Madame Goesler’s Politics
It may be remembered that when Lady Glencora Palliser
was shown into Madame Goesler’s room, Madame
Goesler had just explained somewhat forcibly to the
Duke of Omnium her reasons for refusing the loan of
his Grace’s villa at Como. She had told
the Duke in so many words that she did not mean to
give the world an opportunity of maligning her, and
it would then have been left to the Duke to decide
whether any other arrangements might have been made
for taking Madame Goesler to Como, had he not been
interrupted. That he was very anxious to take
her was certain. The green brougham had already
been often enough at the door in Park Lane to make
his Grace feel that Madame Goesler’s company
was very desirable,—was, perhaps, of all
things left for his enjoyment, the one thing the most
desirable. Lady Glencora had spoken to her husband
of children crying for the top brick of the chimney.
Now it had come to this, that in the eyes of the Duke
of Omnium Marie Max Goesler was the top brick of the
chimney. She had more wit for him than other women,—more
of that sort of wit which he was capable of enjoying.
She had a beauty which he had learned to think more
alluring than other beauty. He was sick of fair
faces, and fat arms, and free necks. Madame Goesler’s
eyes sparkled as other eyes did not sparkle, and there
was something of the vagueness of mystery in the very
blackness and gloss and abundance of her hair,—as
though her beauty was the beauty of some world which
he had not yet known. And there was a quickness
and yet a grace of motion about her which was quite
new to him. The ladies upon whom the Duke had
of late most often smiled had been somewhat slow,—perhaps
almost heavy,—though, no doubt, graceful
withal. In his early youth he remembered to have
seen, somewhere in Greece, such a houri as was this
Madame Goesler. The houri in that case had run
off with the captain of a Russian vessel engaged in
the tallow trade; but not the less was there left
on his Grace’s mind some dreamy memory of charms
which had impressed him very strongly when he was
simply a young Mr. Palliser, and had had at his command
not so convenient a mode of sudden abduction as the
Russian captain’s tallow ship. Pressed
hard by such circumstances as these, there is no knowing
how the Duke might have got out of his difficulties
had not Lady Glencora appeared upon the scene.
Since the future little Lord Silverbridge had been
born, the Duke had been very constant in his worship
of Lady Glencora, and as, from year to year, a little
brother was added, thus making the family very strong
and stable, his acts of worship had increased; but
with his worship there had come of late something
almost of dread,—something almost of obedience,
which had made those who were immediately about the
Duke declare that his Grace was a good deal changed.
For, hitherto, whatever may have been the Duke’s
