at that moment, he had a sort of instinct that the one he wished
least to converse with was Father Coleman.

"She has every confidence in his principles," said Lothair to himself as
he mounted his horse, "and his principles were mine six months ago, when
I was at Brentham. Delicious Brentham! It seems like a dream; but every
thing seems like a dream; I hardly know whether life is agony or bliss."

CHAPTER 20

The duke was one of the few gentlemen in, London who lived in a palace.
One of the half-dozen of those stately structures that our capital
boasts had fallen to his lot.

An heir-apparent to the throne, in the earlier days of the present
dynasty, had resolved to be lodged as became a prince, and had raised,
amid gardens which he had diverted from one of the royal parks, an
edifice not unworthy of Vicenza in its best days, though on a far more
extensive scale than any pile that favored city boasts. Before the
palace was finished, the prince died, and irretrievably in debt. His
executors were glad to sell to the trustees of the ancestors of the
chief of the house of Brentham the incomplete palace, which ought never
to have been commenced. The ancestor of the duke was by no means so
strong a man as the duke himself, and prudent people rather murmured at
the exploit. But it was what is called a lucky family--that is to say,
a family with a charm that always attracted and absorbed heiresses; and
perhaps the splendor of CRECY HOUSE--for it always retained its original
title--might have in some degree contributed to fascinate the taste or
imagination of the beautiful women who, generation after generation,
brought their bright castles and their broad manors to swell the state
and rent-rolls of the family who were so kind to Lothair.

The centre of Crecy House consisted of a hall of vast proportion, and
reaching to the roof. Its walls commemorated, in paintings by the most
celebrated artists of the age, the exploits of the Black Prince; and its
coved ceiling, in panels resplendent with Venetian gold, contained
the forms and portraits of English heroes. A corridor round this hall
contained the most celebrated private collection of pictures in England
and opened into a series of sumptuous saloons.

It was a rather early hour when Lothair, the morning after his meeting
the duchess at Lady St. Jerome's, called at Crecy House; but it was only
to leave his card. He would not delay for a moment paying his respects
there