Five months ago was it, that that letter was written?

Its remembered phrases already rang bitterly in an aching heart. Since it reached her, she had put out all her powers as a woman, all her influence as an intelligence, in the service of the writer.

And now, here she sat in the dark, tortured by a passion of which she was ashamed, before which she was beginning to stand helpless in a kind of terror. The situation was developing, and she found herself wondering how much longer she would be able to control herself or it. Very miserably conscious, too, was she all the time that she was now playing for a reward that was secretly, tacitly, humiliatingly denied her. How could a poor man, with Harry Warkworth's ambitions, think for a moment of marriage with a woman in her ambiguous and dependent position? Her common-sense told her that the very notion was absurd. And yet, since the Duchess's gossip had given point and body to a hundred vague suspicions, she was no longer able to calm, to master herself.

Suddenly a thought of another kind occurred to her. It added to her smart that Sir Wilfrid, in their meeting at Lady Hubert's, had spoken to her and looked at her with that slight touch of laughing contempt. There had been no insincerity in that emotion with which she had first appealed to him as her mother's friend; she did truly value the old man's good opinion. And yet she had told him lies.

"I can't help it," she said to herself, with a little shiver. The story about the biography had been the invention of a moment. It had made things easy, and it had a small foundation in the fact that Lady Henry had talked vaguely of using the letters lent her by Captain Warkworth for the elucidation—perhaps in a Nineteenth Century article—of certain passages in her husband's Indian career.

Jacob Delafield, too. There also it was no less clear to her than to Sir Wilfrid that she had "overdone it." It was true, then, what Lady Henry said of her—that she had an overmastering tendency to intrigue—to a perpetual tampering with the plain fact?

"Well, it is the way in which such people as I defend themselves," she said, obstinately, repeating to herself what she had said to Sir Wilfrid Bury.

And then she set against it, proudly, that disinterestedness of which, as she vowed to herself, no one but she knew the facts. It was true, what she had said to the Duchess and to Sir Wilfrid. Plenty of people would give her money, would make her life comfortable, without the need for any daily slavery. She would not take it. Jacob Delafield would marry her, if she lifted her finger; and she would not lift it. Dr. Meredith would marry her, and she had said him nay. She hugged the thought of her own unknown and unapplauded integrity. It comforted her pride. It drew a veil over that wounding laughter which had gleamed for a moment through those long lashes of Sir Wilfrid Bury.

Last of all, as she sank into her restless sleep, came the remembrance that she was still under Lady Henry's roof. In the silence of the night the difficulties of her situation pressed upon and tormented her. What was she to do? Whom was she to trust?

* * * * *

"Dixon, how is Lady Henry?"

"Much too ill to come down-stairs, miss. She's very much put out; in fact, miss (the maid lowered her voice), you hardly dare go near her. But she says herself it would be absurd to attempt it."

"Has Hatton had any orders?"

"Yes, miss. I've just told him what her ladyship wishes. He's to tell everybody that Lady Henry's very sorry, and hoped up to the last moment to be able to come down as usual."

"Has Lady Henry all she wants, Dixon? Have you taken her the evening papers?"

"Oh yes, miss. But if you go in to her much her ladyship says you're disturbing her; and if you don't go, why, of course, everybody's neglecting her."

"Do you think I may go and say good-night to her, Dixon?"

The maid hesitated.

"I'll ask her, miss—I'll certainly ask her."

The door closed, and Julie was left alone in the great drawing-room of the Bruton Street house. It had been prepared as usual for the Wednesday—evening party. The flowers were fresh; the chairs had been arranged as Lady Henry liked to have them; the parquet floors shone under the electric light; the Gainsboroughs seemed to look down from the walls with a gay and friendly expectancy.

For herself, Julie had just finished her solitary dinner, still buoyed up while she was eating it by the hope that Lady Henry would be able to come down. The bitter winds of the two previous days, however, had much aggravated her chronic rheumatism. She was certainly ill and suffering; but Julie had known her make such heroic efforts before this to keep her Wednesdays going that not till Dixon appeared with her verdict did she give up hope.

So everybody would be turned away. Julie paced the drawing-room a solitary figure amid its lights and flowers—solitary and dejected. In a couple of hours' time all her particular friends would come to the door, and it would be shut against them. "Of course, expect me to-night," had been the concluding words of her letter of the morning. Several people also had announced themselves for this evening whom it was extremely desirable she should see. A certain eminent colonel, professor at the Staff College, was being freely named in the papers for the Mokembe mission. Never was it more necessary for her to keep all the threads of her influence in good working order. And these Wednesday evenings offered her the occasions when she was most successful, most at her ease—especially whenever Lady Henry was not well enough to leave the comparatively limited sphere of the back drawing-room.

Moreover, the gatherings themselves ministered to a veritable craving in Julie Le Breton—the craving for society and conversation. She shared it with Lady Henry, but in her it was even more deeply rooted. Lady Henry had ten talents in the Scriptural sense—money, rank, all sorts of inherited bonds and associations. Julie Le Breton had but this one. Society was with her both an instinct and an art. With the subtlest and most intelligent ambition she had trained and improved her natural gift for it during the last few years. And now, to the excitement of society was added the excitement of a new and tyrannous feeling, for which society was henceforth a mere weapon to be used.

She fumed and fretted for a while in silence. Every now and then she would pause in front of one of the great mirrors of the room, and look at the reflection of her tall thinness and the trailing satin of her gown.

"The girl—so pretty, in a gossamer sort of way," The words echoed in her mind, and vaguely, beside her own image in the glass, there rose a vision of girlhood—pale, gold hair, pink cheeks, white frock—and she turned away, miserable, from that conscious, that intellectual distinction with which, in general, she could persuade herself to be very fairly satisfied.

Hutton, the butler, came in to look at the fire.

"Will you be sitting here to-night, miss?"

"Oh no, Hutton. I shall go back to the library. I think the fire in my own room is out."

"I had better put out these lights, anyway," said the man, looking round the brilliant room.

"Oh, certainly," said Julie, and she began to assist him to do so.

Suddenly a thought occurred to her.

"Hutton!" She went up to him and spoke in a lower tone. "If the Duchess of Crowborough comes to-night, I should very much like to see her, and I know she wants to see me. Do you think it could possibly disturb Lady Henry if you were to show her into the library for twenty minutes?"

The man considered.

"I don't think there could be anything heard up-stairs, miss. I should, of course, warn her grace that her ladyship was ill."

"Well, then, Hutton, please ask her to come in," said Miss Le Breton, hurriedly. "And, Hutton, Dr. Meredith and Mr. Montresor, you know how disappointed they'll be not to find Lady Henry at home?"

"Yes, miss. They'll want to know how her ladyship is, no doubt. I'll tell them you're in the library. And Captain Warkworth, miss?—he's never missed a Wednesday evening for weeks."

"Oh, well, if he comes—you must judge for yourself, Hutton," said Miss Le Breton, occupying herself with the electric switches. "I should like to tell them all—the old friends—how Lady Henry is."

The butler's face was respectful discretion itself.

"Of course, miss. And shall I bring tea and coffee?"

"Oh no," said Miss Le Breton, hastily; and then, after reflection, "Well, have it ready; but I don't suppose anybody will ask for it. Is there a good fire in the library?"

"Oh yes, miss. I thought you would be coming down there again. Shall I take some of these flowers down? The room looks rather bare, if anybody's coming in."

Julie colored a little.

"Well, you might—not many. And, Hutton, you're sure we can't disturb Lady Henry?"

Hutton's expression was not wholly confident.

"Her ladyship's very quick of hearing, miss. But I'll shut those doors at the foot of the back stairs, and I'll ask every one to come in quietly."

"Thank you, Hutton—thank you. That'll be very good of you. And, Hutton—"

"Yes, miss." The man paused with a large vase of white arums in his hand.

"You'll say a word to Dixon, won't you? If anybody comes in, there'll be no need to trouble Lady Henry about it. I can tell her to-morrow."

"Very good, miss. Dixon will be down to her supper presently."

The butler departed. Julie was left alone in the now darkened room, lighted only by one lamp and the bright glow of the fire. She caught her breath—suddenly struck with the audacity of what she had been doing. Eight or ten of these people certainly would come in—eight or ten of Lady Henry's "intimates." If Lady Henry discovered it—after this precarious truce between them had just been patched up!

Julie made a step towards the door as though to recall the butler, then stopped herself. The thought that in an hour's time Harry Warkworth might be within a few yards of her, and she not permitted to see him, worked intolerably in heart and brain, dulling the shrewd intelligence by which she was ordinarily governed. She was conscious, indeed, of some profound inner change. Life had been difficult enough before the Duchess had said those few words to her. But since!

Suppose he had deceived her at Lady Hubert's party! Through all her mounting passion her acute sense of character did not fail her. She secretly knew that it was quite possible he had deceived her. But the knowledge merely added to the sense of danger which, in this case, was one of the elements of passion itself.

"He must have money—of course he must have money," she was saying, feverishly, to herself. "But I'll find ways. Why should he marry yet—for years? It would be only hampering him."

Again she paused before the mirrored wall; and again imagination evoked upon the glass the same white and threatening image—her own near kinswoman—the child of her mother's sister! How strange! Where was the little gossamer creature now—in what safe haven of money and family affection, and all the spoiling that money brings? From the climbing paths of her own difficult and personal struggle Julie Le Breton looked down with sore contempt on such a degenerate ease of circumstance. She had heard it said that the mother and daughter were lingering abroad for a time on their way home from India. Yet was the girl all the while pining for England, thinking not of her garden, her horse, her pets, but only of this slim young soldier who in a few minutes, perhaps, would knock at Lady Henry's door, in quest of Aileen Moffatt's unknown, unguessed-of cousin? These thoughts sent wild combative thrills through Julie's pulses. She turned to one of the old French clocks. How much longer now—till he came?

"Her ladyship would like to see you, miss."

