Silverbridge, had gone to Italy, and had there completely made
good his footing with the Duchess,--with what effect on another
member of the Palliser family the reader already knows.

The young man was certainly clever. When the Duchess found that he
cold talk without any shyness, that he could speak French
fluently, and that after a month in Italy could chatter Italian,
at any rate without reticence or shame, when she perceived that
all the women liked the lad's society and impudence, and that all
the young men were anxious to know him, she was glad to find that
Silverbridge had chosen so valuable a friend. And then he was
beautiful to look at,--putting her almost in mind of another man on
whom her eyes had once loved to dwell. He was dark, with hair that
was almost black, but yet was not black; with clear brown eyes, a
nose as regular as Apollo's, and a mouth in which was ever to be
found that expression of manliness, which of all characteristics
is the one which women love the best. He was five feet ten in
height. He was always well dressed, and yet always so dressed as
to seem to show that his outside garniture had not been matter of
trouble to him. Before the Duchess had dreamed what might take
place between the young man and her daughter she had been urgent
in her congratulations to her son as to the possession of such a
friend.

For though she now and then would catch a glimpse of the outer
man, which would remind her of that other beautiful one whom she
had known in her youth, and though, as these glimpses came, she
would remember how poor in spirit and how unmanly that other one
had been, though she would confess to herself how terrible had
been the heart-shipwreck which that other one had brought upon