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diff --git a/13782-h/13782-h.htm b/13782-h/13782-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..90e87e2 --- /dev/null +++ b/13782-h/13782-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,13570 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<html> +<head> +<meta name="generator" content= +"HTML Tidy for Windows (vers 1st February 2004), see www.w3.org"> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content= +"text/html; charset=UTF-8"> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Lady Rose's Daughter, by Mrs. +Humphry Ward.</title> + +<style type="text/css"> + <!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; } + blockquote {text-align: justify; + margin-left: 15%; + margin-right: 15%;} + IMG { + BORDER-RIGHT: 0px; + BORDER-TOP: 0px; + BORDER-LEFT: 0px; + BORDER-BOTTOM: 0px } + .loc { TEXT-ALIGN: right; + margin-left: 15%; + margin-right: 15%;} + .ctr { TEXT-ALIGN: center } + + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; } + HR { width: 33%; } + // --> +</style> +</head> +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13782 ***</div> + +<a name="illus-000.jpg"></a> +<p class="ctr"><a href="images/illus-000.jpg"><img src= +"images/illus-000.jpg" width="45%" alt=""></a><br> +<b>"AS THOUGH SHE LISTENED STILL TO WORDS IN HER EARS"</b><br> +[See page <a href="#VIII">122</a>]</p> +<h1>Lady Rose's Daughter</h1> +<h3>A Novel</h3> +<h4>BY</h4> +<h2>MRS. HUMPHRY WARD</h2> +<h5>Author of "Eleanor" "Robert Elsmere" etc. etc.</h5> +<br> +<h4>ILLUSTRATED BY<br> +HOWARD CHANDLER CHRISTY</h4> +<h5>1903</h5> +<center>[<a href="#I">1</a>] [<a href="#II">2</a>] [<a href= +"#III">3</a>] [<a href="#IV">4</a>] [<a href="#V">5</a>] [<a href= +"#VI">6</a>] [<a href="#VII">7</a>] [<a href="#VIII">8</a>] +[<a href="#IX">9</a>] [<a href="#X">10</a>]<br> +[<a href="#XI">11</a>] [<a href="#XII">12</a>] [<a href= +"#XIII">13</a>] [<a href="#XIV">14</a>] [<a href="#XV">15</a>] +[<a href="#XVI">16</a>] [<a href="#XVII">17</a>] [<a href= +"#XVIII">18</a>] [<a href="#XIX">19</a>] [<a href="#XX">20</a>]<br> +[<a href="#XXI">21</a>] [<a href="#XXII">22</a>] [<a href= +"#XXIII">23</a>] [<a href="#XXIV">24</a>]</center> +<br> +<br> +<hr style="width: 35%;"> +<br> +<br> +<h2>ILLUSTRATION</h2> +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr> +<td>"AS THOUGH SHE LISTENED STILL TO WORDS IN HER EARS"</td> +<td align="right"><i><a href= +"#illus-000.jpg">Frontispiece</a></i></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>"LADY HENRY LISTENED EAGERLY"</td> +<td align="right"><i>Facing p</i>. <a href= +"#illus-030.jpg">30</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>"'INDEED I WILL!' CRIED SIR WILFRID, AND THEY WALKED ON"</td> +<td align="right"><a href="#illus-052.jpg">52</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>"LADY HENRY GASPED. SHE FELL BACK INTO HER CHAIR"</td> +<td align="right"><a href="#illus-100.jpg">100</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>"HE ENTERED UPON A MERRY SCENE"</td> +<td align="right"><a href="#illus-242.jpg">242</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>"'FOR MY ROSE'S CHILD,' HE SAID, GENTLY"</td> +<td align="right"><a href="#illus-254.jpg">254</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>"HER HANDS CLASPED IN FRONT OF HER"</td> +<td align="right"><a href="#illus-356.jpg">356</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>"SHE FOUND HERSELF KNEELING BESIDE HIM"</td> +<td align="right"><a href="#illus-480.jpg">480</a></td> +</tr> +</table> +</center> +<br> +<br> +<hr style="width: 35%;"> +<br> +<br> +<h1>LADY ROSE'S DAUGHTER</h1> +<br> +<h2><a name="I"></a>I</h2> +<br> +<p>"Hullo! No!--Yes!--upon my soul, it <i>is</i> Jacob! Why, +Delafield, my dear fellow, how are you?"</p> +<p>So saying--on a February evening a good many years ago--an +elderly gentleman in evening dress flung himself out of his cab, +which had just stopped before a house in Bruton Street, and hastily +went to meet a young man who was at the same moment stepping out of +another hansom a little farther down the pavement.</p> +<p>The pleasure in the older man's voice rang clear, and the +younger met him with an equal cordiality, expressed perhaps through +a manner more leisurely and restrained.</p> +<p>"So you <i>are</i> home, Sir Wilfrid? You were announced, I saw. +But I thought Paris would have detained you a bit."</p> +<p>"Paris? Not I! Half the people I ever knew there are dead, and +the rest are uncivil. Well, and how are you getting on? Making your +fortune, eh?"</p> +<p>And, slipping his arm inside the young man's, the speaker walked +back with him, along a line of carriages, towards a house which +showed a group of footmen at its open door. Jacob Delafield +smiled.</p> +<p>"The business of a land agent seems to be to spend some one +else's--as far as I've yet gone."</p> +<p>"Land agent! I thought you were at the bar?"</p> +<p>"I was, but the briefs didn't come in. My cousin offered me the +care of his Essex estates. I like the country--always have. So I +thought I'd better accept."</p> +<p>"What--the Duke? Lucky fellow! A regular income, and no +anxieties. I expect you're pretty well paid?"</p> +<p>"Oh, I'm not badly paid," replied the young man, tranquilly. "Of +course you're going to Lady Henry's?"</p> +<p>"Of course. Here we are."</p> +<p>The older man paused outside the line of servants waiting at the +door, and spoke in a lower tone. "How is she? Failing at all?"</p> +<p>Jacob Delafield hesitated. "She's grown very blind--and perhaps +rather more infirm, generally. But she is at home, as usual--every +evening for a few people, and for a good many on Wednesdays."</p> +<p>"Is she still alone--or is there any relation who looks after +her?"</p> +<p>"Relation? No. She detests them all."</p> +<p>"Except you?"</p> +<p>Delafield raised his shoulders, without an answering smile. +"Yes, she is good enough to except me. You're one of her trustees, +aren't you?"</p> +<p>"At present, the only one. But while I have been in Persia the +lawyers have done all that was necessary. Lady Henry herself never +writes a letter she can help. I really have heard next to nothing +about her for more than a year. This morning I arrived from +Paris--sent round to ask if she would be at home--and here I +am."</p> +<p>"Ah!" said Delafield, looking down. "Well, there is a lady who +has been with her, now, for more than two years--"</p> +<p>"Ah, yes, yes, I remember. Old Lady Seathwaite told me--last +year. Mademoiselle Le Breton--isn't that her name? What--she reads +to her, and writes letters for her--that kind of thing?"</p> +<p>"Yes--that kind of thing," said the other, after a moment's +hesitation. "Wasn't that a spot of rain? Shall I charge these +gentry?"</p> +<p>And he led the way through the line of footmen, which, however, +was not of the usual Mayfair density. For the party within was not +a "crush." The hostess who had collected it was of opinion that the +chief object of your house is not to entice the mob, but to keep it +out. The two men mounted the stairs together.</p> +<p>"What a charming house!" said the elder, looking round him. "I +remember when your uncle rebuilt it. And before that, I remember +his mother, the old Duchess here, with her swarm of parsons. Upon +my word, London tastes good--after Teheran!"</p> +<p>And the speaker threw back his fair, grizzled head, regarding +the lights, the house, the guests, with the air of a sensitive dog +on a familiar scent.</p> +<p>"Ah, you're fresh home," said Delafield, laughing. "But let's +just try to keep you here--"</p> +<p>"My dear fellow, who is that at the top of the stairs?"</p> +<p>The old diplomat paused. In front of the pair some half a dozen +guests were ascending, and as many coming down. At the top stood a +tall lady in black, receiving and dismissing.</p> +<p>Delafield looked up.</p> +<p>"That is Mademoiselle Le Breton," he said, quietly.</p> +<p>"She receives?"</p> +<p>"She distributes the guests. Lady Henry generally establishes +herself in the back drawing-room. It doesn't do for her to see too +many people at once. Mademoiselle arranges it."</p> +<p>"Lady Henry must indeed be a good deal more helpless that I +remember her," murmured Sir Wilfrid, in some astonishment.</p> +<p>"She is, physically. Oh, no doubt of it! Otherwise you won't +find much change. Shall I introduce you?"</p> +<p>They were approaching a woman whose tall slenderness, combined +with a remarkable physiognomy, arrested the old man's attention. +She was not handsome--that, surely, was his first impression? The +cheek-bones were too evident, the chin and mouth too strong. And +yet the fine pallor of the skin, the subtle black-and-white, in +which, so to speak, the head and face were drawn, the life, the +animation of the whole--were these not beauty, or more than beauty? +As for the eyes, the carriage of the head, the rich magnificence of +hair, arranged with an artful eighteenth-century freedom, as Madame +Vigée Le Brun might have worn it--with the second glance the +effect of them was such that Sir Wilfrid could not cease from +looking at the lady they adorned. It was an effect as of something +over-living, over-brilliant--an animation, an intensity, so strong +that, at first beholding, a by-stander could scarcely tell whether +it pleased him or no.</p> +<p>"Mademoiselle Le Breton--Sir Wilfrid Bury," said Jacob +Delafield, introducing them.</p> +<p>"<i>Is</i> she French?" thought the old diplomat, puzzled. +"And--have I ever seen her before?"</p> +<p>"Lady Henry will be so glad!" said a low, agreeable voice. "You +are one of the old friends, aren't you? I have often heard her talk +of you."</p> +<p>"You are very good. Certainly, I am an old friend--a connection +also." There was the slightest touch of stiffness in Sir Wilfrid's +tone, of which the next moment he was ashamed. "I am very sorry to +hear that Lady Henry has grown so much more helpless since I left +England."</p> +<p>"She has to be careful of fatigue. Two or three people go in to +see her at a time. She enjoys them more so."</p> +<p>"In my opinion," said Delafield, "one more device of milady's +for getting precisely what she wants."</p> +<p>The young man's gay undertone, together with the look which +passed between him and Mademoiselle Le Breton, added to Sir +Wilfrid's stifled feeling of surprise.</p> +<p>"You'll tell her, Jacob, that I'm here?" He turned abruptly to +the young man.</p> +<p>"Certainly--when mademoiselle allows me. Ah, here comes the +Duchess!" said Delafield, in another voice.</p> +<p>Mademoiselle Le Breton, who had moved a few steps away from the +stair-head with Sir Wilfrid Bury, turned hastily. A slight, small +woman, delicately fair and sparkling with diamonds, was coming up +the stairs alone.</p> +<p>"My dear," said the new-comer, holding out her hands eagerly to +Mademoiselle Le Breton, "I felt I must just run in and have a look +at you. But Freddie says that I've got to meet him at that tiresome +Foreign Office! So I can only stay ten minutes. How are +you?"--then, in a lower voice, almost a whisper, which, however, +reached Sir Wilfrid Bury's ears--"worried to death?"</p> +<p>Mademoiselle Le Breton raised eyes and shoulders for a moment, +then, smiling, put her finger to her lip.</p> +<p>"You're coming to me to-morrow afternoon?" said the Duchess, in +the same half-whisper.</p> +<p>"I don't think I can get away."</p> +<p>"Nonsense! My dear, you must have some air and exercise! Jacob, +will you see she comes?"</p> +<p>"Oh, I'm no good," said that young man, turning away. "Duchess, +you remember Sir Wilfrid Bury?"</p> +<p>"She would be an unnatural goddaughter if she didn't," said that +gentleman, smiling. "She may be your cousin, but I knew her before +you did."</p> +<p>The young Duchess turned with a start.</p> +<p>"Sir Wilfrid! A sight for sair een. When did you get back?"</p> +<p>She put her slim hands into both of his, and showered upon him +all proper surprise and the greetings due to her father's oldest +friend. Voice, gesture, words--all were equally amiable, well +trained, and perfunctory--Sir Wilfrid was well aware of it. He was +possessed of a fine, straw-colored mustache, and long eyelashes of +the same color. Both eyelashes and mustache made a screen behind +which, as was well known, their owner observed the world to +remarkably good purpose. He perceived the difference at once when +the Duchess, having done her social and family duty, left him to +return to Mademoiselle Le Breton.</p> +<p>"It <i>was</i> such a bore you couldn't come this afternoon! I +wanted you to see the babe dance--she's <i>too</i> great a duck! +And that Canadian girl came to sing. The voice is magnificent--but +she has some tiresome tricks!--and <i>I</i> didn't know what to say +to her. As to the other music on the 16th--I say, can't we find a +corner somewhere?" And the Duchess looked round the beautiful +drawing-room, which she and her companions had just entered, with a +dissatisfied air.</p> +<p>"Lady Henry, you'll remember, doesn't like corners," said +Mademoiselle Le Breton, smiling. Her tone, delicately free and +allusive, once more drew Sir Wilfrid's curious eyes to her, and he +caught also the impatient gesture with which the Duchess received +the remark.</p> +<p>"Ah, that's all right!" said Mademoiselle Le Breton, suddenly, +turning round to himself. "Here is Mr. Montresor--going on, too, I +suppose, to the Foreign Office. Now there'll be some chance of +getting at Lady Henry."</p> +<p>Sir Wilfrid looked down the drawing-room, to see the famous War +Minister coming slowly through the well-filled but not crowded +room, stopping now and then to exchange a greeting or a farewell, +and much hampered, as it seemed, in so doing, by a pronounced and +disfiguring short-sight. He was a strongly built man of more than +middle height. His iron-gray hair, deeply carved features, and +cavernous black eyes gave him the air of power that his reputation +demanded. On the other hand, his difficulty of eyesight, combined +with the marked stoop of overwork, produced a qualifying +impression--as of power teased and fettered, a Samson among the +Philistines.