The voice was Dixon's, and Julie turned hurriedly, recalling all her self-possession. She climbed some steep stairs, still unmodernized, to Lady Henry's floor. That lady slept at the back of the house, so as to be out of noise. Her room was an old-fashioned apartment, furnished about the year Queen Victoria came to the throne, with furniture, chintzes, and carpet of the most approved early Victorian pattern. What had been ugly then was dingy now; and its strong mistress, who had known so well how to assimilate and guard the fine decorations and noble pictures of the drawing-rooms, would not have a thing in it touched. "It suits me," she would say, impatiently, when her stout sister-in-law pleaded placidly for white paint and bright colors. "If it's ugly, so am I."

Fierce, certainly, and forbidding she was on this February evening. She lay high on her pillow, tormented by her chronic bronchitis and by rheumatic pain, her brows drawn together, her vigorous hands clasped before her in an evident tension, as though she only restrained herself with difficulty from defying maid, doctor, and her own sense of prudence.

"Well, you have dressed?" she said, sharply, as Julie Le Breton entered her room.

"I did not get your message till I had finished dinner. And I dressed before dinner."

Lady Henry looked her up and down, like a cat ready to pounce.

"You didn't bring me those letters to sign?"

"No, I thought you were not fit for it."

"I said they were to go to-night. Kindly bring them at once."

Julie brought them. With groans and flinchings that she could not repress, Lady Henry read and signed them. Then she demanded to be read to. Julie sat down, trembling. How fast the hands of Lady Henry's clock were moving on!

Mercifully, Lady Henry was already somewhat sleepy, partly from weakness, partly from a dose of bromide.

"I hear nothing," she said, putting out an impatient hand. "You should raise your voice. I didn't mean you to shout, of course. Thank you—that'll do. Good-night. Tell Hutton to keep the house as quiet as he can. People must knock and ring, I suppose; but if all the doors are properly shut it oughtn't to bother me. Are you going to bed?"

"I shall sit up a little to write some letters. But—I sha'n't be late."

"Why should you be late?" said Lady Henry, tartly, as she turned away.

* * * * *

Julie made her way down-stairs with a beating heart. All the doors were carefully shut behind her. When she reached the hall it was already half-past ten o'clock. She hurried to the library, the large panelled room behind the dining-room. How bright Hutton had made it look! Up shot her spirits. With a gay and dancing step she went from chair to chair, arranging everything instinctively as she was accustomed to do in the drawing-room. She made the flowers less stiff; she put on another light; she drew one table forward and pushed its fellow back against the wall. What a charming old room, after all! What a pity Lady Henry so seldom used it! It was panelled in dark oak, while the drawing-room was white. But the pictures, of which there were two or three, looked even better here than up-stairs. That beautiful Lawrence—a "red boy" in gleaming satin—that pair of Hoppners, fine studies in blue, why, who had ever seen them before? And another light or two would show them still better.

A loud knock and ring. Julie held her breath. Ah! A distant voice in the hall. She moved to the fire, and stood quietly reading an evening paper.

"Captain Warkworth would be glad if you would see him for a few minutes, miss. He would like to ask you himself about her ladyship."

"Please ask him to come in, Hutton."

Hutton effaced himself, and the young man entered, Then Julie raised her voice.

"Remember, please, Hutton, that I particularly want to see the Duchess."

Hutton bowed and retired. Warkworth came forward.

"What luck to find you like this!"

He threw her one look—Julie knew it to be a look of scrutiny—and then, as she held out her hand, he stooped and kissed it.

"He wants to know that my suspicions are gone," she thought. "At any rate, he should believe it."

"The great thing," she said, with her finger to her lip, "is that Lady Henry should hear nothing."

She motioned her somewhat puzzled guest to a seat on one side of the fire, and, herself, fell into another opposite. A wild vivacity was in her face and manner.

"Isn't this amusing? Isn't the room charming? I think I should receive very well"—she looked round her—"in my own house."

"You would receive well in a garret—a stable," he said. "But what is the meaning of this? Explain."

"Lady Henry is ill and is gone to bed. That made her very cross—poor Lady Henry! She thinks I, too, am in bed. But you see—you forced your way in—didn't you?—to inquire with greater minuteness after Lady Henry's health."

She bent towards him, her eyes dancing.

"Of course I did. Will there presently be a swarm on my heels, all possessed with a similar eagerness, or—?"

He drew his chair, smiling, a little closer to her. She, on the contrary, withdrew hers.

"There will, no doubt, be six or seven," she said, demurely, "who will want personal news. But now, before they come"—her tone changed—"is there anything to tell me?"

"Plenty," he said, drawing a letter out of his pocket. "Your writ, my dear lady, runs as easily in the City as elsewhere." And he held up an envelope.

She flushed.

"You have got your allotment? But I knew you would. Lady Froswick promised."

"And a large allotment, too," he said, joyously. "I am the envy of all my friends. Some of them have got a few shares, and have already sold them—grumbling. I keep mine three days more on the best advice—the price may go higher yet. But, anyway, there"—he shook the envelope—"there it is—deliverance from debt—peace of mind for the first time since I was a lad at school—the power of going, properly fitted out and equipped, to Africa—if I go—and not like a beggar—all in that bit of paper, and all the work of—some one you and I know. Fairy godmother! tell me, please, how to say a proper thank you."

The young soldier dropped his voice. Those blue eyes which had done him excellent service in many different parts of the globe were fixed with brilliance on his companion; the lines of a full-lipped mouth quivered with what seemed a boyish pleasure. The comfort of money relief was never acknowledged more frankly or more handsomely.

Julie hurriedly repressed him. Did she feel instinctively that there are thanks which it sometimes humiliates a man to remember, lavishly as he may have poured them out at the moment—thanks which may easily count in the long run, not for, but against, the donor? She rather haughtily asked what she had done but say a chance word to Lady Froswick? The shares had to be allotted to somebody. She was glad, of course, very glad, if he were relieved from anxiety....

So did she free herself and him from a burdensome gratitude; and they passed to discussing the latest chances of the Mokembe appointment. The Staff-College Colonel was no doubt formidable; the Commander-in-Chief, who had hitherto allowed himself to be much talked to on the subject of young Warkworth's claims by several men in high place—General M'Gill among them—well known in Lady Henry's drawing-room, was perhaps inclining to the new suggestion, which was strongly supported by important people in Egypt; he had one or two recent appointments on his conscience not quite of the highest order, and the Staff-College man, in addition to a fine military record, was virtue, poverty, and industry embodied; was nobody's cousin, and would, altogether, produce a good effect.

Could anything more be done, and fresh threads set in motion?

They bandied names a little, Julie quite as subtly and minutely informed as the man with regard to all the sources of patronage. New devices, fresh modes of approach revealed themselves to the woman's quick brain. Yet she did not chatter about them; still less parade her own resources. Only, in talking with her, dead walls seemed to give way; vistas of hope and possibility opened in the very heart of discouragement. She found the right word, the right jest, the right spur to invention or effort; while all the time she was caressing and appeasing her companion's self-love—placing it like a hot-house plant in an atmosphere of expansion and content—with that art of hers, which, for the ambitious and irritable man, more conscious of the kicks than of the kisses of fortune, made conversation with her an active and delightful pleasure.

"I don't know how it is," Warkworth presently declared; "but after I have been talking to you for ten minutes the whole world seems changed. The sky was ink, and you have turned it rosy. But suppose it is all mirage, and you the enchanter?"

He smiled at her—consciously, superabundantly. It was not easy to keep quite cool with Julie Le Breton; the self-satisfaction she could excite in the man she wished to please recoiled upon the woman offering the incense. The flattered one was apt to be foolishly responsive.

"That is my risk," she said, with a little shrug. "If I make you confident, and nothing comes of it—"

"I hope I shall know how to behave myself," cried Warkworth. "You see, you hardly understand—forgive me!—your own personal effect. When people are face to face with you, they want to please you, to say what will please you, and then they go away, and—"

"Resolve not to be made fools of?" she said, smiling. "But isn't that the whole art—when you're guessing what will happen—to be able to strike the balance of half a dozen different attractions?"

"Montresor as the ocean," said Warkworth, musing, "with half a dozen different forces tugging at him? Well, dear lady, be the moon to these tides, while this humble mortal looks on—and hopes."

He bent forward, and across the glowing fire their eyes met. She looked so cool, so handsome, so little yielding at that moment, that, in addition to gratitude and nattered vanity, Warkworth was suddenly conscious of a new stir in the blood. It begat, however, instant recoil. Wariness!—let that be the word, both for her sake and his own. What had he to reproach himself with so far? Nothing. He had never offered himself as the lover, as the possible husband. They were both esprits faits—they understood each other. As for little Aileen, well, whatever had happened, or might happen, that was not his secret to give away. And a woman in Julie Le Breton's position, and with her intelligence, knows very well what the difficulties of her case are. Poor Julie! If she had been Lady Henry, what a career she would have made for herself! He was very curious as to her birth and antecedents, of which he knew little or nothing; with him she had always avoided the subject. She was the child, he understood, of English parents who had lived abroad; Lady Henry had come across her by chance. But there must be something in her past to account for this distinction, this ease with which she held her own in what passes as the best of English society.

Julie soon found herself unwilling to meet the gaze fixed upon her. She flushed a little and began to talk of other things.

"Everybody, surely, is unusually late. It will be annoying, indeed, if the Duchess doesn't come."

"The Duchess is a delicious creature, but not for me," said Warkworth, with a laugh. "She dislikes me. Ah, now then for the fray!"

For the outer bell rang loudly, and there were steps in the hall.

"Oh, Julie"—in swept a white whirlwind with the smallest white satin shoes twinkling in front of it—"how clever of you—you naughty angel! Aunt Flora in bed—and you down here! And I who came prepared for such a dose of humble-pie! What a relief! Oh, how do you do?"

The last words were spoken in quite another tone, as the Duchess, for the first time perceiving the young officer on the more shaded side of the fireplace, extended to him a very high wrist and a very stiff hand. Then she turned again to Julie.

"My dear, there's a small mob in the hall. Mr. Montresor—and General Somebody—and Jacob—and Dr. Meredith with a Frenchman. Oh, and old Lord Lackington, and Heaven knows who! Hutton told me I might come in, so I promised to come first and reconnoitre. But what's Hutton to do? You really must take a line. The carriages are driving up at a fine rate."

"I'll go and speak to Hutton," said Julie.

And she hurried into the hall.



