Lady
Glencora Palliser had come to her, trying to enlist her sympathy for
the little heir, behaving, indeed, not very well, as Madame Goesler
had thought, but still with an earnest purpose which was in itself
good. She would write to Lady Glencora and put her out of her misery.
Perhaps there was some feeling of triumph in her mind as she returned
to the desk from which her epistle had been sent to the Duke;--not of
that triumph which would have found its gratification in boasting of
the offer that had been made to her, but arising from a feeling that
she could now show the proud mother of the bold-faced boy that though
she would not pledge herself to any woman as to what she might do or
not do, she was nevertheless capable of resisting such a temptation
as would have been irresistible to many. Of the Duke's offer to her
she would have spoken to no human being, had not this woman shown
that the Duke's purpose was known at least to her, and now, in her
letter, she would write no plain word of that offer. She would not
state, in words intelligible to any one who might read, that the Duke
had offered her his hand and his coronet. But she would write so that
Lady Glencora should understand her. And she would be careful that
there should be no word in the letter to make Lady Glencora think
that she supposed herself to be unfit for the rank offered to her.
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