</p> +<p>"My dear lady, good-night. I must go and fight with wild beasts +in Whitehall--worse luck! Ah, Duchess! All very well--but you can't +shirk either!"</p> +<p>So saying, Mr. Montresor shook hands with Mademoiselle Le Breton +and smiled upon the Duchess--both actions betraying precisely the +same degree of playful intimacy.</p> +<p>"How did you find Lady Henry?" said Mademoiselle Le Breton, in a +lowered voice.</p> +<p>"Very well, but very cross. She scolds me perpetually--I haven't +got a skin left. Ah, Sir Wilfrid!--<i>very</i> glad to see you! +When did you arrive? I thought I might perhaps find you at the +Foreign Office."</p> +<p>"I'm going on there presently," said Sir Wilfrid.</p> +<p>"Ah, but that's no good. Dine with me to-morrow night?--if you +are free? Excellent!--that's arranged. Meanwhile--send him in, +mademoiselle--send him in! He's fresh--let him take his turn." And +the Minister, grinning, pointed backward over his shoulder towards +an inner drawing-room, where the form of an old lady, seated in a +wheeled invalid-chair between two other persons, could be just +dimly seen.</p> +<p>"When the Bishop goes," said Mademoiselle Le Breton, with a +laughing shake of the head. "But I told him not to stay long."</p> +<p>"He won't want to. Lady Henry pays no more attention to his +cloth than to my gray hairs. The rating she has just given me for +my speech of last night! Well, good-night, dear lady--good-night. +You <i>are</i> better, I think?"</p> +<p>Mr. Montresor threw a look of scrutiny no less friendly than +earnest at the lady to whom he was speaking; and immediately +afterwards Sir Wilfrid, who was wedged in by an entering group of +people, caught the murmured words:</p> +<p>"Consult me when you want me--at any time."</p> +<p>Mademoiselle Le Breton raised her beautiful eyes to the speaker +in a mute gratitude.</p> +<p>"And five minutes ago I thought her plain!" said Sir Wilfrid to +himself as he moved away. "Upon my word, for a <i>dame de +compagnie</i> that young woman is at her ease! But where the deuce +have I seen her, or her double, before?"</p> +<p>He paused to look round the room a moment, before yielding +himself to one of the many possible conversations which, as he saw, +it contained for him. It was a stately panelled room of the last +century, furnished with that sure instinct both for comfort and +beauty which a small minority of English rich people have always +possessed. Two glorious Gainsboroughs, clad in the subtlest +brilliance of pearly white and shimmering blue, hung on either side +of the square opening leading to the inner room. The fair, clouded +head of a girl, by Romney, looked down from the panelling above the +hearth. A gowned abbé, by Vandyck, made the centre of +another wall, facing the Gainsboroughs. The pictures were all +famous, and had been associated for generations with the Delafield +name. Beneath them the carpets were covered by fine +eighteenth-century furniture, much of it of a florid Italian type +subdued to a delicate and faded beauty by time and use. The room +was cleverly broken into various circles and centres for +conversation; the chairs were many and comfortable; flowers +sheltered tête-à-têtes or made a setting for +beautiful faces; the lamps were soft, the air warm and light. A +cheerful hum of voices rose, as of talk enjoyed for talking's sake; +and a general effect of intimacy, or gayety, of an unfeigned social +pleasure, seemed to issue from the charming scene and communicate +itself to the onlooker.</p> +<p>And for a few moments, before he was discovered and tumultuously +annexed by a neighboring group, Sir Wilfrid watched the progress of +Mademoiselle Le Breton through the room, with the young Duchess in +her wake. Wherever she moved she was met with smiles, deference, +and eager attention. Here and there she made an introduction, she +redistributed a group, she moved a chair. It was evident that her +eye was everywhere, that she knew every one; her rule appeared to +be at once absolute and welcome. Presently, when she herself +accepted a seat, she became, as Sir Wilfrid perceived in the +intervals of his own conversation, the leader of the most animated +circle in the room. The Duchess, with one delicate arm stretched +along the back of Mademoiselle Le Breton's chair, laughed and +chattered; two young girls in virginal white placed themselves on +big gilt footstools at her feet; man after man joined the group +that stood or sat around her; and in the centre of it, the +brilliance of her black head, sharply seen against a background of +rose brocade, the grace of her tall form, which was thin almost to +emaciation, the expressiveness of her strange features, the +animation of her gestures, the sweetness of her voice, drew the +eyes and ears of half the room to Lady Henry's "companion."</p> +<p>Presently there was a movement in the distance. A man in +knee-breeches and silver-buckled shoes emerged from the back +drawing-room. Mademoiselle Le Breton rose at once and went to meet +him.</p> +<p>"The Bishop has had a long innings," said an old general to Sir +Wilfrid Bury. "And here is Mademoiselle Julie coming for you."</p> +<p>Sir Wilfrid rose, in obedience to a smiling sign from the lady +thus described, and followed her floating black draperies towards +the farther room.</p> +<p>"Who are those two persons with Lady Henry?" he asked of his +guide, as they approached the <i>penetralia</i> where reigned the +mistress of the house. "Ah, I see!--one is Dr. Meredith--but the +other?"</p> +<p>"The other is Captain Warkworth," said Mademoiselle Le Breton. +"Do you know him?"</p> +<p>"Warkworth--Warkworth? Ah--of course--the man who distinguished +himself in the Mahsud expedition. But why is he home again so +soon?"</p> +<p>Mademoiselle Le Breton smiled uncertainly.</p> +<p>"I think he was invalided home," she said, with that manner, at +once restrained and gracious, that Sir Wilfrid had already observed +in her. It was the manner of some one who <i>counted</i>; +and--through all outward modesty--knew it.</p> +<p>"He wants something out of the ministry. I remember the man," +was Sir Wilfrid's unspoken comment.</p> +<p>But they had entered the inner room. Lady Henry looked round. +Over her wrinkled face, now parchment-white, there shone a ray of +pleasure--sudden, vehement, and unfeigned.</p> +<p>"Sir Wilfrid!"</p> +<p>She made a movement as though to rise from her chair, which was +checked by his gesture and her helplessness.</p> +<p>"Well, this is good fortune," she said, as she put both her +hands into both of his. "This morning, as I was dressing, I had a +feeling that something agreeable was going to happen at last--and +then your note came. Sit down there. You know Dr. Meredith. He's as +quarrelsome as ever. Captain Warkworth--Sir Wilfrid Bury."</p> +<p>The square-headed, spectacled journalist addressed as Dr. +Meredith greeted the new-comer with the quiet cordiality of one for +whom the day holds normally so many events that it is impossible to +make much of any one of them. And the man on the farther side of +Lady Henry rose and bowed. He was handsome, and slenderly built. +The touch of impetuosity in his movement, and the careless ease +with which he carried his curly head, somehow surprised Sir +Wilfrid. He had expected another sort of person.</p> +<p>"I will give you my chair," said the Captain, pleasantly. "I +have had more than my turn."</p> +<p>"Shall I bring in the Duchess?" said Mademoiselle Le Breton, in +a low tone, as she stooped over the back of Lady Henry's chair.</p> +<p>That lady turned abruptly to the speaker.</p> +<p>"Let her do precisely as she pleases," said a voice, sharp, +lowered also, but imperious, like the drawing of a sword. "If she +wants me, she knows where I am."</p> +<p>"She would be so sorry--"</p> +<p>"Ne jouez pas la comédie, ma chère! Where is +Jacob?"</p> +<p>"In the other room. Shall I tell him you want him?"</p> +<p>"I will send for him when it suits me. Meanwhile, as I +particularly desired you to let me know when he arrived--"</p> +<p>"He has only been here twenty minutes," murmured Mademoiselle Le +Breton. "I thought while the Bishop was here you would not like to +be disturbed--"</p> +<p>"You thought!" The speaker raised her shoulders fiercely. "Comme +toujours, vous vous êtes trop bien amusée pour vous +souvenir de mes instructions--voilà la vérité! +Dr. Meredith," the whole imperious form swung round again towards +the journalist, "unless you forbid me, I shall tell Sir Wilfrid who +it was reviewed his book for you."</p> +<p>"Oh, good Heavens! I forbid you with all the energy of which I +am capable," said the startled journalist, raising appealing hands, +while Lady Henry, delighted with the effect produced by her sudden +shaft, sank back in her chair and grimly smiled.</p> +<p>Meanwhile Sir Wilfrid Bury's attention was still held by +Mademoiselle Le Breton. In the conversation between her and Lady +Henry he had noticed an extraordinary change of manner on the part +of the younger lady. Her ease, her grace had disappeared. Her tone +was humble, her manner quivering with nervous anxiety. And now, as +she stood a moment behind Lady Henry's chair, one trembling hand +steadying the other, Sir Wilfrid was suddenly aware of yet another +impression. Lady Henry had treated her companion with a +contemptuous and haughty ill-humor. Face to face with her mistress, +Mademoiselle Le Breton had borne it with submission, almost with +servility. But now, as she stood silent behind the blind old lady +who had flouted her, her wonderfully expressive face, her delicate +frame, spoke for her with an energy not to be mistaken. Her dark +eyes blazed. She stood for anger; she breathed humiliation.</p> +<p>"A dangerous woman, and an extraordinary situation," so ran his +thought, while aloud he was talking Central Asian politics and the +latest Simla gossip to his two companions.</p> +<p>Meanwhile, Captain Warkworth and Mademoiselle Le Breton returned +together to the larger drawing-room, and before long Dr. Meredith +took his leave. Lady Henry and her old friend were left alone.</p> +<p>"I am sorry to hear that your sight troubles you more than of +old," said Sir Wilfrid, drawing his chair a little nearer to +her.</p> +<p>Lady Henry gave an impatient sigh. "Everything troubles me more +than of old. There is one disease from which no one recovers, my +dear Wilfrid, and it has long since fastened upon me."</p> +<p>"You mean old age? Oh, you are not so much to be pitied for +that," said Sir Wilfrid, smiling. "Many people would exchange their +youth for your old age."</p> +<p>"Then the world contains more fools than even I give it credit +for!" said Lady Henry, with energy. "Why should any one exchange +with me--a poor, blind, gouty old creature, with no chick or child +to care whether she lives or dies?"</p> +<p>"Ah, well, that's a misfortune--I won't deny that," said Sir +Wilfrid, kindly. "But I come home after three years. I find your +house as thronged as ever, in the old way. I see half the most +distinguished people in London in your drawing-room. It is sad that +you can no longer receive them as you used to do: but here you sit +like a queen, and people fight for their turn with you."</p> +<p>Lady Henry did not smile. She laid one of her wrinkled hands +upon his arm.</p> +<p>"Is there any one else within hearing?" she said, in a quick +undertone. Sir Wilfrid was touched by the vague helplessness of her +gesture, as she looked round her.</p> +<p>"No one--we are quite alone."</p> +<p>"They are not here for <i>me</i>--those people," she said, +quivering, with a motion of her hand towards the large +drawing-room.</p> +<p>"My dear friend, what do you mean?"</p> +<p>"They are here--come closer, I don't want to be overheard--for a +<i>woman</i>--whom I took in, in a moment of lunacy--who is now +robbing me of my best friends and supplanting me in my own +house."</p> +<p>The pallor of the old face had lost all its waxen dignity. The +lowered voice hissed in his ear. Sir Wilfrid, startled and +repelled, hesitated for his reply. Meanwhile, Lady Henry, who could +not see it, seemed at once to divine the change in his +expression.</p> +<p>"Oh, I suppose you think I'm mad," she said, impatiently, "or +ridiculous. Well, see for yourself, judge for yourself. In fact, I +have been looking, hungering, for your return. You have helped me +through emergencies before now. And I am in that state at present +that I trust no one, talk to no one, except of +<i>banalités</i>. But I should be greatly obliged if +<i>you</i> would come and listen to me, and, what is more, advise +me some day."</p> +<p>"Most gladly," said Sir Wilfrid, embarrassed; then, after a +pause, "Who is this lady I find installed here?"</p> +<p>Lady Henry hesitated, then shut her strong mouth on the +temptation to speak.</p> +<p>"It is not a story for to-night," she said; "and it would upset +me. But, when you first saw her, how did she strike you?"</p> +<p>"I saw at once," said her companion after a pause, "that you had +caught a personality."</p> +<p>"A personality!" Lady Henry gave an angry laugh. "That's one way +of putting it. But physically--did she remind you of no one?"</p> +<p>Sir Wilfrid pondered a moment.</p> +<p>"Yes. Her face haunted me, when I first saw it. But--no; no, I +can't put any names."</p> +<p>Lady Henry gave a little snort of disappointment.</p> +<p>"Well, think. You knew her mother quite well. You have known her +grandfather all your life. If you're going on to the Foreign +Office, as I suppose you are, you'll probably see him to-night. She +is uncannily like him. As to her father, I don't know--but he was a +rolling-stone of a creature; you very likely came across him."</p> +<p>"I knew her mother and her father?" said Sir Wilfrid, astonished +and pondering.</p> +<p>"They had no right to be her mother and her father," said Lady +Henry, with grimness.</p> +<p>"Ah! So if one does guess--"</p> +<p>"You'll please hold your tongue."