the night, had been carried on without any
assistance from Tregear. The two young men had then been separated
for a year; but immediately after taking his degree, Tregear, at the
invitation of Lord Silverbridge, had gone to Italy, and had there
completely made good his footing with the Duchess,--with what effect
on another member of the Palliser family the reader already knows.

The young man was certainly clever. When the Duchess found that he
could talk without any shyness, that he could speak French fluently,
and that after a month in Italy he could chatter Italian, at any rate
without reticence or shame; when she perceived that all the women
liked the lad's society and impudence, and that all the young men
were anxious to know him, she was glad to find that Silverbridge
had chosen so valuable a friend. And then he was beautiful to look
at,--putting her almost in mind of another man on whom her eyes had
once loved to dwell. He was dark, with hair that was almost black,
but yet was not black; with clear brown eyes, a nose as regular as
Apollo's, and a mouth in which was ever to be found that expression
of manliness, which of all characteristics is the one which women
love the best. He was five feet ten in height. He was always well
dressed, and yet always so dressed as to seem to show that his
outside garniture had not been matter of trouble to him. Before the
Duchess had dreamed what might take place between this young man and
her daughter she had been urgent in her congratulations to her son as
to the possession of such a friend.

For though she now and then would catch a glimpse of the outer man,
which would remind her of that other beautiful one whom she had
known in her youth, and though, as these glimpses came, she would
remember how poor in spirit and how unmanly that other one had
been, though she would confess to herself how terrible had been the
heart-shipwreck which that other one had brought upon herself; still
she was able completely to assure herself that this man, though not
superior in external grace, was altogether different in mind and
character. She was old enough now to see all this and to appreciate
it. Young Tregear had his own ideas about the politics of the day,
and they were ideas with which she sympathised, though they were
antagonistic to the politics of her life. He had his ideas about
books too, as to manners of life, as to art, and even ethics. Whether
or no in all this there was not m