"Name your own day, Duke. Will a Sunday suit you?"
"If I must come--"
"You must come." As she spoke her eyes sparkled more and more, and
her colour went and came, and she shook her curls till they emitted
through the air the same soft feeling of a perfume that her note had
produced. Then her foot peeped out from beneath the black and yellow
drapery of her dress, and the Duke saw that it was perfect. And she
put out her finger and touched his arm as she spoke. Her hand was
very fair, and her fingers were bright with rich gems. To men such as
the Duke, a hand, to be quite fair, should be bright with rich gems.
"You must come," she said,--not imploring him now but commanding him.
"Then I will come," he answered, and a certain Sunday was fixed.
The arranging of the guests was a little difficulty, till Madame
Goesler begged the Duke to bring with him Lady Glencora Palliser,
his nephew's wife. This at last he agreed to do. As the wife of his
nephew and heir, Lady Glencora was to the Duke all that a woman could
be. She was everything that was proper as to her own conduct, and not
obtrusive as to his. She did not bore him, and yet she was attentive.
Although in her husband's house she was a fierce politician, in his
house she was simply an attractive woman.
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