"Yes, I will," said Alice, who was quite aware that he had made an accurate picture of her own position. "When I meet such a one, I will send for you at once."
"You know no such person now?"
"Well, no; not just at present."
"I declare I don't think he could do anything better," her cousin said to her that night. Lady Glencora was now in the habit of having Alice with her in what she called her dressing-room every evening, and then they would sit till the small hours came upon them. Mr. Palliser always burnt the midnight oil and came to bed with the owls. They would often talk of him and his prospects till Alice had perhaps inspired his wife with more of interest in him and them than she had before felt. And Alice had managed generally to drive her friend away from those topics which were so dangerous,—those allusions to her childlessness, and those hints that Burgo Fitzgerald was still in her thoughts. And sometimes, of course, they had spoken of Alice's own prospects, till she got into a way of telling her cousin freely all that she felt. On such occasions Lady Glencora would always tell her that she had been right,—if she did not love the man. "Though your finger were put out for the ring," said Lady Glencora on one such occasion, "you should go back, if you did not love him."
"But I did love him," said Alice.
"Then I don't understand it," said Lady Glencora; and, in truth, close as was their intimacy, they did not perfectly understand each other.
But on this occasion they were speaking of Jeffrey Palliser. "I declare I don't think he could do any better," said Lady Glencora.
"If you talk such nonsense, I will not stay," said Alice.
"But why should it be nonsense? You would be very comfortable with your joint incomes. He is one of the best fellows in the world. It is clear that he likes you; and then we should be so near to each other. I am sure Mr. Palliser would do something for him if he married,—and especially if I asked him."
"I only know of two things against it."