d
to stop a day at Basle, making so many objections to the place that
her husband had at last yielded. "I could go from Vienna to London
without feeling it," she said, with indignation; "and to tell me that
I can't do two easy days' journey running!" Mr Palliser had been
afraid to be imperious, and therefore, immediately on his arrival at
one of the stations in Basle, he had posted across the town, in the
heat and the dust, to look after the cushions and the springs at the
other.

"I've a particular favour to ask of you," Lady Glencora said to
her husband, as soon as they were alone together in their rooms at
Baden. Mr Palliser declared that he would grant her any particular
favour,--only premising that he was not to be supposed to have
thereby committed himself to any engagement under which his wife
should have authority to take any exertion upon herself. "I wish I
were a milkmaid," said Lady Glencora.

"But you are not a milkmaid, my dear. You haven't been brought up
like a milkmaid."

But what was the favour? If she would only ask for jewels,--though
they were the Grand Duchess's diamond eardrops, he would endeavour
to get them for her. If she would have quaffed molten pearls, like
Cleopatra, he would have procured the beverage,--having first
fortified himself with a medical opinion as to the fitness of the
drink for a lady in her condition. There was no expenditure that
he would not willingly incur for her, nothing costly that he would
grudge. But when she asked for a favour, he was always afraid of an
imprudence. Very possibly she might want to drink beer in an open
garden.

And her request was, at last, of this nature: "I want you to take me
up to the gambling-rooms!" said she.

"The gambling-rooms!" said Mr Palliser in dismay.

"Yes, Plantagenet; the gambling-rooms. If you had been with me
before, I should not have made a fool of myself by putting my piece
of money on the table. I want to see the place; but then I saw
nothing, because I was so frightened when I found that I was
winning."

Mr Palliser was aware that all the world of Baden,--or rather the
world of the strangers at Baden,--assembles itself in those salons.
It may be also that he himself was curious to see how men looked
when they lost their own money, or won that of others. He knew how a
Minister looked when he lost or gained a tax. He was familiar with
millions and tens of millions in a committee of the whole House. He
knew the exciteme