llingly with mysterious
hints, in which practice made him perfect.

But with the Duchess the affair was very serious, so much so that
she was driven to call in advice,--not only from her constant friend,
Mrs. Finn, but afterwards from Barrington Erle, from Phineas Finn,
and lastly even from the Duke of St. Bungay, to whom she was hardly
willing to subject herself, the Duke being the special friend of
her husband. But the matter became so important to her that she was
unable to trifle with it. At Gatherum the expulsion of Major Pountney
soon became a forgotten affair. When the Duchess learned the truth
she quite approved of the expulsion, only hinting to Barrington
Erle that the act of kicking out should have been more absolutely
practical. And the loss of Silverbridge, though it hurt her sorely,
could be endured. She must write to her friend Ferdinand Lopez, when
the time should come, excusing herself as best she might, and must
lose the exquisite delight of making a Member of Parliament out of
her own hand. The newspapers, however, had taken that matter up in
the proper spirit, and political capital might to some extent be
made of it. The loss of Silverbridge, though it bruised, broke
no bones. But the Duke had again expressed himself with unusual
sternness respecting her ducal hospitalities, and had reiterated the
declaration of his intention to live out the remainder of his period
of office in republican simplicity. "We have tried it and it has
failed, and let there be an end of it," he said to her. Simple and
direct disobedience to such an order was as little in her way as
simple or direct obedience. She knew her husband well, and knew how
he could be managed and how he could not be managed. When he declared
that there should be an "end of it,"--meaning an end of the very
system by which she hoped to perpetuate his power,--she did not dare
to argue with him. And yet he was so wrong! The trial had been no
failure. The thing had been done and well done, and had succeeded.
Was failure to be presumed because one impertinent puppy had found
his way into the house? And then to abandon the system at once,
whether it had failed or whether it had succeeded, would be to call
the attention of all the world to an acknowledged failure,--to a
failure so disreputable that its acknowledgment must lead to the
loss of everything! It was known now,--so argued the Duchess to
herself,--that she had devoted herself to the work of cement