</p> +<p>"But at present I'm completely mystified," said Sir Wilfrid.</p> +<p>"Perhaps it'll come to you later. You've a good memory generally +for such things. Anyway, I can't tell you anything now. But when'll +you come again? To-morrow--luncheon? I really want you."</p> +<p>"Would you be alone?"</p> +<p>"Certainly. <i>That</i>, at least, I can still do--lunch as I +please, and with whom I please. Who is this coming in? Ah, you +needn't tell me."</p> +<p>The old lady turned herself towards the entrance, with a +stiffening of the whole frame, an instinctive and passionate +dignity in her whole aspect, which struck a thrill through her +companion.</p> +<p>The little Duchess approached, amid a flutter of satin and lace, +heralded by the scent of the Parma violets she wore in profusion at +her breast and waist. Her eye glanced uncertainly, and she +approached with daintiness, like one stepping on mined ground.</p> +<p>"Aunt Flora, I must have just a minute."</p> +<p>"I know no reason against your having ten, if you want them," +said Lady Henry, as she held-out three fingers to the new-comer. +"You promised yesterday to come and give me a full account of the +Devonshire House ball. But it doesn't matter--and you have +forgotten."</p> +<p>"No, indeed, I haven't," said the Duchess, embarrassed. "But you +seemed so well employed to-night, with other people. And now--"</p> +<p>"Now you are going on," said Lady Henry, with a most unfriendly +suavity.</p> +<p>"Freddie says I must," said the other, in the attitude of a +protesting child.</p> +<p>"<i>Alors</i>!" said Lady Henry, lifting her hand. "We all know +how obedient you are. Good-night!"</p> +<p>The Duchess flushed. She just touched her aunt's hand, and then, +turning an indignant face on Sir Wilfrid, she bade him farewell +with an air which seemed to him intended to avenge upon his neutral +person the treatment which, from Lady Henry, even so spoiled a +child of fortune as herself could not resent.</p> +<p>Twenty minutes later, Sir Wilfrid entered the first big room of +the Foreign Office party. He looked round him with a revival of the +exhilaration he had felt on Lady Henry's staircase, enjoying, after +his five years in Teheran, after his long homeward journey by +desert and sea, even the common trivialities of the scene--the +lights, the gilding, the sparkle of jewels, the scarlet of the +uniforms, the noise and movement of the well-dressed crowd. Then, +after this first physical thrill, began the second stage of +pleasure--the recognitions and the greetings, after long absence, +which show a man where he stands in the great world, which sum up +his past and forecast his future. Sir Wilfrid had no reason to +complain. Cabinet ministers and great ladies, members of Parliament +and the permanent officials who govern but do not rule, soldiers, +journalists, barristers--were all glad, it seemed, to grasp him by +the hand. He had returned with a record of difficult service +brilliantly done, and the English world rewarded him in its +accustomed ways.</p> +<p>It was towards one o'clock that he found himself in a crowd +pressing towards the staircase in the wake of some departing +royalties. A tall man in front turned round to look for some ladies +behind him from whom he had been separated in the crush. Sir +Wilfrid recognized old Lord Lackington, the veteran of marvellous +youth, painter, poet, and sailor, who as a gay naval lieutenant had +entertained Byron in the Ægean; whose fame as one of the +raciest of naval reformers was in all the newspapers; whose +personality was still, at seventy-five, charming to most women and +challenging to most men.</p> +<p>As the old man turned, he was still smiling, as though in unison +with something which had just been said to him; and his black eyes +under his singularly white hair searched the crowd with the +animation of a lad of twenty. Through the energy of his aspect the +flame of life still burned, as the evening sun through a fine sky. +The face had a faulty yet most arresting brilliance. The mouth was +disagreeable, the chin common. But the general effect was still +magnificent.</p> +<p>Sir Wilfrid started. He recalled the drawing-room in Bruton +Street; the form and face of Mademoiselle Le Breton; the sentences +by which Lady Henry had tried to put him on the track. His mind ran +over past years, and pieced together the recollections of a +long-past scandal. "Of course! <i>Of course!</i>" he said to +himself, not without excitement. "She is not like her mother, but +she has all the typical points of her mother's race."</p> +<br> +<br> +<hr style="width: 35%;"> +<br> +<br> +<h2><a name="II"></a>II</h2> +<br> +<p>It was a cold, clear morning in February, with a little pale +sunshine playing on the bare trees of the Park. Sir Wilfrid, +walking southward from the Marble Arch to his luncheon with Lady +Henry, was gladly conscious of the warmth of his fur-collared coat, +though none the less ready to envy careless youth as it crossed his +path now and then, great-coatless and ruddy, courting the keen +air.</p> +<p>Just as he was about to make his exit towards Mount Street he +became aware of two persons walking southward like himself, but on +the other side of the roadway. He soon identified Captain Warkworth +in the slim, soldierly figure of the man. And the lady? There also, +with the help of his glasses, he was soon informed. Her trim, black +hat and her black cloth costume seemed to him to have a becoming +and fashionable simplicity; and she moved in morning dress, with +the same ease and freedom that had distinguished her in Lady +Henry's drawing-room the night before.</p> +<p>He asked himself whether he should interrupt Mademoiselle Le +Breton with a view to escorting her to Bruton Street. He +understood, indeed, that he and Lady Henry were to be alone at +luncheon; Mademoiselle Julie had, no doubt, her own quarters and +attendants. But she seemed to be on her way home. An opportunity +for some perhaps exploratory conversation with her before he found +himself face to face with Lady Henry seemed to him not +undesirable.</p> +<p>But he quickly decided to walk on. Mademoiselle Le Breton and +Captain Warkworth paused in their walk, about no doubt to say +good-bye, but, very clearly, loath to say it. They were, indeed, in +earnest conversation. The Captain spoke with eagerness; +Mademoiselle Julie, with downcast eyes, smiled and listened.</p> +<p>"Is the fellow making love to her?" thought the old man, in some +astonishment, as he turned away. "Hardly the place for it either, +one would suppose."</p> +<p>He vaguely thought that he would both sound and warn Lady Henry. +Warn her of what? He happened on the way home to have been thrown +with a couple of Indian officers whose personal opinion of Harry +Warkworth was not a very high one, in spite of the brilliant +distinction which the young man had earned for himself in the +Afridi campaign just closed. But how was he to hand that sort of +thing on to Lady Henry?--and because he happened to have seen her +lady companion and Harry Warkworth together? No doubt Mademoiselle +Julie was on her employer's business.</p> +<p>Yet the little encounter added somehow to his already lively +curiosity on the subject of Lady Henry's companion. Thanks to a +remarkable physical resemblance, he was practically certain that he +had guessed the secret of Mademoiselle Le Breton's parentage. At +any rate, on the supposition that he had, his thoughts began to +occupy themselves with the story to which his guess pointed.</p> +<p>Some thirty years before, he had known, both in London and in +Italy, a certain Colonel Delaney and his wife, once Lady Rose +Chantrey, the favorite daughter of Lord Lackington. They were not a +happy couple. She was a woman of great intelligence, but endowed +with one of those natures--sensitive, plastic, eager to search out +and to challenge life--which bring their possessors some great +joys, hardly to be balanced against a final sum of pain. Her +husband, absorbed in his military life, silent, narrowly able, and +governed by a strict Anglicanism that seemed to carry with it +innumerable "shalts" and "shalt nots," disagreeable to the natural +man or woman, soon found her a tiring and trying companion. She +asked him for what he could not give; she coquetted with questions +he thought it impious to raise; the persons she made friends with +were distasteful to him; and, without complaining, he soon grew to +think it intolerable that a woman married to a soldier should care +so little for his professional interests and ambitions. Though when +she pretended to care for them she annoyed him, if possible, still +more.</p> +<p>As for Lady Rose, she went through all the familiar emotions of +the <i>femme incomprise</i>. And with the familiar result. There +presently appeared in the house a man of good family, thirty-five +or so, traveller, painter, and dreamer, with fine, long-drawn +features bronzed by the sun of the East, and bringing with him the +reputation of having plotted and fought for most of the "lost +causes" of our generation, including several which had led him into +conflict with British authorities and British officials. To Colonel +Delaney he was an "agitator," if not a rebel; and the careless +pungency of his talk soon classed him as an atheist besides. In the +case of Lady Rose, this man's free and generous nature, his +independence of money and convention, his passion for the things of +the mind, his contempt for the mode, whether in dress or politics, +his light evasions of the red tape of life as of something that no +one could reasonably expect of a vagabond like himself--these +things presently transformed a woman in despair to a woman in +revolt. She fell in love with an intensity befitting her true +temperament, and with a stubbornness that bore witness to the +dreary failure of her marriage. Marriott Dalrymple returned her +love, and nothing in his view of life predisposed him to put what +probably appeared to him a mere legality before the happiness of +two people meant for each other. There were no children of the +Delaney marriage; and in his belief the husband had enjoyed too +long a companionship he had never truly deserved.</p> +<p>So Lady Rose faced her husband, told him the truth, and left +him. She and Dalrymple went to live in Belgium, in a small +country-house some twenty or thirty miles from Brussels. They +severed themselves from England; they asked nothing more of English +life. Lady Rose suffered from the breach with her father, for Lord +Lackington never saw her again. And there was a young sister whom +she had brought up, whose image could often rouse in her a sense of +loss that showed itself in occasional spells of silence and tears. +But substantially she never repented what she had done, although +Colonel Delaney made the penalties of it as heavy as he could. Like +Karennine in Tolstoy's great novel, he refused to sue for a +divorce, and for something of the same reasons. Divorce was in +itself impious, and sin should not be made easy. He was at any time +ready to take back his wife, so far as the protection of his name +and roof were concerned, should she penitently return to him.</p> +<p>So the child that was presently born to Lady Rose could not be +legitimized.</p> +<p>Sir Wilfrid stopped short at the Park end of Bruton Street, with +a start of memory.</p> +<p>"I saw it once! I remember now--perfectly."</p> +<p>And he went on to recall a bygone moment in the Brussels +Gallery, when, as he was standing before the great Quintin Matsys, +he was accosted with sudden careless familiarity by a thin, +shabbily dressed man, in whose dark distinction, made still more +fantastic and conspicuous by the fever and the emaciation of +consumption, he recognized at once Marriott Dalrymple.</p> +<p>He remembered certain fragments of their talk about the +pictures--the easy mastery, now brusque, now poetic, with which +Dalrymple had shown him the treasures of the gallery, in the manner +of one whose learning was merely the food of fancy, the stuff on +which imagination and reverie grew rich.</p> +<p>Then, suddenly, his own question--"And Lady Rose?"</p> +<p>And Dalrymple's quiet, "Very well. She'd see you, I think, if +you want to come. She has scarcely seen an English person in the +last three years."</p> +<p>And as when a gleam searches out some blurred corner of a +landscape, there returned upon him his visit to the pair in their +country home. He recalled the small eighteenth-century house, the +"château" of the village, built on the French model, with its +high <i>mansarde</i> roof; the shabby stateliness of its +architecture matching plaintively with the field of beet-root that +grew up to its very walls; around it the flat, rich fields, with +their thin lines of poplars; the slow, canalized streams; the +unlovely farms and cottages; the mire of the lanes; and, shrouding +all, a hot autumn mist sweeping slowly through the damp meadows and +blotting all cheerfulness from the sun. And in the midst of this +pale landscape, so full of ragged edges to an English eye, the +English couple, with their books, their child, and a pair of +Flemish servants.</p> +<p>It had been evident to him at once that their circumstances were +those of poverty. Lady Rose's small fortune, indeed, had been +already mostly spent on "causes" of many kinds, in many countries. +She and Dalrymple were almost vegetarians, and wine never entered +the house save for the servants, who seemed to regard their +employers with a real but half-contemptuous affection. He +remembered the scanty, ill-cooked luncheon; the difficulty in +providing a few extra knives and forks; the wrangling with the old +<i>bonne</i>-housekeeper, which was necessary before +<i>serviettes</i> could be produced.