I shouldn't like my wife to
drive horses about London."

"And why not? Just because you'd be a tyrant,--like other husbands?
What's the harm of looking fast, if one doesn't do anything improper?
Poor Dandy, and dear Flirt! I'm sure they'd like it."

"Perhaps Mr Palliser doesn't care for that?"

"I can tell you something else he doesn't care for. He doesn't care
whether Dandy's mistress likes it."

"Don't say that, Glencora."

"Why not say it,--to you?"

"Don't teach yourself to think it. That's what I mean. I believe he
would consent to anything that he didn't think wrong."

"Such as lectures about the British Constitution! But never mind
about that, Alice. Of course the British Constitution is everything
to him, and I wish I knew more about it;--that's all. But I haven't
told you whom you are to meet at dinner."

"Yes, you have--Mr Bott."

"But there's another guest, a Mrs Marsham. I thought I'd got rid of
her for to-day, when I wrote to you; but I hadn't. She's coming."

"She won't hurt me at all," said Alice.

"She will hurt me very much. She'll destroy the pleasure of our whole
evening. I do believe that she hates you, and that she thinks you
instigate me to all manner of iniquity. What fools they all are!"

"Who are they all, Glencora?"

"She and that man, and--. Never mind. It makes me sick when I think
that they should be so blind. Alice, I hardly know how much I owe to
you; I don't, indeed. Everything, I believe." Lady Glencora, as she
spoke, put her hand into her pocket, and grasped the letter which lay
there.

"That's nonsense," said Alice.

"No; it's not nonsense. Who do you think came to Matching when I was
there?"

"What;--to the house?" said Alice, feeling almost certain that Mr
Fitzgerald was the person to whom Lady Glencora was alluding.

"No; not to the house."

"If it is the person of whom I am thinking," said Alice, solemnly,
"let me implore you not to speak of him."

"And why should I not speak of him? Did I not speak of him before to
you, and was it not for good? How are you to be my friend, if I may
not speak to you of everything?"

"But you should not think of him."

"What nonsense you talk, Alice! Not think of him! How is one to help
one's thoughts? Look here."

Her hand was on the letter, and it would have been out in a moment,
and thrown upon Alice's lap, had not the servant opened the door and
announced Mrs Marsham.

"Oh, how I do wish we had gone to drive!" sai