grandeurs which
come from high influence when joined to high rank were sure to be
his. But he was no more moved by these things than would have been a
god, or a block of wood. His uncle was dead; but his uncle had been
an old man, and his grief on that score was moderate. As soon as his
uncle's body had been laid in the family vault at Gatherum, men would
call him Duke of Omnium; and then he could never sit again in the
House of Commons. It was in that light, and in that light only, that
he regarded the matter. To his uncle it had been everything to be
Duke of Omnium. To Plantagenet Palliser it was less than nothing.
He had lived among men and women with titles all his life, himself
untitled, but regarded by them as one of themselves, till the thing,
in his estimation, had come to seem almost nothing. One man walked
out of a room before another man; and he, as Chancellor of the
Exchequer, had, during a part of his career, walked out of most rooms
before most men. But he cared not at all whether he walked out first
or last,--and for him there was nothing else in it. It was a toy that
would perhaps please his wife, but he doubted even whether she would
not cease to be Lady Glencora with regret. In himself this thing that
had happened had absolutely crushed him. He had won for himself by
his own aptitudes and his own industry one special position in the
empire,--and that position, and that alone, was incompatible with the
rank which he was obliged to assume! His case was very hard, and he
felt it;--but he made no complaint to human ears. "I suppose you must
give up the Exchequer," his wife said to him. He shook his head, and
made no reply. Even to her he could not explain his feelings.

I think, too, that she did regret the change in her name, though she
was by no means indifferent to the rank. As Lady Glencora she had
made a reputation which might very possibly fall away from her as
Duchess of Omnium. Fame is a skittish jade, more fickle even than
Fortune, and apt to shy, and bolt, and plunge away on very trifling
causes. As Lady Glencora Palliser she was known to every one, and had
always done exactly as she had pleased. The world in which she lived
had submitted to her fantasies, and had placed her on a pedestal from
which, as Lady Glencora, nothing could have moved her. She was by no
means sure that the same pedestal would be able to carry the Duchess
of Omnium. She must begin again, and such beginnings are dangerous;