</p> +<p>And afterwards the library, with its deal shelves from floor to +ceiling put up by Dalrymple himself, its bare, polished floor, +Dalrymple's table and chair on one side of the open hearth, Lady +Rose's on the other; on his table the sheets of verse translation +from Æschylus and Euripides, which represented his favorite +hobby; on hers the socialist and economical books they both studied +and the English or French poets they both loved. The walls, hung +with the faded damask of a past generation, were decorated with a +strange crop of pictures pinned carelessly into the +silk--photographs or newspaper portraits of modern men and women +representing all possible revolt against authority, political, +religious, even scientific, the Everlasting No of an untiring and +ubiquitous dissent.</p> +<p>Finally, in the centre of the polished floor, the strange child, +whom Lady Rose had gone to fetch after lunch, with its high crest +of black hair, its large, jealous eyes, its elfin hands, and the +sudden smile with which, after half an hour of silence and apparent +scorn, it had rewarded Sir Wilfrid's advances. He saw himself +sitting bewitched beside it.</p> +<p>Poor Lady Rose! He remembered her as he and she parted at the +gate of the neglected garden, the anguish in her eyes as they +turned to look after the bent and shrunken figure of Dalrymple +carrying the child back to the house.</p> +<p>"If you meet any of his old friends, don't--don't say anything! +We've just saved enough money to go to Sicily for the +winter--that'll set him right."</p> +<p>And then, barely a year later, the line in a London newspaper +which had reached him at Madrid, chronicling the death of Marriott +Dalrymple, as of a man once on the threshold of fame, but long +since exiled from the thoughts of practical men. Lady Rose, too, +was dead--many years since; so much he knew. But how, and where? +And the child?</p> +<p>She was now "Mademoiselle Le Breton "?--the centre and +apparently the chief attraction of Lady Henry's once famous +salon?</p> +<p>"And, by Jove! several of her kinsfolk there, relations of the +mother or the father, if what I suppose is true!" thought Sir +Wilfrid, remembering one or two of the guests. "Were they--was +she--aware of it?"</p> +<hr style="width: 25%;"> +<p>The old man strode on, full of a growing eagerness, and was soon +on Lady Henry's doorstep.</p> +<p>"Her ladyship is in the dining-room," said the butler, and Sir +Wilfrid was ushered there straight.</p> +<p>"Good-morning, Wilfrid," said the old lady, raising herself on +her silver--headed sticks as he entered. "I prefer to come +down-stairs by myself. The more infirm I am, the less I like +it--and to be helped enrages me. Sit down. Lunch is ready, and I +give you leave to eat some."</p> +<p>"And you?" said Sir Wilfrid, as they seated themselves almost +side by side at the large, round table in the large, dingy +room.</p> +<p>The old lady shook her head.</p> +<p>"All the world eats too much. I was brought up with people who +lunched on a biscuit and a glass of sherry."</p> +<p>"Lord Russell?--Lord Palmerston?" suggested Sir Wilfrid, +attacking his own lunch meanwhile with unabashed vigor.</p> +<p>"That sort. I wish we had their like now."</p> +<p>"Their successors don't please you?"</p> +<p>Lady Henry shook her head.</p> +<p>"The Tories have gone to the deuce, and there are no longer +enough Whigs even to do that. I wouldn't read the newspapers at all +if I could help it. But I do."</p> +<p>"So I understand," said Sir Wilfrid; "you let Montresor know it +last night."</p> +<p>"Montresor!" said Lady Henry, with a contemptuous movement. +"What a <i>poseur</i>! He lets the army go to ruin, I understand, +while he joins Dante societies."</p> +<p>Sir Wilfrid raised his eyebrows.</p> +<p>"I think, if I were you, I should have some lunch," he said, +gently pushing the admirable <i>salmi</i> which the butler had left +in front of him towards his old friend.</p> +<p>Lady Henry laughed.</p> +<p>"Oh, my temper will be better presently, when those men are +gone"--she nodded towards the butler and footman in the +distance--"and I can have my say."</p> +<p>Sir Wilfrid hurried his meal as much as Lady Henry--who, as it +turned out, was not at all minded to starve him--would allow. She +meanwhile talked politics and gossip to him, with her old, caustic +force, nibbling a dry biscuit at intervals and sipping a cup of +coffee. She was a wilful, characteristic figure as she sat there, +beneath her own portrait as a bride, which hung on the wall behind +her. The portrait represented a very young woman, with plentiful +brown hair gathered into a knot on the top of her head, a high +waist, a blue waist-ribbon, and inflated sleeves. Handsome, +imperious, the corners of the mouth well down, the look straight +and daring--the Lady Henry of the picture, a bride of nineteen, was +already formidable. And the old woman sitting beneath it, with the +strong, white hair, which the ample cap found some difficulty even +now in taming and confining, the droop of the mouth accentuated, +the nose more masterful, the double chin grown evident, the light +of the eyes gone out, breathed pride and will from every feature of +her still handsome face, pride of race and pride of intellect, +combined with a hundred other subtler and smaller prides that only +an intimate knowledge of her could detect. The brow and eyes, so +beautiful in the picture, were, however, still agreeable in the +living woman; if generosity lingered anywhere, it was in them.</p> +<p>The door was hardly closed upon the servants when she bent +forward.</p> +<p>"Well, have you guessed?"</p> +<p>Sir Wilfrid looked at her thoughtfully as he stirred the sugar +in his coffee.</p> +<p>"I think so," he said. "She is Lady Rose Delaney's +daughter."</p> +<p>Lady Henry gave a sudden laugh.</p> +<p>"I hardly expected you to guess! What helped you?"</p> +<p>"First your own hints. Then the strange feeling I had that I had +seen the face, or some face just like it, before. And, lastly, at +the Foreign Office I caught sight, for a moment, of Lord +Lackington. That finished it."</p> +<p>"Ah!" said Lady Henry, with a nod. "Yes, that likeness is +extraordinary. Isn't it amazing that that foolish old man has never +perceived it?"</p> +<p>"He knows nothing?"</p> +<p>"Oh, nothing! Nobody does. However, that'll do presently. But +Lord Lackington comes here, mumbles about his music and his +water-colors, and his flirtations--seventy-four, if you please, +last birthday!--talks about himself endlessly to Julie or to +me--whoever comes handy--and never has an inkling, an idea."</p> +<p>"And she?"</p> +<p>"Oh, <i>she</i> knows. I should rather think she does." And Lady +Henry pushed away her coffee-cup with the ill-suppressed vehemence +which any mention of her companion seemed to produce in her. "Well, +now, I suppose you'd like to hear the story."</p> +<p>"Wait a minute. It'll surprise you to hear that I not only knew +this lady's mother and father, but that I've seen her, herself, +before."</p> +<p>"You?" Lady Henry looked incredulous.</p> +<p>"I never told you of my visit to that <i>ménage</i>, +four-and-twenty years ago?"</p> +<p>"Never, that I remember. But if you had I should have forgotten. +What did they matter to me then? I myself only saw Lady Rose once, +so far as I remember, before she misconducted herself. And +afterwards--well, one doesn't trouble one's self about the women +that have gone under."</p> +<p>Something lightened behind Sir Wilfrid's straw-colored lashes. +He bent over his coffee-cup and daintily knocked off the end of his +cigarette with a beringed little finger.</p> +<p>"The women who have--not been able to pull up?"</p> +<p>Lady Henry paused.</p> +<p>"If you like to put it so," she said, at last. Sir Wilfrid did +not raise his eyes. Lady Henry took up her strongest glasses from +the table and put them on. But it was pitifully evident that even +so equipped she saw but little, and that her strong nature fretted +perpetually against the physical infirmity that teased it. +Nevertheless, some unspoken communication passed between them, and +Sir Wilfrid knew that he had effectually held up a protecting hand +for Lady Rose.</p> +<p>"Well, let me tell you my tale first," he said; and gave the +little reminiscence in full. When he described the child, Lady +Henry listened eagerly.</p> +<p>"Hm," she said, when he came to an end; "she was jealous, you +say, of her mother's attentions to you? She watched you, and in the +end she took possession of you? Much the same creature, apparently, +then as now."</p> +<p>"No moral, please, till the tale is done," said Sir Wilfrid, +smiling. "It's your turn."</p> +<p>Lady Henry's face grew sombre.</p> +<br> +<a name="illus-030.jpg"></a> +<p class="ctr"><a href="images/illus-030.jpg"><img src= +"images/illus-030.jpg" width="45%" alt=""></a><br> +<b>"LADY HENRY LISTENED EAGERLY"</b></p> +<br> +<p>"All very well," she said. "What did your tale matter to you? As +for mine--"</p> +<p>The substance of hers was as follows, put into chronological +order:</p> +<p>Lady Rose had lived some ten years after Dalrymple's death. That +time she passed in great poverty in some <i>chambres garnies</i> at +Bruges, with her little girl and an old Madame Le Breton, the maid, +housekeeper, and general factotum who had served them in the +country. This woman, though of a peevish, grumbling temper, was +faithful, affectionate, and not without education. She was +certainly attached to little Julie, whose nurse she had been during +a short period of her infancy. It was natural that Lady Rose should +leave the child to her care. Indeed, she had no choice. An old +Ursuline nun, and a kind priest who at the nun's instigation +occasionally came to see her, in the hopes of converting her, were +her only other friends in the world. She wrote, however, to her +father, shortly before her death, bidding him good-bye, and asking +him to do something for the child. "She is wonderfully like you," +so ran part of the letter. "You won't ever acknowledge her, I know. +That is your strange code. But at least give her what will keep her +from want, till she can earn her living. Her old nurse will take +care of her, I have taught her, so far. She is already very clever. +When I am gone she will attend one of the convent schools here. And +I have found an honest lawyer who will receive and pay out +money."</p> +<p>To this letter Lord Lackington replied, promising to come over +and see his daughter. But an attack of gout delayed him, and, +before he was out of his room, Lady Rose was dead. Then he no +longer talked of coming over, and his solicitors arranged matters. +An allowance of a hundred pounds a year was made to Madame Le +Breton, through the "honest lawyer" whom Lady Rose had found, for +the benefit of "Julie Dalrymple," the capital value to be handed +over to that young lady herself on the attainment of her eighteenth +birthday--always provided that neither she nor anybody on her +behalf made any further claim on the Lackington family, that her +relationship to them was dropped, and her mother's history buried +in oblivion.</p> +<p>Accordingly the girl grew to maturity in Bruges. By the lawyer's +advice, after her mother's death, she took the name of her old +<i>gouvernante</i>, and was known thenceforward as Julie Le Breton. +The Ursuline nuns, to whose school she was sent, took the +precaution, after her mother's death, of having her baptized +straightway into the Catholic faith, and she made her +<i>première communion</i> in their church. In the course of +a few years she became a remarkable girl, the source of many +anxieties to the nuns. For she was not only too clever for their +teaching, and an inborn sceptic, but wherever she appeared she +produced parties and the passions of parties. And though, as she +grew older, she showed much adroitness in managing those who were +hostile to her, she was never without enemies, and intrigues +followed her.</p> +<p>"I might have been warned in time," said Lady Henry, in whose +wrinkled cheeks a sharp and feverish color had sprung up as her +story approached the moment of her own personal acquaintance with +Mademoiselle Le Breton. "For one or two of the nuns when I saw them +in Bruges, before the bargain was finally struck, were candid +enough. However, now I come to the moment when I first set eyes on +her. You know my little place in Surrey? About a mile from me is a +manor-house belonging to an old Catholic family, terribly devout +and as poor as church-mice. They sent their daughters to school in +Bruges. One summer holiday these girls brought home with them Julie +Dalrymple as their quasi-holiday governess. It was three years ago. +I had just seen Liebreich. He told me that I should soon be blind, +and, naturally, it was a blow to me."</p> +<p>Sir Wilfrid made a murmur of sympathy.</p> +<p>"Oh, don't pity me! I don't pity other people. This odious body +of ours has got to wear out sometime--it's in the bargain. Still, +just then I was low. There are two things I care about--one is +talk, with the people that amuse me, and the other is the reading +of French books. I didn't see how I was going to keep my circle +here together, and my own mind in decent repair, unless I could +find somebody to be eyes for me, and to read to me. And as I'm a +bundle of nerves, and I never was agreeable to illiterate people, +nor they to me, I was rather put to it. Well, one day these girls +and their mother came over to tea, and, as you guess, of course, +they brought Mademoiselle Le Breton with them. I had asked them to +come, but when they arrived I was bored and cross, and like a sick +dog in a hole. And then, as you have seen her, I suppose you can +guess what happened."</p> +<p>"You discovered an exceptional person?"</p> +<p>Lady Henry laughed.