over you." All these positions Lady Glencora contradicted
vigorously. Of course, Mr Palliser had been wrong in walking out of
the Assembly Rooms as he had done, leaving Alice behind him. So much
Lady Glencora admitted. But this had come of his intense anxiety.
"And you know what a man he is," said his wife--"how stiff, and hard,
and unpleasant he can be without meaning it."--"There is no reason
why I should bear his unpleasantness," said Alice. "Yes, there
is,--great reason. You are to do it for the sake of friendship. And
as for my not doing what you tell me, you know that's not true."

"Did I not beg you to keep away from the table?"

"Of course you did, and of course I was naughty; but that was only
once. Alice, I want you more than I ever wanted you before. I cannot
tell you more now, but you must stay with me."

Alice consented to come down to breakfast without any immediate
continuance of her active preparations for going, and at last, of
course, she stayed. When she entered the breakfast-room Mr Palliser
came up to her, and offered her his hand. She had no alternative
but to take it, and then seated herself. That there was an intended
apology in the manner in which he offered her toast and butter, she
was convinced; and the special courtesy with which he handed her to
the carriage, when she and Lady Glencora went out for their drive,
after dinner, was almost as good as a petition for pardon. So the
thing went on, and by degrees Mr Palliser and Miss Vavasor were again
friends.

But Alice never knew in what way the matter was settled between
Mr Palliser and his wife, or whether there was any such settling.
Probably there was none. "Of course, he understands that it didn't
mean anything," Lady Glencora had said. "He knows that I don't want
to gamble." But let that be as it might, their sojourn at Baden was
curtailed, and none of the party went up again to the Assembly Rooms
before their departure.

Before establishing themselves at Lucerne they made a little tour
round by the Falls of the Rhine and Zurich. In their preparations
for this journey, Alice made a struggle, but a struggle in vain, to
avoid a passage through Basle. It was only too clear to her that Mr
Palliser was determined to go by Basle. She could not bring herself
to say that she had recollections connected with that place which
would make a return to it unpleasant to her. If she could have
said as much, even to Glencora, Mr Palliser would no dou