"
"I'm sure I hope he'll be amused," said Mr. Palliser innocently. "A
little amusement is all that he cares for now."
"Suppose you were told some day that he was going--to be married?"
said Lady Glencora.
"My uncle married!"
"Why not he as well as another?"
"And to Madame Goesler?"
"If he be ever married it will be to some such woman."
"There is not a man in all England who thinks more of his own
position than my uncle," said Mr. Palliser somewhat proudly,--almost
with a touch of anger.
"That is all very well, Plantagenet, and true enough in a kind of
way. But a child will sacrifice all that it has for the top brick
of the chimney, and old men sometimes become children. You would
not like to be told some morning that there was a little Lord
Silverbridge in the world." Now the eldest son of the Duke of
Omnium, when the Duke of Omnium had a son, was called the Earl of
Silverbridge; and Mr. Palliser, when this question was asked him,
became very pale. Mr. Palliser knew well how thoroughly the cunning
of the serpent was joined to the purity of the dove in the person
of his wife, and he was sure that there was cause for fear when she
hinted at danger.
"Perhaps you had better keep your eye upon him," he said to his wife.
"And upon her," said Lady Glencora.
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