</p> +<p>"I was limed, there and then, old bird as I am. I was first +struck with the girl's appearance--<i>une belle laide</i>--with +every movement just as it ought to be; infinitely more attractive +to me than any pink-and-white beauty. It turned out that she had +just been for a month in Paris with another school-fellow. +Something she said about a new play--suddenly--made me look at her. +'Venez vous asseoir ici, mademoiselle, s'il vous +plaît--près de moi,' I said to her--I can hear my own +voice now, poor fool, and see her flush up. Ah!" Lady Henry's +interjection dropped to a note of rage that almost upset Sir +Wilfrid's gravity; but he restrained himself, and she resumed: "We +talked for two hours; it seemed to me ten minutes. I sent the +others out to the gardens. She stayed with me. The new French +books, the theatre, poems, plays, novels, memoirs, even politics, +she could talk of them all; or, rather--for, mark you, that's her +gift--she made <i>me</i> talk. It seemed to me I had not been so +brilliant for months. I was as good, in fact, as I had ever been. +The difficulty in England is to find any one to keep up the ball. +She does it to perfection. She never throws to win--never!--but so +as to leave you all the chances. You make a brilliant stroke; she +applauds, and in a moment she has arranged you another. Oh, it is +the most extraordinary gift of conversation--and she never says a +thing that you want to remember."</p> +<p>There was a silence. Lady Henry's old fingers drummed restlessly +on the table. Her memory seemed to be wandering angrily among her +first experiences of the lady they were discussing.</p> +<p>"Well," said Sir Wilfrid, at last, "so you engaged her as +<i>lectrice</i>, and thought yourself very lucky?"</p> +<p>"Oh, don't suppose that I was quite an idiot. I made some +inquiries--I bored myself to death with civilities to the stupid +family she was staying with, and presently I made her stay with me. +And of course I soon saw there was a history. She possessed jewels, +laces, little personal belongings of various kinds, that wanted +explaining. So I laid traps for her; I let her also perceive +whither my own plans were drifting. She did not wait to let me +force her hand. She made up her mind. One day I found, left +carelessly on the drawing-room table, a volume of Saint-Simon, +beautifully bound in old French morocco, with something thrust +between the leaves. I opened it. On the fly-leaf was written the +name Marriott Dalrymple, and the leaves opened, a little farther, +on a miniature of Lady Rose Delaney. So--"</p> +<p>"Apparently it was <i>her</i> traps that worked," said Sir +Wilfrid, smiling. Lady Henry returned the smile unwillingly, as one +loath to acknowledge her own folly.</p> +<p>"I don't know that I was trapped. We both desired to come to +close quarters. Anyway, she soon showed me books, letters--from +Lady Rose, from Dalrymple, Lord Lackington--the evidence was +complete....</p> +<p>"'Very well,' I said; 'it isn't your fault. All the better if +you are well born--I am not a person of prejudices. But understand, +if you come to me, there must be no question of worrying your +relations. There are scores of them in London. I know them all, or +nearly all, and of course you'll come across them. But unless you +can hold your tongue, don't come to me. Julie Dalrymple has +disappeared, and I'll be no party to her resurrection. If Julie Le +Breton becomes an inmate of my house, there shall be no raking up +of scandals much better left in their graves. If you haven't got a +proper parentage, consistently thought out, we must invent +one--'"</p> +<p>"I hope I may some day be favored with it," said Sir +Wilfrid.</p> +<p>Lady Henry laughed uncomfortably.</p> +<p>"Oh, I've had to tell lies," she said, "plenty of them."</p> +<p>"What! It was <i>you</i> that told the lies?"</p> +<p>Lady Henry's look flashed.</p> +<p>"The open and honest ones," she said, defiantly.</p> +<p>"Well," said Sir Wilfrid, regretfully, "<i>some</i> sort were +indispensable. So she came. How long ago?"</p> +<p>"Three years. For the first half of that time I did nothing but +plume myself on my good fortune. I said to myself that if I had +searched Europe through I could not have fared better. My +household, my friends, my daily ways, she fitted into them all to +perfection. I told people that I had discovered her through a +Belgian acquaintance. Every one was amazed at her manners, her +intelligence. She was perfectly modest, perfectly well behaved. The +old Duke--he died six months after she came to me--was charmed with +her. Montresor, Meredith, Lord Robert, all my +<i>habitués</i> congratulated me. 'Such cultivation, such +charm, such <i>savoir-faire!</i> Where on earth did you pick up +such a treasure? What are her antecedents?' etc., etc. So then, of +course--"</p> +<p>"I hope no more than were absolutely necessary!" said Sir +Wilfrid, hastily.</p> +<p>"I had to do it well," said Lady Henry, with decision; "I can't +say I didn't. That state of things lasted, more or less, about a +year and a half. And by now, where do you think it has all worked +out?"</p> +<p>"You gave me a few hints last night," said Sir Wilfrid, +hesitating.</p> +<p>Lady Henry pushed her chair back from the table. Her hands +trembled on her stick.</p> +<p>"Hints!" she said, scornfully. "I'm long past hints. I told you +last night--and I repeat--that woman has stripped me of all my +friends! She has intrigued with them all in turn against me. She +has done the same even with my servants. I can trust none of them +where she is concerned. I am alone in my own house. My blindness +makes me her tool, her plaything. As for my salon, as you call it, +it has become hers. I am a mere courtesy-figurehead--her chaperon, +in fact. I provide the house, the footmen, the champagne; the +guests are hers. And she has done this by constant intrigue and +deception--by flattery--by lying!"</p> +<p>The old face had become purple. Lady Henry breathed hard.</p> +<p>"My dear friend," said Sir Wilfrid, quickly, laying a calming +hand on her arm, "don't let this trouble you so. Dismiss her."</p> +<p>"And accept solitary confinement for the rest of my days? I +haven't the courage--yet," said Lady Henry, bitterly. "You don't +know how I have been isolated and betrayed! And I haven't told you +the worst of all. Listen! Do you know whom she has got into her +toils?"</p> +<p>She paused, drawing herself rigidly erect. Sir Wilfrid, looking +up sharply, remembered the little scene in the Park, and +waited.</p> +<p>"Did you have any opportunity last night," said Lady Henry, +slowly, "of observing her and Jacob Delafield?"</p> +<p>She spoke with passionate intensity, her frowning brows meeting +above a pair of eyes that struggled to see and could not. But the +effect she listened for was not produced. Sir Wilfrid drew back +uncertainly.</p> +<p>"Jacob Delafield?" he said. "Jacob Delafield? Are you sure?"</p> +<p>"Sure?" cried Lady Henry, angrily. Then, disdaining to support +her statement, she went on: "He hesitates. But she'll soon make an +end of that. And do you realize what that means--what Jacob's +possibilities are? Kindly recollect that Chudleigh has one boy--one +sickly, tuberculous boy--who might die any day. And Chudleigh +himself is a poor life. Jacob has more than a good chance--ninety +chances out of a hundred"--she ground the words out with +emphasis--"of inheriting the dukedom."</p> +<p>"Good gracious!" said Sir Wilfrid, throwing away his +cigarette.</p> +<p>"There!" said Lady Henry, in sombre triumph. "Now you can +understand what I have brought on poor Henry's family."</p> +<p>A low knock was heard at the door.</p> +<p>"Come in," said Lady Henry, impatiently.</p> +<p>The door opened, and Mademoiselle Le Breton appeared on the +threshold, carrying a small gray terrier under each arm.</p> +<p>"I thought I had better tell you," she said, humbly, "that I am +taking the dogs out. Shall I get some fresh wool for your +knitting?"</p> +<br> +<br> +<hr style="width: 35%;"> +<br> +<br> +<h2><a name="III"></a>III</h2> +<br> +<p>It was nearly four o'clock. Sir Wilfrid had just closed Lady +Henry's door behind him, and was again walking along Bruton +Street.</p> +<p>He was thinking of the little scene of Mademoiselle Le Breton's +appearance on the threshold of Lady Henry's dining-room; of the +insolent sharpness with which Lady Henry had given her order upon +order--as to the dogs, the books for the circulating library, a +message for her dressmaker, certain directions for the tradesmen, +etc., etc.--as though for the mere purpose of putting the woman who +had dared to be her rival in her right place before Sir Wilfrid +Bury. And at the end, as she was departing, Mademoiselle Le Breton, +trusting no doubt to Lady Henry's blindness, had turned towards +himself, raising her downcast eyes upon him suddenly, with a proud, +passionate look. Her lips had moved; Sir Wilfrid had half risen +from his chair. Then, quickly, the door had closed upon her.</p> +<p>Sir Wilfrid could not think of it without a touch of +excitement.</p> +<p>"Was she reminding me of Gherardtsloo?" he said to himself. +"Upon my word, I must find some means of conversation with her, in +spite of Lady Henry."</p> +<p>He walked towards Bond Street, pondering the situation of the +two women--the impotent jealousy and rancor with which Lady Henry +was devoured, the domestic slavery contrasted with the social power +of Mademoiselle Le Breton. Through the obscurity and difficulty of +circumstance, how marked was the conscience of race in her, and, as +he also thought, of high intelligence! The old man was deeply +interested. He felt a certain indulgent pity for his lifelong +friend Lady Henry; but he could not get Mademoiselle Julie out of +his head.</p> +<p>"Why on earth does she stay where she is?"</p> +<p>He had asked the same question of Lady Henry, who had +contemptuously replied:</p> +<p>"Because she likes the flesh-pots, and won't give them up. No +doubt she doesn't find my manners agreeable; but she knows very +well that she wouldn't get the chances she gets in my house +anywhere else. I give her a foothold. She'll not risk it for a few +sour speeches on my part. I may say what I like to her--and I +intend to say what I like! Besides, you watch her, and see whether +she's made for poverty. She takes to luxury as a fish to water. +What would she be if she left me? A little visiting teacher, +perhaps, in a Bloomsbury lodging. That's not her line at all."</p> +<p>"But somebody else might employ her as you do?" Sir Wilfrid had +suggested.</p> +<p>"You forget I should be asked for a character," said Lady Henry. +"Oh, I admit there are possibilities--on her side. That silly +goose, Evelyn Crowborough, would have taken her in, but I had a few +words with Crowborough, and he put his foot down. He told his wife +he didn't want an intriguing foreigner to live with them. No; for +the present we are chained to each other. I can't get rid of her, +and she doesn't want to get rid of me. Of course, things might +become intolerable for either of us. But at present self-interest +on both sides keeps us going. Oh, don't tell me the thing is +odious! I know it. Every day she stays in the house I become a more +abominable old woman."</p> +<p>A more exacting one, certainly. Sir Wilfrid thought with pity +and amusement of the commissions with which Mademoiselle Julie had +been loaded. "She earns her money, any way," he thought. "Those +things will take her a hard afternoon's work. But, bless my +soul!"--he paused in his walk--"what about that engagement to +Duchess Evelyn that I heard her make? Not a word, by-the-way, to +Lady Henry about it! Oh, this is amusing!"</p> +<p>He went meditatively on his way, and presently turned into his +club to write some letters. But at five o'clock he emerged, and +told a hansom to drive him to Grosvenor Square. He alighted at the +great red-brick mansion of the Crowboroughs, and asked for the +Duchess. The magnificent person presiding over the hall, an old +family retainer, remembered him, and made no difficulty about +admitting him.</p> +<p>"Anybody with her grace?" he inquired, as the man handed him +over to the footman who was to usher him up-stairs.</p> +<p>"Only Miss Le Breton and Mr. Delafield, Sir Wilfrid. Her grace +told me to say 'not at home' this afternoon, but I am sure, sir, +she will see you."</p> +<p>Sir Wilfrid smiled.</p> +<p>As he entered the outer drawing-room, the Duchess and the group +surrounding her did not immediately perceive the footman nor +himself, and he had a few moments in which to take in a charming +scene.</p> +<p>A baby girl in a white satin gown down to her heels, and a white +satin cap, lace-edged and tied under her chin, was holding out her +tiny skirt with one hand and dancing before the Duchess and Miss Le +Breton, who was at the piano. The child's other hand held up a +morsel of biscuit wherewith she directed the movements of her +partner, a small black spitz, of a slim and silky elegance, who, +straining on his hind legs, his eager attention fixed upon the +biscuit, followed every movement of his small mistress; while she, +her large blue eyes now solemn, now triumphant, her fair hair +escaping from her cap in fluttering curls, her dainty feet pointed, +her dimpled arm upraised, repeated in living grace the picture of +her great-great-grandmother which hung on the wall in front of her, +a masterpiece from Reynolds's happiest hours.</p> +<p>Behind Mademoiselle Le Breton stood Jacob Delafield; while the +Duchess, in a low chair beside them, beat time gayly to the gavotte +that Mademoiselle Julie was playing and laughed encouragement and +applause to the child in front of her. She herself, with her cloud +of fair hair, the delicate pink and white of her skin, the laughing +lips and small white hands that rose and fell with the baby steps, +seemed little more than a child. Her pale blue dress, for which she +had just exchanged her winter walking-costume, fell round her in +sweeping folds of lace and silk--a French fairy dressed by +Wörth, she was possessed by a wild gayety, and her silvery +laugh held the room.</p> +<p>Beside her, Julie Le Breton, very thin, very tall, very dark, +was laughing too. The eyes which Sir Wilfrid had lately seen so +full of pride were now alive with pleasure. Jacob Delafield, also, +from behind, grinned applause or shouted to the babe, "Brava, +Tottie; well done!" Three people, a baby, and a dog more intimately +pleased with one another's society it would have been difficult to +discover.</p> +<p>"Sir Wilfrid!"