It might, in fact, be the case that it was his wife the Duchess,--that Lady Glencora of whose wild impulses and general impracticability he had always been in dread,--that she with her dinner parties and receptions, with her crowded saloons, her music, her picnics, and social temptations, was Prime Minister rather than he himself.

It might be that this had been understood by the coalesced parties,--by everybody, in fact, except himself.

It had, perhaps, been found that in the state of things then existing, a ministry could be best kept together, not by parliamentary capacity, but by social arrangements, such as his Duchess, and his Duchess alone, could carry out.

She and she only would have the spirit and the money and the sort of cleverness required.

In such a state of things he of course, as her husband, must be the nominal Prime Minister.
There was no anger in his bosom as he thought of this.