IX

When Miss Le Breton reached the hall, a footman was at the outer door reciting Lady Henry's excuses as each fresh carriage drove up; while in the inner vestibule, which was well screened from the view of the street, was a group of men, still in their hats and over-coats, talking and laughing in subdued voices.

Julie Le Breton came forward. The hats were removed, and the tall, stooping form of Montresor advanced.

"Lady Henry is so sorry," said Julie, in a soft, lowered voice. "But I am sure she would like me to give you her message and to tell you how she is. She would not like her old friends to be alarmed. Would you come in for a moment? There is a fire in the library. Mr. Delafield, don't you think that would be best?... Will you tell Hutton not to let in anybody else?"

She looked at him uncertainly, as though appealing to him, as a relation of Lady Henry's, to take the lead.

"By all means," said that young man, after perhaps a moment's hesitation, and throwing off his coat.

"Only please make no noise!" said Miss Le Breton, turning to the group. "Lady Henry might be disturbed."

Every one came in, as it were, on tiptoe. In each face a sense of the humor of the situation fought with the consciousness of its dangers. As soon as Montresor saw the little Duchess by the fire, he threw up his hands in relief.

"I breathe again," he said, greeting her with effusion. "Duchess, where thou goest, I may go. But I feel like a boy robbing a hen-roost. Let me introduce my friend, General Fergus. Take us both, pray, under your protection!"

"On the contrary," said the Duchess, as she returned General Fergus's bow, "you are both so magnificent that no one would dare to protect you."

For they were both in uniform, and the General was resplendent with stars and medals.

"We have been dining with royalty." said Montresor. "We want some relaxation."

He put on his eye-glasses, looked round the room, and gently rubbed his hands.

"How very agreeable this is! What a charming room! I never saw it before. What are we doing here? Is it a party? Why shouldn't it be? Meredith, have you introduced M. du Bartas to the Duchess? Ah, I see—"

For Julie Le Breton was already conversing with the distinguished Frenchman wearing the rosette of the Legion of Honor in his button-hole, who had followed Dr. Meredith into the room. As Montresor spoke, however, she came forward, and in a French which was a joy to the ear, she presented M. du Bartas, a tall, well-built Norman with a fair mustache, first to the Duchess and then to Lord Lackington and Jacob.

"The director of the French Foreign Office," said Montresor, in an aside to the Duchess. "He hates us like poison. But if you haven't already asked him to dinner—I warned you last week he was coming—pray do it at once!"

Meanwhile the Frenchman, his introductions over, looked curiously round the room, studied its stately emptiness, the books on the walls under a trellis-work, faintly gilt, the three fine pictures; then his eyes passed to the tall and slender lady who had addressed him in such perfect French, and to the little Duchess in her flutter of lace and satin, the turn of her small neck, and the blaze of her jewels. "These Englishwomen overdo their jewels," he thought, with distaste. "But they overdo everything. That is a handsome fellow, by-the-way, who was with la petite fee when we arrived."

And his shrewd, small eyes travelled from Warkworth to the Duchess, his mind the while instinctively assuming some hidden relation between them.

Meanwhile, Montresor was elaborately informing himself as to Lady Henry.

"This is the first time for twenty years that I have not found her on a Wednesday evening," he said, with a sudden touch of feeling which became him. "At our age, the smallest break in the old habit—"

He sighed, and then quickly threw off his depression.

"Nonsense! Next week she will be scolding us all with double energy. Meanwhile, may we sit down, mademoiselle? Ten minutes? And, upon my word, the very thing my soul was longing for—a cup of coffee!"

For at the moment Hutton and two footmen entered with trays containing tea and coffee, lemonade and cakes.

"Shut the door, Hutton, please," Mademoiselle Le Breton implored, and the door was shut at once.

"We mustn't, mustn't make any noise!" she said, her finger on her lip, looking first at Montresor and then at Delafield. The group laughed, moved their spoons softly, and once more lowered their voices.

But the coffee brought a spirit of festivity. Chairs were drawn up. The blazing fire shone out upon a semicircle of people representing just those elements of mingled intimacy and novelty which go to make conversation. And in five minutes Mademoiselle Le Breton was leading it as usual. A brilliant French book had recently appeared dealing with certain points of the Egyptian question in a manner so interesting, supple, and apparently impartial that the attention of Europe had been won. Its author had been formerly a prominent official of the French Foreign Office, and was now somewhat out of favor with his countrymen. Julie put some questions about him to M. du Bartas.

The Frenchman feeling himself among comrades worthy of his steel, and secretly pricked by the presence of an English cabinet minister, relinquished the half-disdainful reserve with which he had entered, and took pains. He drew the man in question, en silhouette, with a hostile touch so sure, an irony so light, that his success was instant and great.

Lord Lackington woke up. Handsome, white-haired dreamer that he was, he had been looking into the fire, half—smiling, more occupied, in truth, with his own thoughts than with his companions. Delafield had brought him in; he did not exactly know why he was there, except that he liked Mademoiselle Le Breton, and often wondered how the deuce Lady Henry had ever discovered such an interesting and delightful person to fill such an uncomfortable position. But this Frenchman challenged and excited him. He, too, began to talk French, and soon the whole room was talking it, with an advantage to Julie Le Breton which quickly made itself apparent. In English she was a link, a social conjunction; she eased all difficulties, she pieced all threads. But in French her tongue was loosened, though never beyond the point of grace, the point of delicate adjustment to the talkers round her.

So that presently, and by insensible gradations, she was the queen of the room. The Duchess in ecstasy pinched Jacob Delafield's wrist, and forgetting all that she ought to have remembered, whispered, rapturously, in his ear, "Isn't she enchanting—Julie—to-night?" That gentleman made no answer. The Duchess, remembering, shrank back, and spoke no more, till Jacob looked round upon her with a friendly smile which set her tongue free again.

M. du Bartas, meanwhile, began to consider this lady in black with more and more attention. The talk glided into a general discussion of the Egyptian position. Those were the days before Arabi, when elements of danger and of doubt abounded, and none knew what a month might bring forth. With perfect tact Julie guided the conversation, so that all difficulties, whether for the French official or the English statesman, were avoided with a skill that no one realized till each separate rock was safely passed. Presently Montresor looked from her to Du Bartas with a grin. The Frenchman's eyes were round with astonishment. Julie had been saying the lightest but the wisest things; she had been touching incidents and personalities known only to the initiated with a restrained gayety which often broke down into a charming shyness, which was ready to be scared away in a moment by a tone—too serious or too polemical—which jarred with the general key of the conversation, which never imposed itself, and was like the ripple on a summer sea. But the summer sea has its depths, and this modest gayety was the mark of an intimate and first-hand knowledge.

"Ah, I see," thought Montresor, amused. "P—— has been writing to her, the little minx. He seems to have been telling her all the secrets. I think I'll stop it. Even she mayn't quite understand what should and shouldn't be said before this gentleman."

So he gave the conversation a turn, and Mademoiselle Le Breton took the hint at once. She called others to the front—it was like a change of dancers in the ballet—while she rested, no less charming as a listener than as a talker, her black eyes turning from one to another and radiant with the animation of success.

But one thing—at last—she had forgotten. She had forgotten to impose any curb upon the voices round her. The Duchess and Lord Lackington were sparring like a couple of children, and Montresor broke in from time to time with his loud laugh and gruff throat voice. Meredith, the Frenchman, Warkworth, and General Fergus were discussing a grand review which had been held the day before. Delafield had moved round to the back of Julie's chair, and she was talking to him, while all the time her eyes were on General Fergus and her brain was puzzling as to how she was to secure the five minutes' talk with him she wanted. He was one of the intimates of the Commander-in-Chief. She herself had suggested to Montresor, of course in Lady Henry's name, that he should be brought to Bruton Street some Wednesday evening.

Presently there was a little shifting of groups. Julie saw that Montresor and Captain Warkworth were together by the fireplace, that the young man with his hands held out to the blaze and his back to her was talking eagerly, while Montresor, looking outward into the room, his great black head bent a little towards his companion, was putting sharp little questions from time to time, with as few words as might be. Julie understood that an important conversation was going on—that Montresor, whose mind various friends of hers had been endeavoring to make up for him, was now perhaps engaged in making it up for himself.

With a quickened pulse she turned to find General Fergus beside her. What a frank and soldierly countenance!—a little roughly cut, with a strong mouth slightly underhung, and a dogged chin, the whole lit by eyes that were the chosen homes of truth, humanity, and will. Presently she discovered, as they drew their chairs a little back from the circle, that she, too, was to be encouraged to talk about Warkworth. The General was, of course, intimately 'acquainted with his professional record; but there were certain additional Indian opinions—a few incidents in the young man's earlier career, including, especially, a shooting expedition of much daring in the very district to which the important Mokembe mission was now to be addressed, together with some quotations from private letters of her own, or Lady Henry's, which Julie, with her usual skill, was able to slip into his ear, all on the assumption, delicately maintained, that she was merely talking of a friend of Lady Henry's, as Lady Henry herself would have talked, to much better effect, had she been present.

The General gave her a grave and friendly attention. Few men had done sterner or more daring feats in the field. Yet here he sat, relaxed, courteous, kind, trusting his companions simply, as it was his instinct to trust all women. Julie's heart beat fast. What an exciting, what an important evening!...

Suddenly there was a voice in her ear.

"Do you know, I think we ought to clear out. It must be close on midnight."

She looked up, startled, to see Jacob Delafield. His expression—of doubt or discomfort—recalled her at once to the realities of her own situation.

But before she could reply, a sound struck on her ear. She sprang to her feet.

"What was that?" she said.

A voice was heard in the hall.

Julie Le Breton caught the chair behind her, and Delafield saw her turn pale. But before she or he could speak again, the door of the library was thrown open.

"Good Heavens!" said Montresor, springing to his feet. "Lady Henry!"

* * * * *

M. du Bartas lifted astonished eyes. On the threshold of the room stood an old lady, leaning heavily on two sticks. She was deathly pale, and her fierce eyes blazed upon the scene before her. Within the bright, fire-lit room the social comedy was being played at its best; but here surely was Tragedy—or Fate. Who was she? What did it mean?

The Duchess rushed to her, and fell, of course, upon the one thing she should not have said.

