which is more common with women than with men,--the susceptibility to
pique. His /amour propre/ was unforgiving: pique that, and he could do a
rash thing, a foolish thing, a spiteful thing; pique that, and,
prodigious! the watch went! He had a rooted pique against his
marchioness. Apparently he had conceived this pique from the very first.
He showed it passively by supreme neglect; he showed it actively by
removing her from all the spheres of power which naturally fall to the
wife when the husband shuns the details of business. Evidently he had a
dread lest any one should say, "Lady Montfort influences my lord."
Accordingly, not only the management of his estates fell to Carr Vipont,
but even of his gardens, his household, his domestic arrangements. It
was Carr Vipont or Lady Selina who said to Lady Montfort, "Give a ball;"
"You should ask so and so to dinner;" "Montfort was much hurt to see the
old lawn at the Twickenham villa broken up by those new bosquets. True,
it is settled on you as a jointure-house, but for that very reason
Montfort is sensitive," etc. In fact, they were virtually as separated,
my lord and my lady, as if legally disunited, and as if Carr Vipont and
Lady Selina were trustees or intermediaries in any polite approach to
each other. But, on the other hand, it is fair to say that where Lady
Montfort's sphere of action did not interfere with her husband's plans,
habits, likings, dislikings, jealous apprehensions that she should be
supposed to have any ascendency over what exclusively belonged to himself
as /Roi faineant/ of the Viponts, she was left free as air. No attempt
at masculine control or conjugal advice. At her disposal was wealth
without stint, every luxury the soft could desire, every gewgaw the vain
could covet. Had her pin-money, which in itself was the revenue of an
ordinary peeress, failed to satisfy her wants; had she grown tired of
wearing the family diamonds, and coveted new gems from Golconda,--a
single word to Carr Vipont or Lady Selina would have been answered by a
carte blanche on the Bank of England. But Lady Montfort had the