</p> +<p>The Duchess sprang up astonished, and in a moment, to Sir +Wilfrid's chagrin, the little scene fell to pieces. The child +dropped on the floor, defending herself and the biscuit as best she +could against the wild snatches of the dog. Delafield composed his +face in a moment to its usual taciturnity. Mademoiselle Le Breton +rose from the piano.</p> +<p>"No, no!" said Sir Wilfrid, stopping short and holding up a +deprecating hand. "Too bad! Go on."</p> +<p>"Oh, we were only fooling with baby!" said the Duchess. "It is +high time she went to her nurse. Sit here, Sir Wilfrid. Julie, will +you take the babe, or shall I ring for Mrs. Robson?"</p> +<p>"I'll take her," said Mademoiselle Le Breton.</p> +<p>She knelt down by the child, who rose with alacrity. Catching +her skirts round her, with one eye half laughing, half timorous, +turned over her shoulder towards the dog, the baby made a wild +spring into Mademoiselle Julie's arms, tucking up her feet +instantly, with a shriek of delight, out of the dog's way. Then she +nestled her fair head down upon her bearer's shoulder, and, +throbbing with joy and mischief, was carried away.</p> +<p>Sir Wilfrid, hat in hand, stood for a moment watching the pair. +A bygone marriage uniting the Lackington family with that of the +Duchess had just occurred to him in some bewilderment. He sat down +beside his hostess, while she made him some tea. But no sooner had +the door of the farther drawing-room closed behind Mademoiselle Le +Breton, than with a dart of all her lively person she pounced upon +him.</p> +<p>"Well, so Aunt Flora has been complaining to you?"</p> +<p>Sir Wilfrid's cup remained suspended in his hand. He glanced +first at the speaker and then at Jacob Delafield.</p> +<p>"Oh, Jacob knows all about it!" said the Duchess, eagerly. "This +is Julie's headquarters; <i>we</i> are on her staff. <i>You</i> +come from the enemy!"</p> +<p>Sir Wilfrid took out his white silk handkerchief and waved +it.</p> +<p>"Here is my flag of truce," he said. "Treat me well."</p> +<p>"We are only too anxious to parley with you," said the Duchess, +laughing. "Aren't we, Jacob?"</p> +<p>Then she drew closer.</p> +<p>"What has Aunt Flora been saying to you?"</p> +<p>Sir Wilfrid paused. As he sat there, apparently studying his +boots, his blond hair, now nearly gray, carefully parted in the +middle above his benevolent brow, he might have been reckoned a +tame and manageable person. Jacob Delafield, however, knew him of +old.</p> +<p>"I don't think that's fair," said Sir Wilfrid, at last, looking +up. "I'm the new-comer; I ought to be allowed the questions."</p> +<p>"Go on," said the Duchess, her chin on her hand. "Jacob and I +will answer all we know."</p> +<p>Delafield nodded. Sir Wilfrid, looking from one to the other, +quickly reminded himself that they had been playmates from the +cradle--or might have been.</p> +<p>"Well, in the first place," he said, slowly, "I am lost in +admiration at the rapidity with which Mademoiselle Le Breton does +business. An hour and a half ago"--he looked at his watch--"I stood +by while Lady Henry enumerated commissions it would have taken any +ordinary man-mortal half a day to execute."</p> +<p>The Duchess clapped her hands.</p> +<p>"My maid is now executing them," she said, with glee. "In an +hour she will be back. Julie will go home with everything done, and +I shall have had nearly two hours of her delightful society. What +harm is there in that?"</p> +<p>"Where are the dogs?" said Sir Wilfrid, looking round.</p> +<p>"Aunt Flora's dogs? In the housekeeper's room, eating sweet +biscuit. They adore the groom of the chambers."</p> +<p>"Is Lady Henry aware of this--this division of labor?" said Sir +Wilfrid, smiling.</p> +<p>"Of course not," said the Duchess, flushing. "She makes Julie's +life such a burden to her that something has to be done. Now what +<i>has</i> Aunt Flora been telling you? We were certain she would +take you into council--she has dropped various hints of it. I +suppose she has been telling you that Julie has been intriguing +against her--taking liberties, separating her from her friends, and +so on?"</p> +<p>Sir Wilfrid smilingly presented his cup for some more tea.</p> +<p>"I beg to point out," he said, "that I have only been allowed +<i>two</i> questions so far. But if things are to be at all fair +and equal, I am owed at least six."</p> +<p>The Duchess drew back, checked, and rather annoyed. Jacob +Delafield, on the other hand, bent forward.</p> +<p>"We are <i>anxious</i>, Sir Wilfrid, to tell you all we know," +he replied, with quiet emphasis.</p> +<p>Sir Wilfrid looked at him. The flame in the young man's eyes +burned clear and steady--but flame it was. Sir Wilfrid remembered +him as a lazy, rather somnolent youth; the man's advance in +expression, in significant power, of itself, told much.</p> +<p>"In the first place, can you give me the history of this lady's +antecedents?"</p> +<p>He glanced from one to the other.</p> +<p>The Duchess and Jacob Delafield exchanged glances. Then the +Duchess spoke--uncertainly.</p> +<p>"Yes, we know. She has confided in us. There is nothing whatever +to her discredit."</p> +<p>Sir Wilfrid's expression changed.</p> +<p>"Ah!" cried the Duchess, bending forward. "You know, too?"</p> +<p>"I knew her father and mother," said Sir Wilfrid, simply.</p> +<p>The Duchess gave a little cry of relief. Jacob Delafield rose, +took a turn across the room, and came back to Sir Wilfrid.</p> +<p>"Now we can really speak frankly," he said. "The situation has +grown very difficult, and we did not know--Evelyn and I--whether we +had a right to explain it. But now that Lady Henry--"</p> +<p>"Oh yes," said Sir Wilfrid, "that's all right. The fact of +Mademoiselle Le Breton's parentage--"</p> +<p>"Is really what makes Lady Henry so jealous!" cried the Duchess, +indignantly. "Oh, she's a tyrant, is Aunt Flora! It is because +Julie is of her own world--of <i>our</i> world, by blood, whatever +the law may say--that she can't help making a rival out of her, and +tormenting her morning, noon, and night. I tell you, Sir Wilfrid, +what that poor girl has gone through no one can imagine but we who +have watched it. Lady Henry owes her <i>every</i>thing this last +three years. Where would she have been without Julie? She talks of +Julie's separating her from her friends, cutting her out, imposing +upon her, and nonsense of that kind! How would she have kept up +that salon alone, I should like to know--a blind old woman who +can't write a note for herself or recognize a face? First of all +she throws everything upon Julie, is proud of her cleverness, puts +her forward in every way, tells most unnecessary falsehoods about +her--Julie has felt <i>that</i> very much--and then when Julie has +a great success, when people begin to come to Bruton Street, for +her sake as well as Lady Henry's, then Lady Henry turns against +her, complains of her to everybody, talks about treachery and +disloyalty and Heaven knows what, and begins to treat her like the +dirt under her feet! How can Julie help being clever and +agreeable--she <i>is</i> clever and agreeable! As Mr. Montresor +said to me yesterday, 'As soon as that woman comes into a room, my +spirits go up!' And why? Because she never thinks of herself, she +always makes other people show at their best. And then Lady Henry +behaves like this!" The Duchess threw out her hands in scornful +reprobation. "And the question is, of course, Can it go on?"</p> +<p>"I don't gather," said Sir Wilfrid, hesitating, "that Lady Henry +wants immediately to put an end to it."</p> +<p>Delafield gave an angry laugh.</p> +<p>"The point is whether Mademoiselle Julie and Mademoiselle +Julie's friends can put up with it much longer."</p> +<p>"You see," said the Duchess, eagerly, "Julie is such a loyal, +affectionate creature. She knows Lady Henry was kind to her, to +begin with, that she gave her great chances, and that she's getting +old and infirm. Julie's awfully sorry for her. She doesn't want to +leave her all alone--to the mercy of her servants--"</p> +<p>"I understand the servants, too, are devoted to Mademoiselle +Julie?" said Sir Wilfrid.</p> +<p>"Yes, that's another grievance," said Delafield, contemptuously. +"Why shouldn't they be? When the butler had a child very ill, it +was Mademoiselle Julie who went to see it in the mews, who took it +flowers and grapes--"</p> +<p>"Lady Henry's grapes?" threw in Sir Wilfrid.</p> +<p>"What does it matter!" said Delafield, impatiently. "Lady Henry +has more of everything than she knows what to do with. But it +wasn't grapes only! It was time and thought and consideration. Then +when the younger footman wanted to emigrate to the States, it was +Mademoiselle Julie who found a situation for him, who got Mr. +Montresor to write to some American friends, and finally sent the +lad off, devoted to her, of course, for life. I should like to know +when Lady Henry would have done that kind of thing! Naturally the +servants like her--she deserves it."</p> +<p>"I see--I see," said Sir Wilfrid, nodding gently, his eyes on +the carpet. "A very competent young lady."</p> +<p>Delafield looked at the older man, half in annoyance, half in +perplexity.</p> +<p>"Is there anything to complain of in that?" he said, rather +shortly.</p> +<p>"Oh, nothing, nothing!" said Sir Wilfrid, hastily. "And this +word intrigue that Lady Henry uses? Has mademoiselle always steered +a straightforward course with her employer?"</p> +<p>"Oh, well," said the Duchess, shrugging her shoulders, "how can +you always be perfectly straightforward with such a tyrannical old +person! She <i>has</i> to be managed. Lately, in order to be sure +of every minute of Julie's time, she has taken to heaping work upon +her to such a ridiculous extent that unless I come to the rescue +the poor thing gets no rest and no amusement. And last summer there +was an explosion, because Julie, who was supposed to be in Paris +for her holiday with a school-friend, really spent a week of it +with the Buncombes, Lady Henry's married niece, who has a place in +Kent. The Buncombes knew her at Lady Henry's parties, of course. +Then they met her in the Louvre, took her about a little, were +delighted with her, and begged her to come and stay with them--they +have a place near Canterbury--on the way home. They and Julie +agreed that it would be best to say nothing to Lady Henry about +it--she is too absurdly jealous--but then it leaked out, unluckily, +and Lady Henry was furious."</p> +<p>"I must say," said Delafield, hurriedly, "I always thought +frankness would have been best there."</p> +<p>"Well, perhaps," said the Duchess, unwillingly, with another +shrug. "But now what is to be done? Lady Henry really must behave +better, or Julie can't and sha'n't stay with her. Julie has a great +following--hasn't she, Jacob? They won't see her harassed to +death."</p> +<p>"Certainly not," said Delafield. "At the same time we all +see"--he turned to Sir Wilfrid--"what the advantages of the present +combination are. Where would Lady Henry find another lady of +Mademoiselle Le Breton's sort to help her with her house and her +salon? For the last two years the Wednesday evenings have been the +most brilliant and successful things of their kind in London. And, +of course, for Mademoiselle Le Breton it is a great thing to have +the protection of Lady Henry's name--"</p> +<p>"A great thing?" cried Sir Wilfrid. "Everything, my dear +Jacob!"</p> +<p>"I don't know," said Delafield, slowly. "It may be bought too +dear."</p> +<p>Sir Wilfrid looked at the speaker with curiosity. It had been at +all times possible to rouse Jacob Delafield--as child, as +school-boy, as undergraduate--from an habitual carelessness and +idleness by an act or a tale of injustice or oppression. Had the +Duchess pressed him into her service, and was he merely taking +sides for the weaker out of a natural bent towards that way of +looking at things? Or--</p> +<p>"Well, certainly we must do our best to patch it up," said Sir +Wilfrid, after a pause. "Perhaps Mademoiselle Le Breton will allow +me a word with her by-and-by. I think I have still some influence +with Lady Henry. But, dear goddaughter"--he bent forward and laid +his hand on that of the Duchess--"don't let the maid do the +commissions."</p> +<p>"But I must!" cried the Duchess. "Just think, there is my big +bazaar on the 16th. You don't know how clever Julie is at such +things. I want to make her recite--her French is too beautiful! And +then she has such inventiveness, such a head! Everything goes if +she takes it in hand. But if I say anything to Aunt Flora, she'll +put a spoke in all our wheels. She'll hate the thought of anything +in which Julie is successful and conspicuous. Of course she +will!"</p> +<p>"All the same, Evelyn," said Delafield, uncomfortable apparently +for the second time, "I really think it would be best to let Lady +Henry know."</p> +<p>"Well, then, we may as well give it up," said the Duchess, +pettishly, turning aside.</p> +<p>Delafield, who was still pacing the carpet, suddenly raised his +hand in a gesture of warning. Mademoiselle Le Breton was crossing +the outer drawing-room.</p> +<p>"Julie, come here!" cried the Duchess, springing up and running +towards her. "Jacob is making himself so disagreeable. He thinks we +ought to tell Lady Henry about the 16th."</p> +<p>The speaker put her arm through Julie Le Breton's, looking up at +her with a frowning brow. The contrast between her restless +prettiness, the profusion of her dress and hair, and Julie's dark, +lissome strength, gowned and gloved in neat, close black, was +marked enough.</p> +<p>As the Duchess spoke, Julie looked smiling at Jacob +Delafield.</p> +<p>"I am in your hands," she said, gently. "Of course I don't want +to keep anything from Lady Henry. Please decide for me."</p> +<p>Sir Wilfrid's mouth showed a satirical line. He turned aside and +began to play with a copy of the <i>Spectator</i>.</p> +<p>"Julie," said the Duchess, hesitating, "I hope you won't mind, +but we have been discussing things a little with Sir Wilfrid. I +felt sure Aunt Flora had been talking to him."