aid that very clever man, Captain
Boodle, who had lately reappeared among his military friends at his
club, "but she don't go flat all round."

"She has the devil of a temper, no doubt," said Lieutenant Griggs.

"No mouth, I should say," said Boodle. It was thus that Lizzie was
talked about at the clubs; but she was asked to dinners and balls,
and gave little dinners herself, and to a certain extent was the
fashion. Everybody had declared that of course she would marry again,
and now it was known everywhere that she was engaged to Lord Fawn.

"Poor dear Lord Fawn!" said Lady Glencora Palliser to her dear friend
Madame Max Goesler; "do you remember how violently he was in love
with Violet Effingham two years ago?"

"Two years is a long time, Lady Glencora; and Violet Effingham has
chosen another husband."

"But isn't this a fall for him? Violet was the sweetest girl out, and
at one time I really thought she meant to take him."

"I thought she meant to take another man whom she did not take,"
said Madame Goesler, who had her own recollections, who was a widow
herself, and who, at the period to which Lady Glencora was referring,
had thought that perhaps she might cease to be a widow. Not that she
had ever suggested to herself that Lord Fawn might be her second
husband.

"Poor Lord Fawn!" continued Lady Glencora. "I suppose he is terribly
in want of money."

"But surely Lady Eustace is very pretty."

"Yes;--she is very pretty; nay more, she is quite lovely to look at.
And she is clever,--very. And she is rich,--very. But--"

"Well, Lady Glencora. What does your 'but' mean?"

"Who ever explains a 'but'? You're a great deal too clever, Madame
Goesler, to want any explanation. And I couldn't explain it. I can
only say I'm sorry for poor Lord Fawn,--who is a gentleman, but will
never set the Thames on fire."

"No, indeed. All the same, I like Lord Fawn extremely," said Madame
Goesler, "and I think he's just the man to marry Lady Eustace. He's
always at his office or at the House."

"A man may be a great deal at his office, and a great deal more at
the House than Lord Fawn," said Lady Glencora laughing, "and yet
think about his wife, my dear." For of all men known, no man spent
more hours at the House or in his office than did Lady Glencora's
husband, Mr. Palliser, who at this time, and had now for more than
two years, filled the high place of Chancellor of the Exchequer.

This conversation took place in Madame