lf. I am so glad he has come."

"I don't think I ever saw him," said Phineas.

"Oh, I have seen him,--a magnificent-looking man! I think it is so
very nice of Lady Glencora getting him to meet us. It is very rarely
that he will join in a great party, but they say Lady Glencora can do
anything with him since the heir was born. I suppose you have heard
all about that."

"No," said Phineas; "I have heard nothing of the heir, but I know
that there are three or four babies."

"There was no heir, you know, for a year and a half, and they were
all au desespoir; and the Duke was very nearly quarrelling with his
nephew; and Mr. Palliser--; you know it had very nearly come to a
separation."

"I don't know anything at all about it," said Phineas, who was not
very fond of the lady who was giving him the information.

"It is so, I can assure you; but since the boy was born Lady Glencora
can do anything with the Duke. She made him go to Ascot last spring,
and he presented her with the favourite for one of the races on the
very morning the horse ran. They say he gave three thousand pounds
for him."

"And did Lady Glencora win?"

"No;--the horse lost; and Mr. Palliser has never known what to do
with him since. But it was very pretty of the Duke;--was it not?"

Phineas, though he had intended to show to Mrs. Bonteen how little he
thought about the Duke of Omnium,--how small was his respect for a
great peer who took no part in politics,--could not protect himself
from a certain feeling of anxiety as to the aspect and gait and words
of the man of whom people thought so much, of whom he had heard so
often, and of whom he had seen so little. He told himself that the
Duke of Omnium should be no more to him than any other man, but yet
the Duke of Omnium was more to him than other men. When he came
down into the drawing-room he was angry with himself, and stood
apart;--and was then angry with himself again because he stood apart.
Why should he make a difference in his own bearing because there was
such a man in the company? And yet he could not avoid it. When he
entered the room the Duke was standing in a large bow-window, and two
or three ladies and two or three men were standing round him. Phineas
would not go near the group, telling himself that he would not
approach a man so grand as was the Duke of Omnium. He saw Madame Max
Goesler among the party, and after a while he saw her retreat. As she
retreated, Phineas knew that some