"Oh, Aunt Flora, dear Aunt Flora! But we thought you were too ill to come down!"

"So I perceive," said Lady Henry, putting her aside. "So you, and this lady"—she pointed a shaking finger at Julie—"have held my reception for me. I am enormously obliged. You have also"—she looked at the coffee-cups—"provided my guests with refreshment. I thank you. I trust my servants have given you satisfaction.

"Gentlemen"—she turned to the rest of the company, who stood stupefied—"I fear I cannot ask you to remain with me longer. The hour is late, and I am—as you see—indisposed. But I trust, on some future occasion, I may have the honor—"

She looked round upon them, challenging and defying them all.

Montresor went up to her.

"My dear old friend, let me introduce to you M. du Bartas, of the French Foreign Office."

At this appeal to her English hospitality and her social chivalry, Lady Henry looked grimly at the Frenchman.

"M. du Bartas, I am charmed to make your acquaintance. With your leave, I will pursue it when I am better able to profit by it. To-morrow I will write to you to propose another meeting—should my health allow."

"Enchante, madame," murmured the Frenchman, more embarrassed than he had ever been in his life. "Permettez—moi de vous faire mes plus sinceres excuses."

"Not at all, monsieur, you owe me none."

Montresor again approached her.

"Let me tell you," he said, imploringly, "how this has happened—how innocent we all are—"

"Another time, if you please," she said, with a most cutting calm. "As I said before, it is late. If I had been equal to entertaining you"—she looked round upon them all—"I should not have told my butler to make my excuses. As it is, I must beg you to allow me to bid you good-night. Jacob, will you kindly get the Duchess her cloak? Good-night. Good-night. As you see"—she pointed to the sticks which supported her—"I have no hands to-night. My infirmities have need of them."

Montresor approached her again, in real and deep distress.

"Dear Lady Henry—"

"Go!" she said, under her breath, looking him in the eyes, and he turned and went without a word. So did the Duchess, whimpering, her hand in Delafield's arm. As she passed Julie, who stood as though turned to stone, she made a little swaying movement towards her.

"Dear Julie!" she cried, imploringly.

But Lady Henry turned.

"You will have every opportunity to-morrow," she said. "As far as I am concerned, Miss Le Breton will have no engagements."

Lord Lackington quietly said, "Good-night, Lady Henry," and, without offering to shake hands, walked past her. As he came to the spot where Julie Le Breton stood, that lady made a sudden, impetuous movement towards him. Strange words were on her lips, a strange expression in her eyes.

"You must help me," she said, brokenly. "It is my right!"

Was that what she said? Lord Lackington looked at her in astonishment. He did not see that Lady Henry was watching them with eagerness, leaning heavily on her sticks, her lips parted in a keen expectancy.

Then Julie withdrew.

"I beg your pardon," she said, hurriedly. "I beg your pardon. Good-night."

Lord Lackington hesitated. His face took a puzzled expression. Then he held out his hand, and she placed hers in it mechanically.

"It will be all right," he whispered, kindly. "Lady Henry will soon be herself again. Shall I tell the butler to call for some one—her maid?"

Julie shook her head, and in another moment he, too, was gone. Dr. Meredith and General Fergus stood beside her. The General had a keen sense of humor, and as he said good-night to this unlawful hostess, whose plight he understood no more than his own, his mouth twitched with repressed laughter. But Dr. Meredith did not laugh. He pressed Julie's hand in both of his. Looking behind him, he saw that Jacob Delafield, who had just returned from the hall, was endeavoring to appease Lady Henry. He bent towards Julie.

"Don't deceive yourself," he said, quickly, in a low voice; "this is the end. Remember my letter. Let me hear to-morrow."

As Dr. Meredith left the room, Julie lifted her eyes. Only Jacob Delafield and Lady Henry were left.

Harry Warkworth, too, was gone—without a word? She looked round her piteously. She could not remember that he had spoken—that he had bade her farewell. A strange pang convulsed her. She scarcely heard what Lady Henry was saying to Jacob Delafield. Yet the words were emphatic enough.

"Much obliged to you, Jacob. But when I want your advice in my household affairs, I will ask it. You and Evelyn Crowborough have meddled a good deal too much in them already. Good-night. Hutton will get you a cab."

And with a slight but imperious gesture, Lady Henry motioned towards the door. Jacob hesitated, then quietly took his departure. He threw Julie a look of anxious appeal as he went out. But she did not see it; her troubled gaze was fixed on Lady Henry.

* * * * *

That lady eyed her companion with composure, though by now even the old lips were wholly blanched.

"There is really no need for any conversation between us, Miss Le Breton," said the familiar voice. "But if there were, I am not to-night, as you see, in a condition to say it. So—when you came up to say good-night to me—you had determined on this adventure? You had been good enough, I see, to rearrange my room—to give my servants your orders."

Julie stood stonily erect. She made her dry lips answer as best they could.

"We meant no harm," she said, coldly. "It all came about very simply. A few people came in to inquire after you. I regret they should have stayed talking so long."

Lady Henry smiled in contempt.

"You hardly show your usual ability by these remarks. The room you stand in"—she glanced significantly at the lights and the chairs—"gives you the lie. You had planned it all with Hutton, who has become your tool, before you came to me. Don't contradict. It distresses me to hear you. Well, now we part."

"Of course. Perhaps to-morrow you will allow me a few last words?"

"I think not. This will cost me dear," said Lady Henry, her white lips twitching. "Say them now, mademoiselle."

"You are suffering." Julie made an uncertain step forward. "You ought to be in bed."

"That has nothing to do with it. What was your object to-night?"

"I wished to see the Duchess—"

"It is not worth while to prevaricate. The Duchess was not your first visitor."

Julie flushed.

"Captain Warkworth arrived first; that was a mere chance."

"It was to see him that you risked the whole affair. You have used my house for your own intrigues."

Julie felt herself physically wavering under the lash of these sentences. But with a great effort she walked towards the fireplace, recovered her gloves and handkerchief, which were on the mantel-piece, and then turned slowly to Lady Henry.

"I have done nothing in your service that I am ashamed of. On the contrary, I have borne what no one else would have borne. I have devoted myself to you and your interests, and you have trampled upon and tortured me. For you I have been merely a servant, and an inferior—"

Lady Henry nodded grimly.

"It is true," she said, interrupting, "I was not able to take your romantic view of the office of companion."

"You need only have taken a human view," said Julie, in a voice that pierced; "I was alone, poor—worse than motherless. You might have done what you would with me. A little indulgence, and I should have been your devoted slave. But you chose to humiliate and crush me; and in return, to protect myself, I, in defending myself, have been led, I admit it, into taking liberties. There is no way out of it. I shall, of course, leave you to-morrow morning."

"Then at last we understand each other," said Lady Henry, with a laugh. "Good-night, Miss Le Breton."

She moved heavily on her sticks. Julie stood aside to let her pass. One of the sticks slipped a little on the polished floor. Julie, with a cry, ran forward, but Lady Henry fiercely motioned her aside.

"Don't touch me! Don't come near me!"

She paused a moment to recover breath and balance. Then she resumed her difficult walk. Julie followed her.

"Kindly put out the electric lights," said Lady Henry, and Julie obeyed.

They entered the hall in which one little light was burning. Lady Henry, with great difficulty, and panting, began to pull herself up the stairs.

"Oh, do let me help you!" said Julie, in an agony. "You will kill yourself. Let me at least call Dixon."

"You will do nothing of the kind," said Lady Henry, indomitable, though tortured by weakness and rheumatism. "Dixon is in my room, where I bade her remain. You should have thought of the consequences of this before you embarked upon it. If I were to die in mounting these stairs, I would not let you help me."

"Oh!" cried Julie, as though she had been struck, and hid her eyes with her hand.

Slowly, laboriously, Lady Henry dragged herself from step to step. As she turned the corner of the staircase, and could therefore be no longer seen from below, some one softly opened the door of the dining-room and entered the hall.

Julie looked round her, startled. She saw Jacob Delafield, who put his finger to his lip.

Moved by a sudden impulse, she bowed her head on the banister of the stairs against which she was leaning and broke into stifled sobs.

Jacob Delafield came up to her and took her hand. She felt his own tremble, and yet its grasp was firm and supporting.

"Courage!" he said, bending over her. "Try not to give way. You will want all your fortitude."

"Listen!" She gasped, trying vainly to control herself, and they both listened to the sounds above them in the dark house—the labored breath, the slow, painful step.

"Oh, she wouldn't let me help her. She said she would rather die. Perhaps I have killed her. And I could—I could—yes, I could have loved her."

She was in an anguish of feeling—of sharp and penetrating remorse.

Jacob Delafield held her hand close in his, and when at last the sounds had died in the distance he lifted it to his lips.

"You know that I am your friend and servant," he said, in a queer, muffled voice. "You promised I should be."

She tried to withdraw her hand, but only feebly. Neither physically nor mentally had she the strength to repulse him. If he had taken her in his arms, she could hardly have resisted. But he did not attempt to conquer more than her hand. He stood beside her, letting her feel the whole mute, impetuous offer of his manhood—thrown at her feet to do what she would with.

Presently, when once more she moved away, he said to her, in a whisper:

"Go to the Duchess to-morrow morning, as soon as you can get away. She told me to say that—Hutton gave me a little note from her. Your home must be with her till we can all settle what is best. You know very well you have devoted friends. But now good-night. Try to sleep. Evelyn and I will do all we can with Lady Henry."

Julie drew herself out of his hold. "Tell Evelyn I will come to see her, at any rate, as soon as I can put my things together. Good-night."

And she, too, dragged herself up-stairs sobbing, starting at every shadow. All her nerve and daring were gone. The thought that she must spend yet another night under the roof of this old woman who hated her filled her with terror. When she reached her room she locked her door and wept for hours in a forlorn and aching misery.



