come, it will show that he is in earnes