</p> +<p>"Of course," said Julie, "I knew she would." She looked towards +Sir Wilfrid, slightly drawing herself up. Her manner was quiet, but +all her movements were somehow charged with a peculiar and +interesting significance. The force of the character made itself +felt through all disguises.</p> +<p>In spite of himself, Sir Wilfrid began to murmur apologetic +things.</p> +<p>"It was natural, mademoiselle, that Lady Henry should confide in +me. She has perhaps told you that for many years I have been one of +the trustees of her property. That has led to her consulting me on +a good many matters. And evidently, from what she says and what the +Duchess says, nothing could be of more importance to her happiness, +now, in her helpless state, than her relations to you."</p> +<p>He spoke with a serious kindness in which the tinge of mocking +habitual to his sleek and well-groomed visage was wholly lost. +Julie Le Breton met him with dignity.</p> +<p>"Yes, they are important. But, I fear they cannot go on as they +are."</p> +<p>There was a pause. Then Sir Wilfrid approached her:</p> +<p>"I hear you are returning to Bruton Street immediately. Might I +be your escort?"</p> +<p>"Certainly."</p> +<p>The Duchess, a little sobered by the turn events had taken and +the darkened prospects of her bazaar, protested in vain against +this sudden departure. Julie resumed her furs, which, as Sir +Wilfrid, who was curious in such things; happened to notice, were +of great beauty, and made her farewells. Did her hand linger in +Jacob Delafield's? Did the look with which that young man received +it express more than the steadfast support which justice offers to +the oppressed? Sir Wilfrid could not be sure.</p> +<br> +<a name="illus-052.jpg"></a> +<p class="ctr"><a href="images/illus-052.jpg"><img src= +"images/illus-052.jpg" width="45%" alt=""></a><br> +<b>"'INDEED I WILL!' CRIED SIR WILFRID, AND THEY WALKED ON"</b></p> +<br> +<p>As they stepped out into the frosty, lamp-lit dark of Grosvenor +Square, Julie Le Breton turned to her companion.</p> +<p>"You knew my mother and father," she said, abruptly. "I remember +your coming,"</p> +<p>What was in her voice, her rich, beautiful voice? Sir Wilfrid +only knew that while perfectly steady, it seemed to bring emotion +near, to make all the aspects of things dramatic.</p> +<p>"Yes, yes," he replied, in some confusion. "I knew her well, +from the time when she was a girl in the school-room. Poor Lady +Rose!"</p> +<p>The figure beside him stood still.</p> +<p>"Then if you were my mother's friend," she said, huskily, "you +will hear patiently what I have to say, even though you are Lady +Henry's trustee."</p> +<p>"Indeed I will!" cried Sir Wilfrid, and they walked on.</p> +<br> +<br> +<hr style="width: 35%;"> +<br> +<br> +<h2><a name="IV"></a>IV</h2> +<br> +<p>"But, first of all," said Mademoiselle Le Breton, looking in +some annoyance at the brace of terriers circling and barking round +them, "we must take the dogs home, otherwise no talk will be +possible."</p> +<p>"You have no more business to do?"</p> +<p>His companion smiled.</p> +<p>"Everything Lady Henry wants is here," she said, pointing to the +bag upon her arm which had been handed to her, as Sir Wilfrid +remembered, after some whispered conversation, in the hall of +Crowborough House by an elegantly dressed woman, who was no doubt +the Duchess's maid.</p> +<p>"Allow me to carry it for you."</p> +<p>"Many thanks," said Mademoiselle Le Breton, firmly retaining it, +"but those are not the things I mind."</p> +<p>They walked on quickly to Bruton Street. The dogs made +conversation impossible. If they were on the chain it was one long +battle between them and their leader. If they were let loose, it +seemed to Sir Wilfrid that they ranged every area on the march, and +attacked all elderly gentlemen and most errand-boys.</p> +<p>"Do you always take them out?" he asked, when both he and his +companion were crimson and out of breath.</p> +<p>"Always."</p> +<p>"Do you like dogs?"</p> +<p>"I used to. Perhaps some day I shall again."</p> +<p>"As for me, I wish they had but one neck!" said Sir Wilfrid, who +had but just succeeded in dragging Max, the bigger of the two, out +of the interior of a pastry-cook's hand-cart which had been rashly +left with doors open for a few minutes in the street, while its +responsible guardian was gossiping in an adjacent kitchen. +Mademoiselle Julie meanwhile was wrestling with Nero, the younger, +who had dived to the very heart of a peculiarly unsavory dust-box, +standing near the entrance of a mews.</p> +<p>"So you commonly go through the streets of London in this +whirlwind?" asked Sir Wilfrid, again, incredulous, when at last +they had landed their charges safe at the Bruton Street door.</p> +<p>"Morning and evening," said Mademoiselle Julie, smiling. Then +she addressed the butler: "Tell Lady Henry, please, that I shall be +at home in half an hour."</p> +<p>As they turned westward, the winter streets were gay with lights +and full of people. Sir Wilfrid was presently conscious that among +all the handsome and well-dressed women who brushed past them, +Mademoiselle Le Breton more than held her own. She reminded him now +not so much of her mother as of Marriott Dalrymple. Sir Wilfrid had +first seen this woman's father at Damascus, when Dalrymple, at +twenty-six, was beginning the series of Eastern journeys which had +made him famous. He remembered the brillance of the youth; the +power, physical and mental, which radiated from him, making all +things easy; the scorn of mediocrity, the incapacity for +subordination.</p> +<p>"I should like you to understand," said the lady beside him, +"that I came to Lady Henry prepared to do my very best."</p> +<p>"I am sure of that," said Sir Wilfrid, hastily recalling his +thoughts from Damascus. "And you must have had a very difficult +task."</p> +<p>Mademoiselle Le Breton shrugged her shoulders.</p> +<p>"I knew, of course, it must be difficult. And as to the drudgery +of it--the dogs, and that kind of thing--nothing of that sort +matters to me in the least. But I cannot be humiliated before those +who have become my friends, entirely because Lady Henry wished it +to be so."</p> +<p>"Lady Henry at first showed you every confidence?"</p> +<p>"After the first month or two she put everything into my +hands--her household, her receptions, her letters, you may almost +say her whole social existence. She trusted me with all her +secrets." ("No, no, my dear lady," thought Sir Wilfrid.) "She let +me help her with all her affairs. And, honestly, I did all I could +to make her life easy."</p> +<p>"That I understand from herself."</p> +<p>"Then why," cried Mademoiselle Le Breton, turning round to him +with sudden passion--"why couldn't Lady Henry leave things alone? +Are devotion, and--and the kind of qualities she wanted, so common? +I said to myself that, blind and helpless as she was, she should +lose nothing. Not only should her household be well kept, her +affairs well managed, but her salon should be as attractive, her +Wednesday evenings as brilliant, as ever. The world was deserting +her; I helped her to bring it back. She cannot live without social +success; yet now she hates me for what I have done. Is it sane--is +it reasonable?"</p> +<p>"She feels, I suppose," said Sir Wilfrid, gravely, "that the +success is no longer hers."</p> +<p>"So she says. But will you please examine that remark? When her +guests assemble, can I go to bed and leave her to grapple with +them? I have proposed it often, but of course it is impossible. And +if I am to be there I must behave, I suppose, like a lady, not like +the housemaid. Really, Lady Henry asks too much. In my mother's +little flat in Bruges, with the two or three friends who frequented +it, I was brought up in as good society and as good talk as Lady +Henry has ever known."</p> +<p>They were passing an electric lamp, and Sir Wilfrid, looking up, +was half thrilled, half repelled by the flashing energy of the face +beside him. Was ever such language on the lips of a paid companion +before? His sympathy for Lady Henry revived.</p> +<p>"Can you really give me no clew to the--to the sources of Lady +Henry's dissatisfaction?" he said, at last, rather coldly.</p> +<p>Mademoiselle Le Breton hesitated.</p> +<p>"I don't want to make myself out a saint," she said, at last, in +another voice and with a humility which was, in truth, hardly less +proud than her self-assertion. "I--I was brought up in poverty, and +my mother died when I was fifteen. I had to defend myself as the +poor defend themselves--by silence. I learned not to talk about my +own affairs. I couldn't afford to be frank, like a rich English +girl. I dare say, sometimes I have concealed things which had been +better made plain. They were never of any real importance, and if +Lady Henry had shown any consideration--"</p> +<p>Her voice failed her a little, evidently to her annoyance. They +walked on without speaking for a few paces. "Never of any real +importance?" Sir Wilfrid wondered.</p> +<p>Their minds apparently continued the conversation though their +lips were silent, for presently Julie Le Breton said, abruptly:</p> +<p>"Of course I am speaking of matters where Lady Henry might have +some claim to information. With regard to many of my thoughts and +feelings, Lady Henry has no right whatever to my confidence."</p> +<p>"She gives us fair warning," thought Sir Wilfrid.</p> +<p>Aloud he said:</p> +<p>"It is not a question of thoughts and feelings, I understand, +but of actions."</p> +<p>"Like the visit to the Duncombes'?" said Mademoiselle Le Breton, +impatiently. "Oh, I quite admit it--that's only one of several +instances Lady Henry might have brought forward. You see, she led +me to make these friendships; and now, because they annoy her, I am +to break them. But she forgets. Friends are too--too new in my +life, too precious--"</p> +<p>Again the voice wavered. How it thrilled and penetrated! Sir +Wilfrid found himself listening for every word.</p> +<p>"No," she resumed. "If it is a question of renouncing the +friends I have made in her house, or going--it will be going. That +may as well be quite clear."</p> +<p>Sir Wilfrid looked up.</p> +<p>"Let me ask you one question, mademoiselle."</p> +<p>"Certainly. Whatever you like."</p> +<p>"Have you ever had, have you now, any affection for Lady +Henry?"</p> +<p>"Affection? I could have had plenty. Lady Henry is most +interesting to watch. It is magnificent, the struggles she makes +with her infirmities."</p> +<p>Nothing could have been more agreeable than the modulation of +these words, the passage of the tone from a first note of surprise +to its grave and womanly close. Again, the same suggestions of +veiled and vibrating feeling. Sir Wilfrid's nascent dislike +softened a little.</p> +<p>"After all," he said, with gentleness, "one must make allowance +for old age and weakness, mustn't one?"</p> +<p>"Oh, as to that, you can't say anything to me that I am not +perpetually saying to myself," was her somewhat impetuous reply. +"Only there is a point when ill-temper becomes not only tormenting +to me but degrading to herself.... Oh, if you only knew!"--the +speaker drew an indignant breath. "I can hardly bring myself to +speak of such <i>misères</i>. But everything excites her, +everything makes her jealous. It is a grievance that I should have +a new dress, that Mr. Montresor should send me an order for the +House of Commons, that Evelyn Crowborough should give me a +Christmas present. Last Christmas, Evelyn gave me these furs--she +is the only creature in London from whom I would accept a farthing +or the value of a farthing."</p> +<p>She paused, then rapidly threw him a question:</p> +<p>"Why, do you suppose, did I take it from her?"</p> +<p>"She is your kinswoman," said Wilfrid, quietly.</p> +<p>"Ah, you knew that! Well, then, mayn't Evelyn be kind to me, +though I am what I am? I reminded Lady Henry, but she only thought +me a mean parasite, sponging on a duchess for presents above my +station. She said things hardly to be forgiven. I was silent. But I +have never ceased to wear the furs."</p> +<p>With what imperious will did the thin shoulders straighten +themselves under the folds of chinchilla! The cloak became +symbolic, a flag not to be struck.</p> +<p>"I never answer back, please understand--never," she went on, +hurriedly. "You saw to-day how Lady Henry gave me her orders. There +is not a servant in the house with whom she would dare such a +manner. Did I resent it?"</p> +<p>"You behaved with great forbearance. I watched you with +admiration."</p> +<p>"Ah, <i>forbearance!</i> I fear you don't understand one of the +strangest elements in the whole case. I am <i>afraid</i> of Lady +Henry, mortally afraid! When she speaks to me I feel like a child +who puts up its hands to ward off a blow. My instinct is not merely +to submit, but to grovel. When you have had the youth that I had, +when you have existed, learned, amused yourself on sufferance, when +you have had somehow to maintain yourself among girls who had +family, friends, money, name, while you--"</p> +<p>Her voice stopped, resolutely silenced before it broke. Sir +Wilfrid uncomfortably felt that he had no sympathy to produce +worthy of the claim that her whole personality seemed to make upon +it. But she recovered herself immediately.</p> +<p>"Now I think I had better give you an outline of the last six +months," she said, turning to him. "Of course it is my side of the +matter. But you have heard Lady Henry's."</p> +<p>And with great composure she laid before him an outline of the +chief quarrels and grievances which had embittered the life of the +Bruton Street house during the period she had named. It was a +wretched story, and she clearly told it with repugnance and +disgust. There was in her tone a note of offended personal +delicacy, as of one bemired against her will.