X

The Duchess was in her morning-room. On the rug, in marked and, as it seemed to her plaintive eyes, brutal contrast with the endless photographs of her babies and women friends which crowded her mantel-piece, stood the Duke, much out of temper. He was a powerfully built man, some twenty years older than his wife, with a dark complexion, enlivened by ruddy cheeks and prominent, red lips. His eyes were of a cold, clear gray; his hair very black, thick, and wiry. An extremely vigorous person, more than adequately aware of his own importance, tanned and seasoned by the life of his class, by the yachting, hunting, and shooting in which his own existence was largely spent, slow in perception, and of a sulky temper—so one might have read him at first sight. But these impressions only took you a certain way in judging the character of the Duchess's husband.

As to the sulkiness, there could be no question on this particular morning—though, indeed, his ill-humor deserved a more positive and energetic name.

"You have got yourself and me," he was declaring, "into a most disagreeable and unnecessary scrape. This letter of Lady Henry's"—he held it up—"is one of the most annoying that I have received for many a day. Lady Henry seems to me perfectly justified. You have been behaving in a quite unwarrantable way. And now you tell me that this woman, who is the cause of it all, of whose conduct I thoroughly and entirely disapprove, is coming to stay here, in my house, whether I like it or not, and you expect me to be civil to her. If you persist, I shall go down to Brackmoor till she is pleased to depart. I won't countenance the thing at all, and, whatever you may do, I shall apologize to Lady Henry."

"There's nothing to apologize for," cried the drooping Duchess, plucking up a little spirit. "Nobody meant any harm. Why shouldn't the old friends go in to ask after her? Hutton—that old butler that has been with Aunt Flora for twenty years—asked us to come in."

"Then he did what he had no business to do, and he deserves to be dismissed at a day's notice. Why, Lady Henry tells me that it was a regular party—that the room was all arranged for it by that most audacious young woman—that the servants were ordered about—that it lasted till nearly midnight, and that the noise you all made positively woke Lady Henry out of her sleep. Really, Evelyn, that you should have been mixed up in such an affair is more unpalatable to me than I can find words to describe." And he paced, fuming, up and down before her.

"Anybody else than Aunt Flora would have laughed," said the Duchess, defiantly. "And I declare, Freddie, I won't be scolded in such a tone. Besides, if you only knew—"

She threw back her head and looked at him, her cheeks flushed, her lips quivering with a secret that, once out, would perhaps silence him at once—would, at any rate, as children do when they give a shake to their spillikins, open up a number of new chances in the game.

"If I only knew what?"

The Duchess pulled at the hair of the little spitz on her lap without replying.

"What is there to know that I don't know?" insisted the Duke. "Something that makes the matter still worse, I suppose?"

"Well, that depends," said the Duchess, reflectively. A gleam of mischief had slipped into her face, though for a moment the tears had not been far off.

The Duke looked at his watch.

"Don't keep me here guessing riddles longer than you can help," he said, impatiently. "I have an appointment in the City at twelve, and I want to discuss with you the letter that must be written to Lady Henry."

"That's your affair," said the Duchess. "I haven't made up my mind yet whether I mean to write at all. And as for the riddle, Freddie, you've seen Miss Le Breton?"

"Once. I thought her a very pretentious person," said the Duke, stiffly.

"I know—you didn't get on. But, Freddie, didn't she remind you of somebody?"

The Duchess was growing excited. Suddenly she jumped up; the little spitz rolled off her lap; she ran to her husband and took him by the fronts of his coat.

"Freddie, you'll be very much astonished." And suddenly releasing him, she began to search among the photographs on the mantel-piece. "Freddie, you know who that is?" She held up a picture.

"Of course I know. What on earth has that got to do with the subject we have been discussing?"

"Well, it has a good deal to do with it," said the Duchess, slowly. "That's my uncle, George Chantrey, isn't it, Lord Lackington's second son, who married mamma's sister? Well—oh, you won't like it, Freddie, but you've got to know—that's—Julie's uncle, too!"

"What in the name of fortune do you mean?" said the Duke, staring at her.

His wife again caught him by the coat, and, so imprisoning him, she poured out her story very fast, very incoherently, and with a very evident uncertainty as to what its effect might be.

And indeed the effect was by no means easy to determine. The Duke was first incredulous, then bewildered by the very mixed facts which she poured out upon him. He tried to cross-examine her en route, but he gained little by that; she only shook him a little, insisting the more vehemently on telling the story her own way. At last their two impatiences had nearly come to a dead-lock. But the Duke managed to free himself physically, and so regained a little freedom of mind.

"Well, upon my word," he said, as he resumed his march up and down—"upon my word!" Then, as he stood still before her, "You say she is Marriott Dalrymple's daughter?"

"And Lord Lackington's granddaughter." said the Duchess, panting a little from her exertions. "And, oh, what a blind bat you were not to see it at once—from the likeness!"

"As if one had any right to infer such a thing from a likeness!" said the Duke, angrily. "Really, Evelyn, your talk is most—most unbecoming. It seems to me that Mademoiselle Le Breton has already done you harm. All that you have told me, supposing it to be true—oh, of course, I know you believe it to be true—only makes me"—he stiffened his back—"the more determined to break off the connection between her and you. A woman of such antecedents is not a fit companion for my wife, independently of the fact that she seems to be, in herself, an intriguing and dangerous character."

"How could she help her antecedents?" cried the Duchess.

"I didn't say she could help them. But if they are what you say, she ought—well, she ought to be all the more careful to live in a modest and retired way, instead of, as I understand, making herself the rival of Lady Henry. I never heard anything so preposterous—so—so indecent! She shows no proper sense, and, as for you, I deeply regret you should have been brought into any contact with such a disgraceful story."

"Freddie!" The Duchess went into a helpless, half-hysterical fit of laughter.

But the Duke merely expanded, as it seemed, still further—to his utmost height and bulk. "Oh, dear," thought the Duchess, in despair, "now he is going to be like his mother!" Her strictly Evangelical mother-in-law, with whom the Duke had made his bachelor home for many years, had been the scourge of her early married life; and though for Freddie's sake she had shed a few tears over her death, eighteen months before this date, the tears—as indeed the Duke had thought at the time—had been only too quickly dried.

There could be no question about it, the Duke was painfully like his mother as he replied:

"I fear that your education, Evelyn, has led you to take such things far more lightly than you ought. I am old-fashioned. Illegitimacy with me does carry a stigma, and the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children. At any rate, we who occupy a prominent social place have no right to do anything which may lead others to think lightly of God's law. I am sorry to speak plainly, Evelyn. I dare say you don't like these sentiments, but you know, at least, that I am quite honest in expressing them."

The Duke turned to her, not without dignity. He was and had been from his boyhood a person of irreproachable morals—earnest and religious according to his lights, a good son, husband, and father. His wife looked at him with mingled feelings.

"Well, all I know is," she said, passionately beating her little foot on the carpet before her, "that, by all accounts, the only thing to do with Colonel Delaney was to run away from him."

The Duke shrugged his shoulders.

"You don't expect me to be much moved by a remark of that kind? As to this lady, your story does not affect me in her favor in the smallest degree. She has had her education; Lord Lackington gives her one hundred pounds a year; if she is a self-respecting woman she will look after herself. I don't want to have her here, and I beg you won't invite her. A couple of nights, perhaps—I don't mind that—but not for longer."

"Oh, as to that, you may be very sure she won't stay here unless you're very particularly nice to her. There'll be plenty of people glad—enchanted—to have her! I don't care about that, but what I do want is"—the Duchess looked up with calm audacity—"that you should find her a house."

The Duke paused in his walk and surveyed his wife with amazement.

"Evelyn, are you quite mad?"

"Not in the least. You have more houses than you know what to do with, and a great deal more money than anybody in the world ought to have. If they ever do set up the guillotine at Hyde Park Corner, we shall be among the first—we ought to be!"

"What is the good of talking nonsense like this, Evelyn?" said the Duke, once more consulting his watch. "Let's go back to the subject of my letter to Lady Henry."

"It's most excellent sense!" cried the Duchess, springing up. "You have more houses than you know what to do with; and you have one house in particular—that little place at the back of Cureton Street where Cousin Mary Leicester lived so long—which is in your hands still, I know, for you told me so last week—which is vacant and furnished—Cousin Mary left you the furniture, as if we hadn't got enough!—and it would be the very thing for Julie, if only you'd lend it to her till she can turn round."

The Duchess was now standing up, confronting her lord, her hands grasping the chair behind her, her small form alive with eagerness and the feminine determination to get her own way, by fair means or foul.

"Cureton Street!" said the Duke, almost at the end of his tether. "And how do you propose that this young woman is to live—in Cureton Street, or anywhere else?"

"She means to write," said the Duchess, shortly. "Dr. Meredith has promised her work."

"Sheer lunacy! In six months time you'd have to step in and pay all her bills."

"I should like to see anybody dare to propose to Julie to pay her bills!" cried the Duchess, with scorn. "You see, the great pity is, Freddie, that you don't know anything at all about her. But that house—wasn't it made out of a stable? It has got six rooms, I know—three bedrooms up-stairs, and two sitting-rooms and a kitchen below. With one good maid and a boy Julie could be perfectly comfortable. She would earn four hundred pounds—Dr. Meredith has promised her—she has one hundred pounds a year of her own. She would pay no rent, of course. She would have just enough to live on, poor, dear thing! And she would be able to gather her old friends round her when she wanted them. A cup of tea and her delightful conversation—that's all they'd ever want."

"Oh, go on—go on!" said the Duke, throwing himself exasperated into an arm-chair; "the ease with which you dispose of my property on behalf of a young woman who has caused me most acute annoyance, who has embroiled us with a near relation for whom I have a very particular respect! Her friends, indeed! Lady Henry's friends, you mean. Poor Lady Henry tells me in this letter that her circle will be completely scattered. This mischievous woman in three years has destroyed what it has taken Lady Henry nearly thirty to build up. Now look here, Evelyn"—the Duke sat up and slapped his knee—"as to this Cureton Street plan, I will do nothing of the kind. You may have Miss Le Breton here for two or three nights if you like—I shall probably go down to the country—and, of course, I have no objection to make if you wish to help her find another situation—"

"Another situation!" cried the Duchess, beside herself. "Freddie, you really are impossible! Do you understand that I regard Julie Le Breton as my relation, whatever you may say—that I love her dearly—that there are fifty people with money and influence ready to help her if you won't, because she is one of the most charming and distinguished women in London—that you ought to be proud to do her a service—that I want you to have the honor of it—there! And if you won't do this little favor for me—when I ask and beg it of you—I'll make you remember it for a very long time to come—you may be sure of that!"

