Through the brilliant, happy year succeeding to his marriage my Lord of Dunstanwolde lived like a man who dreams a blissful dream and knows it is one.  
“I feel,” he said to his lady, “as if ’twere too great rapture¹ to last, and yet what end could come, unless you ceased to be kind to me; and, in truth, I feel that you are too noble above all other women to change, unless I were more unworthy than I could ever be since you are mine.”
 
Both in the town and in the country, which last place heard many things of his condition and estate through rumour³, he was the man most wondered at and envied of his time—envied because of his strange happiness; wondered at because having, when long past youth, borne off this arrogant⁴ beauty from all other aspirants⁵ she showed no arrogance⁶ to him, and was as perfect a wife as could have been some woman without gifts whom he had lifted from low estate and endowed with rank and fortune.  She seemed both to respect himself and her position as his lady and spouse⁷.  Her manner of reigning⁸ in his household was among his many delights the greatest.  It was a great house, and an old one, built long before by a Dunstanwolde whose lavish⁹ feasts and riotous¹⁰ banquets had been the notable feature of his life.  It was curiously¹¹ rambling¹² in its structure.  The rooms of entertainment were large and splendid, the halls and staircases stately; below stairs there was space for an army of servants to be disposed of; and its network of cellars and wine-vaults was so beyond all need that more than one long arched stone passage was shut up as being without use, and but letting cold, damp air into corridors leading to the servants’ quarters.  It was, indeed, my Lady Dunstanwolde who had ordered the closing of this part when it had been her pleasure to be shown her domain¹³ by her housekeeper¹⁴, the which had greatly awed¹⁵ and impressed her household as signifying that, exalted¹⁶ lady as she was, her wit was practical as well as brilliant, and that her eyes being open to her surroundings, she meant not that her lacqueys should rob her and her scullions filch¹⁷, thinking that she was so high that she was ignorant of common things and blind.
 
“You will be well housed and fed and paid your dues,” she said to them; “but the first man or woman who does a task ill or dishonestly will be turned from his place that hour.  I deal justice—not mercy.”
 
“Such a mistress they have never had before,” said my lord when she related this to him.  “Nay¹⁸, they have never dreamed of such a lady—one who can be at once so severe and so kind.  But there is none other such, my dearest one.  They will fear and worship you.”
 
She gave him one of her sweet, splendid smiles.  It was the sweetness she at rare times gave her splendid smile which was her marvellous power.
 
“I would not be too grand a lady to be a good housewife,” she said.  “I may not order your dinners, my dear lord, or sweep your corridors, but they shall know I rule your household and would rule it well.”
 
“You are a goddess!” he cried, kneeling to her, enraptured¹⁹.  “And you have given yourself to a poor mortal man, who can but worship you.”
 
“You give me all I have,” she said, “and you love me nobly, and I am grateful.”
 
Her assemblies were the most brilliant in the town, and the most to be desired entrance to.  Wits and beauties planned and intrigued²⁰ that they might be bidden to her house; beaux and fine ladies fell into the spleen if she neglected them.  Her lord’s kinsman²¹ the Duke of Osmonde, who had been present when she first knelt to Royalty²², had scarce removed his eyes from her so long as he could gaze.  He went to Dunstanwolde afterwards and congratulated him with stately courtesy upon his great good fortune and happiness, speaking almost with fire of her beauty and majesty²³, and thanking his kinsman that through him such perfections had been given to their name and house.  From that time, at all special assemblies given by his kinsman he was present, the observed of all observers.  He was a man of whom ’twas said that he was the most magnificent gentleman in Europe; that there was none to compare with him in the combination of gifts given both by Nature and Fortune.  His beauty both of feature and carriage was of the greatest, his mind was of the highest, and his education far beyond that of the age he lived in.  It was not the fashion of the day that men of his rank should devote themselves to the cultivation²⁴ of their intellects instead of to a life of pleasure; but this he had done from his earliest youth, and now, in his perfect though early maturity²⁵, he had no equal in polished knowledge and charm of bearing.  He was the patron of literature and art; men of genius were not kept waiting in his antechamber, but were received by him with courtesy and honour.  At the Court ’twas well known there was no man who stood so near the throne in favour, and that there was no union so exalted that he might not have made his suit as rather that of a superior than an equal.  The Queen both loved and honoured him, and condescended²⁶ to avow²⁷ as much with gracious frankness.  She knew no other man, she deigned²⁸ to say, who was so worthy² of honour and affection, and that he had not married must be because there was no woman who could meet him on ground that was equal.  If there were no scandals about him—and there were none—’twas not because he was cold of heart or imagination.  No man or woman could look into his deep eye and not know that when love came to him ’twould be a burning passion, and an evil fate if it went ill instead of happily.
 
“Being past his callow, youthful days, ’tis time he made some woman a duchess,” Dunstanwolde said reflectively once to his wife.  “’Twould be more fitting that he should; and it is his way to honour his house in all things, and bear himself without fault as the head of it.  Methinks it strange he makes no move to do it.”
 
“No, ’tis not strange,” said my lady, looking under her black-fringed lids at the glow of the fire, as though reflecting also.  “There is no strangeness in it.”
 
“Why not?” her lord asked.
 
“There is no mate for him,” she answered slowly.  “A man like him must mate as well as marry, or he will break his heart with silent raging at the weakness of the thing he is tied to.  He is too strong and splendid for a common woman.  If he married one, ’twould be as if a lion had taken to himself for mate a jackal or a sheep.  Ah!” with a long drawn²⁹ breath—“he would go mad—mad with misery;” and her hands, which lay upon her knee, wrung³⁰ themselves hard together, though none could see it.
 
“He should have a goddess, were they not so rare,” said Dunstanwolde, gently smiling.  “He should hold a bitter grudge³¹ against me, that I, his unworthy kinsman, have been given the only one.”
 
“Yes, he should have a goddess,” said my lady slowly again; “and there are but women, naught³² but women.”
 
“You have marked him well,” said her lord, admiring her wisdom.  “Methinks that you—though you have spoken to him but little, and have but of late become his kinswoman—have marked and read him better than the rest of us.”
 
“Yes—I have marked him,” was her answer.
 
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