own to renounce them after some legal form.
Pray do not let the case be sent to me, or there will be so much
trouble, and we shall have another great jewel robbery. I won't take
it in, and I won't have the money, and I will have my own way. Lady
Glen will tell you that I can be very obstinate when I please."

Lady Glencora had told him so already. She had been quite sure that
her friend would persist in her determination as to the legacy, and
had thought that her husband should simply accept Madame Goesler's
assurances to that effect. But a man who had been Chancellor of the
Exchequer could not deal with money, or even with jewels, so lightly.
He assured his wife that such an arrangement was quite out of the
question. He remarked that property was property, by which he meant
to intimate that the real owner of substantial wealth could not be
allowed to disembarrass himself of his responsibilities or strip
himself of his privileges by a few generous but idle words. The late
Duke's will was a very serious thing, and it seemed to the heir that
this abandoning of a legacy bequeathed by the Duke was a making
light of the Duke's last act and deed. To refuse money in such
circumstances was almost like refusing rain from heaven, or warmth
from the sun. It could not be done. The things were her property, and
though she might, of course, chuck them into the street, they would
no less be hers. "But I won't have them, Duke," said Madame Goesler;
and the late Chancellor of the Exchequer found that no proposition
made by him in the House had ever been received with a firmer
opposition. His wife told him that nothing he could say would be of
any avail, and rather ridiculed his idea of the solemnity of wills.
"You can't make a person take a thing because you write it down on a
thick bit of paper, any more than if you gave it her across a table.
I understand it all, of course. She means to show that she didn't
want anything from the Duke. As she refused the name and title, she
won't have the money and jewels. You can't make her take them, and
I'm quite sure you can't talk her over." The young Duke was not
persuaded, but had to give the battle up,--at any rate, for the
present.

On the 19th of March Madame Goesler returned to London, having been
at Matching Priory for more than three weeks. On her journey back to
Park Lane many thoughts crowded on her mind. Had she, upon the whole,
done well in reference to the Duke of Omnium? The last