"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 he should carry with him the full sympathies of one person;--that she who was the 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 about 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. He said nothing further to his wife till they were in London together, and then he was tempted to caress her again, to be loving to her, and to show her that he had forgiven her. But she was brusque to him, as though she did not wish to be forgiven. "Cora," he said, "do not separate yourself from me." "Separate myself! What on earth do you mean? I have not dreamed of such a thing." The Duchess answered him as though he had alluded to some actual separation. "I do not mean that. God forbid that a misfortune such as that should ever happen! Do not disjoin yourself from me in all these troubles."