'And I don't choose your name shall be mixed up in it.They say at Silverbridge that you are canvassing for Mr Lopez.'
'Who says so?'
'I presume it's not true.'
'Who says so, Plantagenet?'
'It matters not who has said so.If it be untrue, I presume it to be false.'
'Of course it is false.' Then the Duchess remembered her word to Mr Sprugeon, and the cowardice of the lie was heavy on her.Idoubt whether she would have been so shocked by the idea of falsehood as to have been kept back from it had she before resolved that it would save her; but she was not in her practice a false woman, her courage being too high for falsehood.It now seemed to her that by this lie she was owning herself to be quelled and brought into absolute subjection by her husband.So she burst forth the truth.'Now I think of it, I did say a word to Mr Sprugeon.I told him that, that I hoped Mr Lopez would be returned.I don't know whether you call that canvassing.'
'I desired you not to speak to Mr Sprugeon.'
'That's all very well, Plantagenet, but if you desire me to hold my tongue altogether, what am I to do?'
'What business is this of yours?'
'I suppose I may have my political sympathies as well as another.
Really you are becoming so autocratic that I shall have to go in for women's rights.'
'You mean me to understand then that you intend to put yourself in opposition to me.'
'What a fuss you make about it all!' she said.'Nothing that one can do is right! You make me wish that I was a milkmaid or a farmer's wife.' So saying she bounced out of the room, leaving the Duke sick at heart, low in spirit, and doubtful whether he were right or wrong in his attempts to manage his wife.Surely he must be right in feeling that in his high office a clearer conduct and cleaner way of walking was expected from him than from other men! Noblesse oblige! To his uncle the privilege of returning a member to Parliament had been a thing of course; and when the radical newspapers of the day abused his uncle, his uncle took that abuse as a thing of course.The old Duke acted after his kind, and did not care what others said of him.And he himself, when he first came to his dukedom, was not as he was now.Duties, though they were heavy enough, were lighter then.
Serious matters were less serious.There was this and that matter of public policy on which he was intent, but, thinking humbly of himself, he had not yet learned to conceive that he must fit his public conduct in all things to a straight rule of patriotic justice.Now it was different with him, and though the change was painful, he felt it to be imperative.He would fain have been as other men, but he could not.But in this change it was so needful to him that should carry with him the full sympathies of one person;--that she who was nearest to him of all should act with him! And now she had not only disobeyed him, but had told him, as some grocer's wife might tell her husband, that he was 'making a fuss of it all'!
And then, as he thought of the scene which has been described, he could not quite approve of himself.He knew that he was too self-conscious,--that he was thinking too much about his own conduct and the conduct of others to him.The phrase had been odious to him, but still he could not acquit himself of 'making a fuss'.Of one thing only was he sure,--that a grievous calamity had befallen him when circumstances compelled him to become the Queen's Prime Minister.