three years of
her life had been sacrificed to an old man with whom she had not in
truth possessed aught in common. She had persuaded herself that there
had existed a warm friendship between them;--but of what nature could
have been a friendship with one whom she had not known till he had
been in his dotage? What words of the Duke's speaking had she ever
heard with pleasure, except certain terms of affection which had been
half mawkish and half senile? She had told Phineas Finn, while riding
home with him from Broughton Spinnies, that she had clung to the Duke
because she loved him, but what had there been to produce such love?
The Duke had begun his acquaintance with her by insulting her,--and
had then offered to make her his wife. This,--which would have
conferred upon her some tangible advantages, such as rank, and
wealth, and a great name,--she had refused, thinking that the price
to be paid for them was too high, and that life might even yet have
something better in store for her. After that she had permitted
herself to become, after a fashion, head nurse to the old man, and
in that pursuit had wasted three years of what remained to her of
her youth. People, at any rate, should not say of her that she had
accepted payment for the three years' service by taking a casket of
jewels. She would take nothing that should justify any man in saying
that she had been enriched by her acquaintance with the Duke of
Omnium. It might be that she had been foolish, but she would be more
foolish still were she to accept a reward for her folly. As it was
there had been something of romance in it,--though the romance of
friendship at the bedside of a sick and selfish old man had hardly
been satisfactory.

Even in her close connection with the present Duchess there was
something which was almost hollow. Had there not been a compact
between them, never expressed, but not the less understood? Had
not her dear friend, Lady Glen, agreed to bestow upon her support,
fashion, and all kinds of worldly good things,--on condition that she
never married the old Duke? She had liked Lady Glencora,--had enjoyed
her friend's society, and been happy in her friend's company,--but
she had always felt that Lady Glencora's attraction to herself had
been simply on the score of the Duke. It was necessary that the Duke
should be pampered and kept in good humour. An old man, let him be
ever so old, can do what he likes with himself and his belongings. To
ke