And his wife turned upon him as an image of war, her fair hair ruffling about her ears, her cheeks and eyes brilliant with anger—and something more.

The Duke rose in silent ferocity and sought for some letters which he had left on the mantel-piece.

"I had better leave you to come to your senses by yourself, and as quickly as possible," he said, as he put them into his pockets. "No good can come of any more discussion of this sort."

The Duchess said nothing. She looked out of the window busily, and bit her lip. Her silence served her better than her speech, for suddenly the Duke looked round, hesitated, threw down a book he carried, walked up to her, and took her in his arms.

"You are a very foolish child," he declared, as he held her by main force and kissed away her tears. "You make me lose my temper—and waste my time—for nothing."

"Not at all," said the sobbing Duchess, trying to push herself away, and denying him, as best she could, her soft, flushed face. "You don't, or you won't, understand! I was—I was very fond of Uncle George Chantrey. He would have helped Julie if he were alive. And as for you, you're Lord Lackington's godson, and you're always preaching what he's done for the army, and what the nation owes him—and—and—"

"Does he know?" said the Duke, abruptly, marvelling at the irrelevance of these remarks.

"No, not a word. Only six people in London know—Aunt Flora, Sir Wilfrid Bury"—the Duke made an exclamation—"Mr. Montresor, Jacob, you, and I."

"Jacob!" said the Duke. "What's he got to do with it?"

The Duchess suddenly saw her opportunity, and rushed upon it.

"Only that he's madly in love with her, that's all. And, to my knowledge, she has refused him both last year and this. Of course, naturally, if you won't do anything to help her, she'll probably marry him—simply as a way out."

"Well, of all the extraordinary affairs!"

The Duke released her, and stood bewildered. The Duchess watched him in some excitement. He was about to speak, when there was a sound in the anteroom. They moved hastily apart. The door was thrown open, and the footman announced, "Miss Le Breton."

* * * * *

Julie Le Breton entered, and stood a moment on the threshold, looking, not in embarrassment, but with a certain hesitation, at the two persons whose conversation she had disturbed. She was pale with sleeplessness; her look was sad and weary. But never had she been more composed, more elegant. Her closely fitting black cloth dress; her strangely expressive face, framed by a large hat, very simple, but worn as only the woman of fashion knows how; her miraculous yet most graceful slenderness; the delicacy of her hands; the natural dignity of her movements—these things produced an immediate, though, no doubt, conflicting impression upon the gentleman who had just been denouncing her. He bowed, with an involuntary deference which he had not at all meant to show to Lady Henry's insubordinate companion, and then stood frowning.

But the Duchess ran forward, and, quite heedless of her husband, threw herself into her friend's arms.

"Oh, Julie, is there anything left of you? I hardly slept a wink for thinking of you. What did that old—oh, I forgot—do you know my husband? Freddie, this is my great friend, Miss Le Breton."

The Duke bowed again, silently. Julie looked at him, and then, still holding the Duchess by the hand, she approached him, a pair of very fine and pleading eyes fixed upon his face.

"You have probably heard from Lady Henry, have you not?" she said, addressing him. "In a note I had from her this morning she told me she had written to you. I could not help coming to-day, because Evelyn has been so kind. But—is it your wish that I should come here?"

The Christian name slipped out unawares, and the Duke winced at it. The likeness to Lord Lackington—it was certainly astonishing. There ran through his mind the memory of a visit paid long ago to his early home by Lord Lackington and two daughters, Rose and Blanche. He, the Duke, had then been a boy home from school. The two girls, one five or six years older than the other, had been the life and charm of the party. He remembered hunting with Lady Rose.

But the confusion in his mind had somehow to be mastered, and he made an effort.

"I shall be glad if my wife is able to be of any assistance to you, Miss Le Breton," he said, coldly; "but it would not be honest if I were to conceal my opinion—so far as I have been able to form it—that Lady Henry has great and just cause of complaint."

"You are quite right—quite right," said Julie, almost with eagerness. "She has, indeed."

The Duke was taken by surprise. Imperious as he was, and stiffened by a good many of those petty prides which the spoiled children of the world escape so hardly, he found himself hesitating—groping for his words.

The Duchess meanwhile drew Julie impulsively towards a chair.

"Do sit down. You look so tired."

But Julie's gaze was still bent upon the Duke. She restrained her friend's eager hand, and the Duke collected himself. He brought a chair, and Julie seated herself.

"I am deeply, deeply distressed about Lady Henry," she said, in a low voice, by which the Duke felt himself most unwillingly penetrated. "I don't—oh no, indeed, I don't defend last night. Only—my position has been very difficult lately. I wanted very much to see the Duchess—and—it was natural—wasn't it?—that the old friends should like to be personally informed about Lady Henry's illness? But, of course, they stayed too long; it was my fault—I ought to have prevented it."

She paused. This stern-looking man, who stood with his back to the mantel-piece regarding her, Philistine though he was, had yet a straight, disinterested air, from which she shrank a little. Honestly, she would have liked to tell him the truth. But how could she? She did her best, and her account certainly was no more untrue than scores of narratives of social incident which issue every day from lips the most respected and the most veracious. As for the Duchess, she thought it the height of candor and generosity. The only thing she could have wished, perhaps, in her inmost heart, was that she had not found Julie alone with Harry Warkworth. But her loyal lips would have suffered torments rather than accuse or betray her friend.

The Duke meanwhile went through various phases of opinion as Julie laid her story before him. Perhaps he was chiefly affected by the tone of quiet independence—as from equal to equal—in which she addressed him. His wife's cousin by marriage; the granddaughter of an old and intimate friend of his own family; the daughter of a man known at one time throughout Europe, and himself amply well born—all these facts, warm, living, and still efficacious, stood, as it were, behind this manner of hers, prompting and endorsing it. But, good Heavens! was illegitimacy to be as legitimacy?—to carry with it no stains and penalties? Was vice to be virtue, or as good? The Duke rebelled.

"It is a most unfortunate affair, of that there can be no doubt," he said, after a moment's silence, when Julie had brought her story to an end; and then, more sternly, "I shall certainly apologize for my wife's share in it."

"Lady Henry won't be angry with the Duchess long," said Julie Le Breton. "As for me"—her voice sank—"my letter this morning was returned to me unopened."

There was an uncomfortable pause; then Julie resumed, in another tone:

"But what I am now chiefly anxious to discuss is, how can we save Lady Henry from any further pain or annoyance? She once said to me in a fit of anger that if I left her in consequence of a quarrel, and any of her old friends sided with me, she would never see them again."

"I know," said the Duke, sharply. "Her salon will break up. She already foresees it."

"But why?—why?" cried Julie, in a most becoming distress. "Somehow, we must prevent it. Unfortunately I must live in London. I have the offer of work here—journalist's work which cannot be done in the country or abroad. But I would do all I could to shield Lady Henry."

"What about Mr. Montresor?" said the Duke, abruptly. Montresor had been the well-known Chateaubriand to Lady Henry's Madame Recamier for more than a generation.

Julie turned to him with eagerness.

"Mr. Montresor wrote to me early this morning. The letter reached me at breakfast. In Mrs. Montresor's name and his own, he asked me to stay with them till my plans developed. He—he was kind enough to say he felt himself partly responsible for last night."

"And you replied?" The Duke eyed her keenly.

Julie sighed and looked down.

"I begged him not to think any more of me in the matter, but to write at once to Lady Henry. I hope he has done so."

"And so you refused—excuse these questions—Mrs. Montresor's invitation?"

The working of the Duke's mind was revealed in his drawn and puzzled brows.

"Certainly." The speaker looked at him with surprise. "Lady Henry would never have forgiven that. It could not be thought of. Lord Lackington also"—but her voice wavered.

"Yes?" said the Duchess, eagerly, throwing herself on a stool at Julie's feet and looking up into her face.

"He, too, has written to me. He wants to help me. But—I can't let him."

The words ended in a whisper. She leaned back in her chair, and put her handkerchief to her eyes. It was very quietly done, and very touching. The Duchess threw a lightning glance at her husband; and then, possessing herself of one of Julie's hands, she kissed it and murmured over it.

"Was there ever such a situation?" thought the Duke, much shaken. "And she has already, if Evelyn is to be believed, refused the chance—the practical certainty—of being Duchess of Chudleigh!"

He was a man with whom a gran rifiuto of this kind weighed heavily. His moral sense exacted such things rather of other people than himself. But, when made, he could appreciate them.

After a few turns up and down the room, he walked up to the two women.

"Miss Le Breton," he said, in a far more hurried tone than was usual to him, "I cannot approve—and Evelyn ought not to approve—of much that has taken place during your residence with Lady Henry. But I understand that your post was not an easy one, and I recognize the forbearance of your present attitude. Evelyn is much distressed about it all. On the understanding that you will do what you can to soften this breach for Lady Henry, I shall be, glad if you will allow me to come partially to your assistance."

Julie looked up gravely, her eyebrows lifting. The Duke found himself reddening as he went on.

"I have a little house near here—a little furnished house—Evelyn will explain to you. It happens to be vacant. If you will accept a loan of it, say for six months"—the Duchess frowned—"you will give me pleasure. I will explain my action to Lady Henry, and endeavor to soften her feelings."

He paused. Miss Le Breton's face was grateful, touched with emotion, but more than hesitating.

"You are very good. But I have no claim upon you at all. And I can support myself."

A touch of haughtiness slipped into her manner as she gently rose to her feet. "Thank God, I did not offer her money!" thought the Duke, strangely perturbed.

"Julie, dear Julie," implored the Duchess. "It's such a tiny little place, and it is quite musty for want of living in. Nobody has set foot in it but the caretaker for two years, and it would be really a kindness to us to go and live there—wouldn't it, Freddie? And there's all the furniture just as it was, down to the bellows and the snuffers. If you'd only use it and take care of it; Freddie hasn't liked to sell it, because it's all old family stuff, and he was very fond of Cousin Mary Leicester. Oh, do say yes, Julie! They shall light the fires, and I'll send in a few sheets and things, and you'll feel as though you'd been there for years. Do, Julie!"

