"I am not thinking of money, Duke," said Plantagenet Palliser.
"Of what then were you thinking?"
"Simply of what you told me. I do not in the least mean to interfere."
"I hope not, Plantagenet."
"But I could not hear such a statement from you without some surprise. Whatever you do I hope will tend to make you happy."
So much passed between the uncle and the nephew, and what the uncle told to the nephew, the nephew of course told to his wife. "He was with her again, yesterday," said Lady Glencora, "for more than an hour. And he had been half the morning dressing himself before he went to her."
"He is not engaged to her, or he would have told me," said Plantagenet Palliser.
"I think he would, but there is no knowing. At the present moment I have only one doubt,—whether to act upon him or upon her."
"I do not see that you can do good by going to either."
"Well, we will see. If she be the woman I take her to be, I think I could do something with her. I have never supposed her to be a bad woman,—never. I will think of it." Then Lady Glencora left her husband, and did not consult him afterwards as to the course she would pursue. He had his budget to manage, and his speeches to make. The little affair of the Duke and Madame Goesler, she thought it best to take into her own hands without any assistance from him. "What a fool I was," she said to herself, "to have her down there when the Duke was at Matching!"