ick of the
chimney. She had more wit for him than other women,--more of that
sort of wit which he was capable of enjoying. She had a beauty which
he had learned to think more alluring than other beauty. He was sick
of fair faces, and fat arms, and free necks. Madame Goesler's eyes
sparkled as other eyes did not sparkle, and there was something
of the vagueness of mystery in the very blackness and gloss and
abundance of her hair,--as though her beauty was the beauty of some
world which he had not yet known. And there was a quickness and yet
a grace of motion about her which was quite new to him. The ladies
upon whom the Duke had of late most often smiled had been somewhat
slow,--perhaps almost heavy,--though, no doubt, graceful withal. In
his early youth he remembered to have seen, somewhere in Greece, such
a houri as was this Madame Goesler. The houri in that case had run
off with the captain of a Russian vessel engaged in the tallow trade;
but not the less was there left on his Grace's mind some dreamy
memory of charms which had impressed him very strongly when he was
simply a young Mr. Palliser, and had had at his command not so
convenient a mode of sudden abduction as the Russian captain's tallow
ship. Pressed hard by such circumstances as these, there is no
knowing how the Duke might have got out of his difficulties had not
Lady Glencora appeared upon the scene.

Since the future little Lord Silverbridge had been born, the Duke had
been very constant in his worship of Lady Glencora, and as, from year
to year, a little brother was added, thus making the family very
strong and stable, his acts of worship had increased; but with his
worship there had come of late something almost of dread,--something
almost of obedience, which had made those who were immediately
about the Duke declare that his Grace was a good deal changed. For,
hitherto, whatever may have been the Duke's weaknesses, he certainly
had known no master. His heir, Plantagenet Palliser, had been always
subject to him. His other relations had been kept at such a distance
as hardly to be more than recognised; and though his Grace no
doubt had had his intimacies, they who had been intimate with him
had either never tried to obtain ascendancy, or had failed. Lady
Glencora, whether with or without a struggle, had succeeded, and
people about the Duke said that the Duke was much changed. Mr.
Fothergill,--who was his Grace's man of business, and who was not
a fav