Julie shook her head.

"I came here," she said, in a voice that was still unsteady, "to ask for advice, not favors. But it's very good of you."

And with trembling fingers she began to refasten her veil.

"Julie!—where are you going?" cried the Duchess "You're staying here."

"Staying here?" said Julie, turning round upon her. "Do you think I should be a burden upon you, or any one?"

"But, Julie, you told Jacob you would come."

"I have come. I wanted your sympathy, and your counsel. I wished also to confess myself to the Duke, and to point out to him how matters could be made easier for Lady Henry."

The penitent, yet dignified, sadness of her manner and voice completed the discomfiture—the temporary discomfiture—of the Duke.

"Miss Le Breton," he said, abruptly, coming to stand beside her, "I remember your mother."

Julie's eyes filled. Her hand still held her veil, but it paused in its task.

"I was a small school-boy when she stayed with us," resumed the Duke. "She was a beautiful girl. She let me go out hunting with her. She was very kind to me, and I thought her a kind of goddess. When I first heard her story, years afterwards, it shocked me awfully. For her sake, accept my offer. I don't think lightly of such actions as your mother's—not at all. But I can't bear to think of her daughter alone and friendless in London."

Yet even as he spoke he seemed to be listening to another person. He did not himself understand the feelings which animated him, nor the strength with which his recollections of Lady Rose had suddenly invaded him.

Julie leaned her arms on the mantel-piece, and hid her face. She had turned her back to them, and they saw that she was crying softly.

The Duchess crept up to her and wound her arms round her.

"You will, Julie!—you will! Lady Henry has turned you out-of-doors at a moment's notice. And it was a great deal my fault. You must let us help you!"

Julie did not answer, but, partially disengaging herself, and without looking at him, she held out her hand to the Duke.

He pressed it with a cordiality that amazed him.

"That's right—that's right. Now, Evelyn, I leave you to make the arrangements. The keys shall be here this afternoon. Miss Le Breton, of course, stays here till things are settled. As for me, I must really be off to my meeting. One thing, Miss Le Breton—"

"Yes."

"I think," he said, gravely, "you ought to reveal yourself to Lord Lackington."

She shrank.

"You'll let me take my own time for that?" was her appealing reply.

"Very well—very well. We'll speak of it again."

And he hurried away. As he descended his own stairs astonishment at what he had done rushed upon him and overwhelmed him.

"How on earth am I ever to explain the thing to Lady Henry?"

And as he went citywards in his cab, he felt much more guilty than his wife had ever done. What could have made him behave in this extraordinary, this preposterous way? A touch of foolish romance—immoral romance—of which he was already ashamed? Or the one bare fact that this woman had refused Jacob Delafield?



XI

"Here it is," said the Duchess, as the carriage stopped. "Isn't it an odd little place?"

And as she and Julie paused on the pavement, Julie looked listlessly at her new home. It was a two-storied brick house, built about 1780. The front door boasted a pair of Ionian columns and a classical canopy or pediment. The windows had still the original small panes; the mansarde roof, with its one dormer, was untouched. The little house had rather deep eaves; three windows above; two, and the front door, below. It wore a prim, old-fashioned air, a good deal softened and battered, however, by age, and it stood at the corner of two streets, both dingily quiet, and destined, no doubt, to be rebuilt before long in the general rejuvenation of Mayfair.

As the Duchess had said, it occupied the site of what had once—about 1740—been the westerly end of a mews belonging to houses in Cureton Street, long since pulled down. The space filled by these houses was now occupied by one great mansion and its gardens. The rest of the mews had been converted into three-story houses of a fair size, looking south, with a back road between them and the gardens of Cureton House. But at the southwesterly corner of what was now Heribert Street, fronting west and quite out of line and keeping with the rest, was this curious little place, built probably at a different date and for some special family reason. The big planes in the Cureton House gardens came close to it and overshadowed it; one side wall of the house, in fact, formed part of the wall of the garden.

The Duchess, full of nervousness, ran up the steps, put in the key herself, and threw open the door. An elderly Scotchwoman, the caretaker, appeared from the back and stood waiting to show them over.

"Oh, Julie, perhaps it's too queer and musty!" cried the Duchess, looking round her in some dismay. "I thought, you know, it would be a little out-of-the-way and quaint—unlike other people—just what you ought to have. But—"

"I think it's delightful," said Julie, standing absently before a case of stuffed birds, somewhat moth-eaten, which took up a good deal of space in the little hall. "I love stuffed birds."

The Duchess glanced at her uneasily. "What is she thinking about?" she wondered. But Julie roused herself.

"Why, it looks as though everything here had gone to sleep for a hundred years," she said, gazing in astonishment at the little hall, with its old clock, its two or three stiff hunting-pictures, its drab-painted walls, its poker-work chest.

And the drawing-room! The caretaker had opened the windows. It was a mild March day, and there were misty sun-gleams stealing along the lawns of Cureton House. None entered the room itself, for its two semi-circular windows looked north over the gardens. Yet it was not uncheerful. Its faded curtains of blue rep, its buff walls, on which the pictures and miniatures in their tarnished gilt frames were arranged at intervals in stiff patterns and groups; the Italian glass, painted with dilapidated Cupids, over the mantel-piece; the two or three Sheraton arm-chairs and settees, covered with threadbare needle-work from the days of "Evelina"; a carpet of old and well-preserved Brussels—blue arabesques on a white ground; one or two pieces of old satin-wood furniture, very fine and perfect; a heavy centre-table, its cloth garnished with some early Victorian wool-work, and a pair of pink glass vases; on another small table close by, of a most dainty and spindle-legged correctness, a set of Indian chessmen under a glass shade; and on another a collection of tiny animals, stags and dogs for the most part, deftly "pinched" out of soft paper, also under glass, and as perfect as when their slender limbs were first fashioned by Cousin Mary Leicester's mother, somewhere about the year that Marie Antoinette mounted the scaffold. These various elements, ugly and beautiful, combined to make a general effect—clean, fastidious, frugal, and refined—that was, in truth, full of a sort of acid charm.

"Oh, I like it! I like it so much!" cried Julie, throwing herself down into one of the straight-backed arm-chairs and looking first round the walls and then through the windows to the gardens outside.

"My dear," said the Duchess, flitting from one thing to another, frowning and a little fussed, "those curtains won't do at all. I must send some from home."

"No, no, Evelyn. Not a thing shall be changed. You shall lend it me just as it is or not at all. What a character it has! I taste the person who lived here."

"Cousin Mary Leicester?" said the Duchess. "Well, she was rather an oddity. She was Low Church, like my mother-in-law; but, oh, so much nicer! Once I let her come to Grosvenor Square and speak to the servants about going to church. The groom of the chambers said she was 'a dear old lady, and if she were his cousin he wouldn't mind her being a bit touched,' My maid said she had no idea poke-bonnets could be so sweet. It made her understand what the Queen looked like when she was young. And none of them have ever been to church since that I can make out. There was one very curious thing about Cousin Mary Leicester," added the Duchess, slowly—"she had second sight. She saw her old mother, in this room, once or twice, after she had been dead for years. And she saw Freddie once, when he was away on a long voyage—"

"Ghosts, too!" said Julie, crossing her hands before her with a little shiver—"that completes it."

"Sixty years," said the Duchess, musing. "It was a long time—wasn't it?—to live in this little house, and scarcely ever leave it. Oh, she had quite a circle of her own. For many years her funny little sister lived here, too. And there was a time, Freddie says, when there was almost a rivalry between them and two other famous old ladies who lived in Bruton Street—what was their name? Oh, the Miss Berrys! Horace Walpole's Miss Berrys. All sorts of famous people, I believe, have sat in these chairs. But the Miss Berrys won."

"Not in years? Cousin Mary outlived them."

"Ah, but she was dead long before she died," said the Duchess as she came to perch on the arm of Julie's chair, and threw her arm round her friend's neck. "After her little sister departed this life she became a very silent, shrivelled thing—except for her religion—and very few people saw her. She took a fancy to me—which was odd, wasn't it, when I'm such a worldling?—and she let me come in and out. Every morning she read the Psalms and Lessons, with her old maid, who was just her own age—in this very chair. And two or three times a month Freddie would slip round and read them with her—you know Freddie's very religious. And then she'd work at flannel petticoats for the poor, or something of that kind, till lunch. Afterwards she'd go and read the Bible to people in the workhouse or in hospital. When she came home, the butler brought her the Times; and sometimes you'd find her by the fire, straining her old eyes over 'a little Dante.' And she always dressed for dinner—everything was quite smart—and her old butler served her. Afterwards her maid played dominoes or spillikins with her—all her life she never touched a card—and they read a chapter, and Cousin Mary played a hymn on that funny little old piano there in the corner, and at ten they all went to bed. Then, one morning, the maid went in to wake her, and she saw her dear sharp nose and chin against the light, and her hands like that, in front of her—and—well, I suppose, she'd gone to play hymns in heaven—dear Cousin Mary! Julie, isn't it strange the kind of lives so many of us have to lead? Julie"—the little Duchess laid her cheek against her friend's—"do you believe in another life?"

"You forget I'm a Catholic," said Julie, smiling rather doubtfully.

"Are you, Julie? I'd forgotten."

"The good nuns at Bruges took care of that."

"Do you ever go to mass?"

"Sometimes."

"Then you're not a good Catholic, Julie?"

"No," said Julie, after a pause, "not at all. But it sometimes catches hold of me."

The old clock in the hall struck. The Duchess sprang up.

"Oh, Julie, I have got to be at Clarisse's by four. I promised her I'd go and settle about my Drawing-room dress to-day. Let's see the rest of the house."

And they went rapidly through it. All of it was stamped with the same character, representing, as it were, the meeting-point between an inherited luxury and a personal asceticism. Beautiful chairs, or cabinets transported sixty years before from one of the old Crowborough houses in the country to this little abode, side by side with things the cheapest and the commonest—all that Cousin Mary Leicester could ever persuade herself to buy with her own money. For all the latter part of her life she had been half a mystic and half a great lady, secretly hating the luxury from which she had not the strength to free herself, dressing ceremoniously, as the Duchess had said, for a solitary dinner, and all the while going in sore remembrance of a Master who "had not where to lay his head."

