When alone with something weighty on her mind she
would sit in this form for the hour together, resolving, or trying
to resolve, what should be her conduct. She did few things without
much thinking, and though she walked very boldly, she walked warily.
She often told herself that such success as she had achieved could
not have been achieved without much caution. And yet she was ever
discontented with herself, telling herself that all that she had done
was nothing, or worse than nothing. What was it all, to have a duke
and to have lords dining with her, to dine with lords or with a duke
itself, if life were dull with her, and the hours hung heavy! Life
with her was dull, and the hours did hang heavy. And what if she
caught this old man, and became herself a duchess,--caught him by
means of his weakness, to the inexpressible dismay of all those
who were bound to him by ties of blood,--would that make her life
happier, or her hours less tedious? That prospect of a life on the
Italian lakes with an old man tied to her side was not so charming in
her eyes as it was in those of the Duke. Were she to succeed, and to
be blazoned forth to the world as Duchess of Omnium, what would she
have gained?
She perfectly understood the motive of Lady Glencora's visit, and
thought that she would at any rate gain something in the very triumph
of baffling the manoeuvres of so clever a woman.
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