rumour of any
such second alliance might interfere with the pleasantness of the
former one.

"That's all," said the duke.

"It's a most absurd slander," said Mr Palliser.

"I dare say. Those slanders always are absurd; but what can we do?
We can't tie up people's tongues." And the duke looked as though he
wished to have the subject considered as finished, and to be left
alone.

"But we can disregard them," said the nephew, indiscreetly.

"You may. I have never been able to do so. And yet, I believe, I have
not earned for myself the reputation of being subject to the voices
of men. You think that I am asking much of you; but you should
remember that hitherto I have given much and have asked nothing. I
expect you to oblige me in this matter."

Then Mr Plantagenet Palliser left the room, knowing that he had been
threatened. What the duke had said amounted to this--If you go on
dangling after Lady Dumbello, I'll stop the seven thousand a year
which I give you. I'll oppose your next return at Silverbridge, and
I'll make a will and leave away from you Matching and The Horns,--a
beautiful little place in Surrey, the use of which had been already
offered to Mr Palliser in the event of his marriage; all the
Littlebury estate in Yorkshire, and the enormous Scotch property. Of
my personal goods, and money invested in loans, shares, and funds,
you shall never touch a shilling, or the value of a shilling. And, if
I find that I can suit myself, it may be that I'll leave you plain Mr
Plantagenet Palliser, with a little first cousin for the head of your
family.

The full amount of this threat Mr Palliser understood, and, as he
thought of it, he acknowledged to himself that he had never felt for
Lady Dumbello anything like love. No conversation between them had
ever been warmer than that of which the reader has seen a sample.
Lady Dumbello had been nothing to him. But now,--now that the matter
had been put before him in this way, might it not become him, as a
gentleman, to fall in love with so very beautiful a woman, whose name
had already been linked with his own? We all know that story of the
priest, who, by his question in the confessional, taught the ostler
to grease the horses' teeth. "I never did yet," said the ostler, "but
I'll have a try at it." In this case, the duke had acted the part of
the priest, and Mr Palliser, before the night was over, had almost
become as ready a pupil as the ostler. As to the threat, it woul