mmediately dominated her life.

III

William Lamb, Viscount Melbourne, was fifty-eight years of age, and
had been for the last three years Prime Minister of England. In every
outward respect he was one of the most fortunate of mankind. He had
been born into the midst of riches, brilliance, and power. His mother,
fascinating and intelligent, had been a great Whig hostess, and he had
been bred up as a member of that radiant society which, during the
last quarter of the eighteenth century, concentrated within itself
the ultimate perfections of a hundred years of triumphant aristocracy.
Nature had given him beauty and brains; the unexpected death of an
elder brother brought him wealth, a peerage, and the possibility of
high advancement. Within that charmed circle, whatever one's personal
disabilities, it was difficult to fail; and to him, with all his
advantages, success was well-nigh unavoidable. With little effort, he
attained political eminence. On the triumph of the Whigs he became one
of the leading members of the Government; and when Lord Grey retired
from the premiership he quietly stepped into the vacant place. Nor was
it only in the visible signs of fortune that Fate had been kind to him.
Bound to succeed, and to succeed easily, he was gifted with so fine
a nature that his success became him. His mind, at once supple and
copious, his temperament, at once calm and sensitive, enabled him not
merely to work, but to live with perfect facility and with the grace of
strength. In society he was a notable talker, a captivating companion,
a charming man. If one looked deeper, one saw at once that he was not
ordinary, that the piquancies of his conversation and his manner--his
free-and-easy vaguenesses, his abrupt questions, his lollings and
loungings, his innumerable oaths--were something more than an amusing
ornament, were the outward manifestation of an individuality that was
fundamental.

The precise nature of this individuality was very difficult to gauge: it
was dubious, complex, perhaps self--contradictory. Certainly there was
an ironical discordance between the inner history of the man and his
apparent fortunes. He owed all he had to his birth, and his birth was
shameful; it was known well enough that his mother had passionately
loved Lord Egremont, and that Lord Melbourne was not his father. His
marriage, which had seemed to be the crown of his youthful ardours,
was a long, miserable, desperate failure: the incre