At any rate, there was an ample supply of household stuff for a single woman and her maids. In the china cupboard there were still the old-fashioned Crown Derby services, the costly cut glass, the Leeds and Wedgewood dessert dishes that Cousin Mary Leicester had used for half a century. The caretaker produced the keys of the iron-lined plate cupboard, and showed its old-world contents, clean and in order.

"Why, Julie! If we'd only ordered the dinner I might have come to dine with you to-night!" cried the Duchess, enjoying and peering into everything like a child with its doll's house. "And the linen—gracious!" as the doors of another cupboard were opened to her. "But now I remember, Freddie said nothing was to be touched till he made up his mind what to do with the little place. Why, there's everything!"

And they both looked in astonishment at the white, fragrant rows, at the worn monogram in the corners of the sheets, at the little bags of lavender and pot-pourri ranged along the shelves.

Suddenly Julie turned away and sat down by an open window, carrying her eyes far from the house and its stores.

"It is too much, Evelyn," she said, sombrely. "It oppresses me. I don't think I can live up to it."

"Julie!" and again the little Duchess came to stand caressingly beside her. "Why, you must have sheets—and knives and forks! Why should you get ugly new ones, when you can use Cousin Mary's? She would have loved you to have them."

"She would have hated me with all her strength," said Miss Le Breton, probably with much truth.

The two were silent a little. Through Julie's stormy heart there swept longings and bitternesses inexpressible. What did she care for the little house and all its luxuries! She was sorry that she had fettered herself with it.... Nearly four o'clock in the afternoon, and no letter—not a word!

"Julie," said the Duchess, softly, in her ear, "you know you can't live here alone. I'm afraid Freddie would make a fuss."

"I've thought of that," said Julie, wearily. "But, shall we really go on with it, Evelyn?"

The Duchess looked entreaty. Julie repented, and, drawing her friend towards her, rested her head against the chinchilla cloak.

"I'm tired, I suppose," she said, in a low voice. "Don't think me an ungrateful wretch. Well, there's my foster-sister and her child."

"Madame Bornier and the little cripple girl?" cried the Duchess. "Excellent! Where are they?"

"Leonie is in the French Governesses' Home, as it happens, looking out for a situation, and the child is in the Orthopaedic Hospital. They've been straightening her foot. It's wonderfully better, and she's nearly ready to come out."

"Are they nice, Julie?"

"Therese is an angel—you must be the one thing or the other, apparently, if you're a cripple. And as for Leonie—well, if she comes here, nobody need be anxious about my finances. She'd count every crust and cinder. We couldn't keep any English servant; but we could get a Belgian one."

"But is she nice?" repeated the Duchess.

"I'm used to her," said Julie, in the same inanimate voice.

Suddenly the clock in the hall below struck four.

"Heavens!" cried the Duchess. "You don't know how Clarisse keeps you to your time. Shall I go on, and send the carriage back for you?"

"Don't trouble about me. I should like to look round me here a little longer."

"You'll remember that some of our fellow-criminals may look in after five? Dr. Meredith and Lord Lackington said, as we were getting away last night—oh, how that doorstep of Aunt Flora's burned my shoes!—that they should come round. And Jacob is coming; he'll stay and dine. And, Julie, I've asked Captain Warkworth to dine to-morrow night."

"Have you? That's noble of you—for you don't like him."

"I don't know him!" cried the Duchess, protesting. "If you like him—of course it's all right. Was he—was he very agreeable last night?" she added, slyly.

"What a word to apply to anybody or anything connected with last night!"

"Are you very sore, Julie?"

"Well, on this very day of being turned out it hurts. I wonder who is writing Lady Henry's letters for her this afternoon?"

"I hope they are not getting written," said the Duchess, savagely; "and that she's missing you abominably. Good-bye—au revoir! If I am twenty minutes late with Clarisse, I sha'n't get any fitting, duchess or no duchess."

And the little creature hurried off; not so fast, however, but that she found time to leave a number of parting instructions as to the house with the Scotch caretaker, on her way to her carriage.

Julie rose and made her way down to the drawing-room again. The Scotchwoman saw that she wanted to be alone and left her.

The windows were still open to the garden outside. Julie examined the paths, the shrubberies, the great plane-trees; she strained her eyes towards the mansion itself. But not much of it could be seen. The little house at the corner had been carefully planted out.

What wealth it implied—that space and size, in London! Evidently the house was still shut up. The people who owned it were now living the same cumbrous, magnificent life in the country which they would soon come up to live in the capital. Honors, parks, money, birth—all were theirs, as naturally as the sun rose. Julie envied and hated the big house and all it stood for; she flung a secret defiance at this coveted and elegant Mayfair that lay around her, this heart of all that is recognized, accepted, carelessly sovereign in our "materialized" upper class.

And yet all the while she knew that it was an unreal and passing defiance. She would not be able in truth to free herself from the ambition to live and shine in this world of the English rich and well born. For, after all, as she told herself with rebellious passion, it was or ought to be her world. And yet her whole being was sore from the experiences of these three years with Lady Henry—from those, above all, of the preceding twenty-four hours. She wove no romance about herself. "I should have dismissed myself long ago," she would have said, contemptuously, to any one who could have compelled the disclosure of her thoughts. But the long and miserable struggle of her self-love with Lady Henry's arrogance, of her gifts with her circumstances; the presence in this very world, where she had gained so marked a personal success, of two clashing estimates of herself, both of which she perfectly understood—the one exalting her, the other merely implying the cool and secret judgment of persons who see the world as it is—these things made a heat and poison in her blood.

She was not good enough, not desirable enough, to be the wife of the man she loved. Here was the plain fact that stung and stung.

Jacob Delafield had thought her good enough! She still felt the pressure of his warm, strong fingers, the touch of his kiss upon her hand. What a paradox was she living in! The Duchess might well ask: why, indeed, had she refused Jacob Delafield—that first time? As to the second refusal, that needed no explanation, at least for herself. When, upon that winter day, now some six weeks past, which had beheld Lady Henry more than commonly tyrannical, and her companion more than commonly weary and rebellious, Delafield's stammered words—as he and she were crossing Grosvenor Square in the January dusk—had struck for the second time upon her ear, she was already under Warkworth's charm. But before—the first time? She had come to Lady Henry firmly determined to marry as soon and as well as she could—to throw off the slur on her life—to regularize her name and place in the world. And then the possible heir of the Chudleighs proposes to her—and she rejects him!

It was sometimes difficult for her now to remember all the whys and wherefores of this strange action of which she was secretly so proud. But the explanation was in truth not far from that she had given to the Duchess. The wild strength in her own nature had divined and shrunk from a similar strength in Delafield's. Here, indeed, one came upon the fact which forever differentiated her from the adventuress, had Sir Wilfrid known. She wanted money and name; there were days when she hungered for them. But she would not give too reckless a price for them. She was a personality, a soul—not a vulgar woman—not merely callous or greedy. She dreaded to be miserable; she had a thirst for happiness, and the heart was, after all, stronger than the head.

Jacob Delafield? No! Her being contracted and shivered at the thought of him. A will tardily developed, if all accounts of his school and college days were true, but now, as she believed, invincible; a mystic; an ascetic; a man under whose modest or careless or self-mocking ways she, with her eye for character, divined the most critical instincts, and a veracity, iron, scarcely human—a man before whom one must be always posing at one's best—that was a personal risk too great to take for a Julie Le Breton.

Unless, indeed, if it came to this—that one must think no more of love—but only of power—why, then—

A ring at the door, resounding through the quiet side street. After a minute the Scotchwoman opened the drawing-room door.

"Please, miss, is this meant for you?"

Julie took the letter in astonishment. Then through the door she saw a man standing in the hall and recognized Captain Warkworth's Indian servant.

"I don't understand him," said the Scotchwoman, shaking her head.

Julie went out to speak with him. The man had been sent to Crowborough House with instructions to inquire for Miss Le Breton and deliver his note. The groom of the chambers, misinterpreting the man's queer English, and thinking the matter urgent—the note was marked "immediate"—had sent him after the ladies to Heribert Street.

The man was soon feed and dismissed, and Miss Le Breton took the letter back to the drawing-room.

So, after all, he had not failed; there on her lap was her daily letter. Outside the scanty March sun, now just setting, was touching the garden with gold. Had it also found its way into Julie's eyes?

Now for his explanation:

"First, how and where are you? I called in Bruton Street at noon. Hutton told me you had just gone to Crowborough House. Kind—no, wise little Duchess! She honors herself in sheltering you.

"I could not write last night—I was too uncertain, too anxious. All I said might have jarred. This morning came your note, about eleven. It was angelic to think so kindly and thoughtfully of a friend—angelic to write such a letter at such a time. You announced your flight to Crowborough House, but did not say when, so I crept to Bruton Street, seeing Lady Henry in every lamp-post, got a few clandestine words with Hutton, and knew, at least, what had happened to you—outwardly and visibly.

"Last night did you think me a poltroon to vanish as I did? It was the impulse of a moment. Mr. Montresor had pulled me into a corner of the room, away from the rest of the party, nominally to look at a picture, really that I might answer a confidential question he had just put to me with regard to a disputed incident in the Afridi campaign. We were in the dark and partly behind a screen. Then the door opened. I confess the sight of Lady Henry paralyzed me. A great, murderous, six-foot Afridi—that would have been simple enough. But a woman—old and ill and furious—with that Medusa's face—no! My nerves suddenly failed me. What right had I in her house, after all? As she advanced into the room, I slipped out behind her. General Fergus and M. du Bartas joined me in the hall. We walked to Bond Street together. They were divided between laughter and vexation. I should have laughed—if I could have forgotten you.

"But what could I have done for you, dear lady, if I had stayed out the storm? I left you with three or four devoted adherents, who had, moreover, the advantage over me of either relationship or old acquaintance with Lady Henry. Compared to them, I could have done nothing to shield you. Was it not best to withdraw? Yet all the way home I accused myself bitterly. Nor did I feel, when I reached home, that one who had not grasped your hand under fire had any right to rest or sleep. But anxiety for you, regrets for myself, took care of that; I got my deserts.