"I suppose there will be one, by-and-by," said Alice.
"Don't be a fool! But, if there is, I shall take that matter into my own hands. He can do what he pleases with me, and I can't help myself; but I shan't let him or anybody do what they please with my baby. I know what I'm about in such matters a great deal better than he does. I've no doubt he's a very clever man in Parliament; but he doesn't seem to me to understand anything else."
Alice was making some very wise speech in answer to this, when Lady Glencora interrupted her.
"Mr. Grey wouldn't make himself so troublesome, I'm quite sure." Then Alice held her tongue.
When the first consternation arising from the news had somewhat subsided,—say in a fortnight from the day in which Mr. Palliser was made so triumphant,—and when tidings had been duly sent to the Duke, and an answer from his Grace had come, arrangements were made for the return of the party to England. The Duke's reply was very short:—
My dear Plantagenet,—Give my kind love to Glencora. If it's a boy, of course I will be one of the godfathers. The Prince, who is very kind, will perhaps oblige me by being the other. I should advise you to return as soon as convenient.
Your affectionate uncle,
Omnium.
That was the letter; and short as it was, it was probably the longest that Mr. Palliser had ever received from the Duke.
There was great trouble about the mode of their return.
"Oh, what nonsense," said Glencora. "Let us get into an express train, and go right through to London." Mr. Palliser looked at her with a countenance full of rebuke and sorrow. He was always so looking at her now. "If you mean, Plantagenet, that we are to be dragged all across the Continent in that horrible carriage, and be a thousand days on the road, I for one won't submit to it." "I wish I had never told him a word about it," she said afterwards to Alice. "He would never have found it out himself, till this thing was all over."
Mr. Palliser did at last consent to take the joint opinion of a Swiss doctor and an English one who was settled at Berne; and who, on the occasion, was summoned to Lucerne. They suggested the railway; and as letters arrived for Mr. Palliser,—medical letters,—in which the same opinion was broached, it was agreed, at last, that they should return by railway; but they were to make various halts on the road, stopping at each halting-place for a day. The first was, of course, Basle, and from Basle they were to go on to Baden.