</p> +<p>Evidently, Lady Henry was hardly to be defended. The thing had +been "odious," indeed. Two women of great ability and different +ages, shut up together and jarring at every point, the elder +furiously jealous and exasperated by what seemed to her the affront +offered to her high rank and her past ascendency by the social +success of her dependant, the other defending herself, first by the +arts of flattery and submission, and then, when these proved +hopeless, by a social skill that at least wore many of the aspects +of intrigue--these were the essential elements of the situation; +and, as her narrative proceeded, Sir Wilfrid admitted to himself +that it was hard to see any way out of it. As to his own +sympathies, he did not know what to make of them.</p> +<p>"No. I have been only too yielding," said Mademoiselle Le +Breton, sorely, when her tale was done. "I am ashamed when I look +back on what I have borne. But now it has gone too far, and +something must be done. If I go, frankly, Lady Henry will +suffer."</p> +<p>Sir Wilfrid looked at his companion.</p> +<p>"Lady Henry is well aware of it."</p> +<p>"Yes," was the calm reply, "she knows it, but she does not +realize it. You see, if it comes to a rupture she will allow no +half-measures. Those who stick to me will have to quarrel with her. +And there will be a great many who will stick to me."</p> +<p>Sir Wilfrid's little smile was not friendly.</p> +<p>"It is indeed evident," he said, "that you have thought it all +out."</p> +<p>Mademoiselle Le Breton did not reply. They walked on a few +minutes in silence, till she said, with a suddenness and in a low +tone that startled her companion:</p> +<p>"If Lady Henry could ever have felt that she <i>humbled</i> me, +that I acknowledged myself at her mercy! But she never could. She +knows that I feel myself as well born as she, that I am <i>not</i> +ashamed of my parents, that my principles give me a free mind about +such things."</p> +<p>"Your principles?" murmured Sir Wilfrid.</p> +<p>"You were right," she turned upon him with a perfectly quiet but +most concentrated passion. "I have <i>had</i> to think things out. +I know, of course, that the world goes with Lady Henry. Therefore I +must be nameless and kinless and hold my tongue. If the world knew, +it would expect me to hang my head. I <i>don't!</i> I am as proud +of my mother as of my father. I adore both their memories. +Conventionalities of that kind mean nothing to me."</p> +<p>"My dear lady--"</p> +<p>"Oh, I don't expect you or any one else to feel with me," said +the voice which for all its low pitch was beginning to make him +feel as though he were in the centre of a hail-storm. "You are a +man of the world, you knew my parents, and yet I understand +perfectly that for you, too, I am disgraced. So be it! So be it! I +don't quarrel with what any one may choose to think, but--"</p> +<p>She recaptured herself with difficulty, and there was silence. +They were walking through the purple February dusk towards the +Marble Arch. It was too dark to see her face under its delicate +veil, and Sir Wilfrid did not wish to see it. But before he had +collected his thoughts sufficiently his companion was speaking +again, in a wholly different manner.</p> +<p>"I don't know what made me talk in this way. It was the contact +with some one, I suppose, who had seen us at Gherardtsloo." She +raised her veil, and he thought that she dashed away some tears. +"That never happened to me before in London. Well, now, to return. +If there is a breach--"</p> +<p>"Why should there be a breach?" said Sir Wilfrid. "My dear Miss +Le Breton, listen to me for a few minutes. I see perfectly that you +have a great deal to complain of, but I also see that Lady Henry +has something of a case."</p> +<p>And with a courteous authority and tact worthy of his trade, the +old diplomat began to discuss the situation.</p> +<p>Presently he found himself talking with an animation, a +friendliness, an intimacy that surprised himself. What was there in +the personality beside him that seemed to win a way inside a man's +defences in spite of him? Much of what she had said had seemed to +him arrogant or morbid. And yet as she listened to him, with an +evident dying down of passion, an evident forlornness, he felt in +her that woman's weakness and timidity of which she had accused +herself in relation to Lady Henry, and was somehow, manlike, +softened and disarmed. She had been talking wildly, because no +doubt she felt herself in great difficulties. But when it was his +turn to talk she neither resented nor resisted what he had to say. +The kinder he was, the more she yielded, almost eagerly at times, +as though the thorniness of her own speech had hurt herself most, +and there were behind it all a sad life, and a sad heart that only +asked in truth for a little sympathy and understanding.</p> +<p>"I shall soon be calling her 'my dear' and patting her hand," +thought the old man, at last, astonished at himself. For the +dejection in her attitude and gait began to weigh upon him; he felt +a warm desire to sustain and comfort her. More and more thought, +more and more contrivance did he throw into the straightening out +of this tangle between two excitable women, not, it seemed, for +Lady Henry's sake, not, surely, for Miss Le Breton's sake. But--ah! +those two poor, dead folk, who had touched his heart long ago, did +he feel the hovering of their ghosts beside him in the wintry +wind?</p> +<p>At any rate, he abounded in shrewd and fatherly advice, and +Mademoiselle Le Breton listened with a most flattering +meekness.</p> +<p>"Well, now I think we have come to an understanding," he urged, +hopefully, as they turned down Bruton Street again.</p> +<p>Mademoiselle Le Breton sighed.</p> +<p>"It is very kind of you. Oh, I will do my best. But--"</p> +<p>She shook her head uncertainly.</p> +<p>"No--no 'buts,'" cried Sir Wilfrid, cheerfully. "Suppose, as a +first step," he smiled at his companion, "you tell Lady Henry about +the bazaar?"</p> +<p>"By all means. She won't let me go. But Evelyn will find some +one else."</p> +<p>"Oh, we'll see about that," said the old man, almost crossly. +"If you'll allow me I'll try my hand."</p> +<p>Julie Le Breton did not reply, but her face glimmered upon him +with a wistful friendliness that did not escape him, even in the +darkness. In this yielding mood her voice and movements had so much +subdued sweetness, so much distinction, that he felt himself more +than melting towards her.</p> +<p>Then, of a sudden, a thought--a couple of thoughts--sped across +him. He drew himself rather sharply together.</p> +<p>"Mr. Delafield, I gather, has been a good deal concerned in the +whole matter?"</p> +<p>Mademoiselle Le Breton laughed and hesitated.</p> +<p>"He has been very kind. He heard Lady Henry's language once when +she was excited. It seemed to shock him. He has tried once or twice +to smooth her down. Oh, he has been most kind!"</p> +<p>"Has he any influence with her?"</p> +<p>"Not much."</p> +<p>"Do you think well of him?"</p> +<p>He turned to her with a calculated abruptness. She showed a +little surprise.</p> +<p>"I? But everybody thinks well of him. They say the Duke trusts +everything to him."</p> +<p>"When I left England he was still a rather lazy and +unsatisfactory undergraduate. I was curious to know how he had +developed. Do you know what his chief interests are now?"</p> +<p>Mademoiselle Le Breton hesitated.</p> +<p>"I'm really afraid I don't know," she said, at last, smiling, +and, as it were, regretful. "But Evelyn Crowborough, of course, +could tell you all about him. She and he are very old friends."</p> +<p>"No birds out of that cover," was Sir Wilfrid's inward +comment.</p> +<p>The lamp over Lady Henry's door was already in sight when Sir +Wilfrid, after some talk of the Montresors, with whom he was going +to dine that night, carelessly said:</p> +<p>"That's a very good-looking fellow, that Captain Warkworth, whom +I saw with Lady Henry last night."</p> +<p>"Ah, yes. Lady Henry has made great friends with him," said +Mademoiselle Julie, readily. "She consults him about her memoir of +her husband."</p> +<p>"Memoir of her husband!" Sir Wilfrid stopped short. "Heavens +above! Memoir of Lord Henry?"</p> +<p>"She is half-way through it. I thought you knew."</p> +<p>"Well, upon my word! Whom shall we have a memoir of next? Henry +Delafield! Henry Delafield! Good gracious!"</p> +<p>And Sir Wilfrid walked along, slashing at the railings with his +stick, as though the action relieved him. Julie Le Breton quietly +resumed:</p> +<p>"I understand that Lord Henry and Captain Warkworth's father +went through the Indian Mutiny together, and Captain Warkworth has +some letters--"</p> +<p>"Oh, I dare say--I dare say," muttered Sir Wilfrid. "What's this +man home for just now?"</p> +<p>"Well, I <i>think</i> Lady Henry knows," said Mademoiselle +Julie, turning to him an open look, like one who, once more, would +gladly satisfy a questioner if they could. "He talks to her a great +deal. But why shouldn't he come home?"</p> +<p>"Because he ought to be doing disagreeable duty with his +regiment instead of always racing about the world in search of +something to get his name up," said Sir Wilfrid, rather sharply. +"At least, that's the view his brother officers mostly take of +him."</p> +<p>"Oh," said Mademoiselle Julie, with amiable vagueness, "is there +anything particular that you suppose he wants?"</p> +<p>"I am not at all in the secret of his ambitions," said Sir +Wilfrid, lifting his shoulders. "But you and Lady Henry seemed well +acquainted with him."</p> +<p>The straw-colored lashes veered her way.</p> +<p>"I had some talk with him in the Park this morning," said Julie +Le Breton, reflectively. "He wants me to copy his father's letters +for Lady Henry, and to get her to return the originals as soon as +possible. He feels nervous when they are out of his hands."</p> +<p>"Hm!" said Sir Wilfrid.</p> +<p>At that moment Lady Henry's door-bell presented itself. The +vigor with which Sir Wilfrid rang it may, perhaps, have expressed +the liveliness of his unspoken scepticism. He did not for one +moment believe that General Warkworth's letters had been the +subject of the conversation he had witnessed that morning in the +Park, nor that filial veneration had had anything whatever to say +to it.</p> +<p>Julie Le Breton gave him her hand.</p> +<p>"Thank you very much," she said, gravely and softly.</p> +<p>Sir Wilfrid at the moment before had not meant to press it at +all. But he did press it, aware the while of the most mingled +feelings.</p> +<p>"On the contrary, you were very good to allow me this +conversation. Command me at any time if I can be useful to you and +Lady Henry."</p> +<p>Julie Le Breton smiled upon him and was gone.</p> +<p>Sir Wilfrid ran down the steps, chafing at himself.</p> +<p>"She somehow gets round one," he thought, with a touch of +annoyance. "I wonder whether I made any real impression upon her. +Hm! Let's see whether Montresor can throw any more light upon her. +He seemed to be pretty intimate. Her 'principles,' eh? A dangerous +view to take, for a woman of that <i>provenance.</i>"</p> +<hr style="width: 25%;"> +<p>An hour or two later Sir Wilfrid Bury presented himself in the +Montresors' drawing-room in Eaton Place. He had come home feeling +it essential to impress upon the cabinet a certain line of action +with regard to the policy of Russia on the Persian Gulf. But the +first person he perceived on the hearth-rug, basking before the +Minister's ample fire, was Lord Lackington. The sight of that +vivacious countenance, that shock of white hair, that tall form +still boasting the spareness and almost the straightness of youth, +that unsuspecting complacency, confused his ideas and made him +somehow feel the whole world a little topsy-turvy.</p> +<p>Nevertheless, after dinner he got his fifteen minutes of private +talk with his host, and conscientiously made use of them. Then, +after an appointment had been settled for a longer conversation on +another day, both men felt that they had done their duty, and, as +it appeared, the same subject stirred in both their minds.</p> +<p>"Well, and what did you think of Lady Henry?" said Montresor, +with a smile, as he lighted another cigarette.</p> +<p>"She's very blind," said Sir Wilfrid, "and more rheumatic. But +else there's not much change. On the whole she wears wonderfully +well."</p> +<p>"Except as to her temper, poor lady!" laughed the Minister. "She +has really tried all our nerves of late. And the worst of it is +that most of it falls upon that poor woman who lives with her"--the +Minister lowered his voice--"one of the most interesting and +agreeable creatures in the world."</p> +<p>Sir Wilfrid glanced across the table. Lord Lackington was +telling scandalous tales of his youth to a couple of Foreign Office +clerks, who sat on either side of him, laughing and spurring him +on. The old man's careless fluency and fun were evidently +contagious; animation reigned around him; he was the spoiled child +of the dinner, and knew it.</p> +<p>"I gather that you have taken a friendly interest in Miss Le +Breton," said Bury, turning to his host.</p> +<p>"Oh, the Duchess and Delafield and I have done our best to +protect her, and to keep the peace. I am quite sure Lady Henry has +poured out her grievances to you, hasn't she?"</p> +<p>"Alack, she has!"</p> +<p>"I knew she couldn't hold her tongue to you, even for a day. She +has really been losing her head over it. And it is a thousand +pities."</p> +<p>"So you think all the fault's on Lady Henry's side?"</p> +<p>The Minister gave a shrug.</p> +<p>"At any rate, I have never myself seen anything to justify Lady +Henry's state of feeling. On the famous Wednesdays, Mademoiselle +Julie always appears to make Lady Henry her first thought. And in +other ways she has really worn herself to death for the old lady. +It makes one rather savage sometimes to see it."</p> +<p>"So in your eyes she is a perfect companion?"</p> +<p>Montresor laughed.</p> +<p>"Oh, as to perfection--"</p> +<p>"Lady Henry accuses her of intrigue. You have seen no traces of +it?"</p> +<p>The Minister smiled a little oddly.</p> +<p>"Not as regards Lady Henry. Oh, Mademoiselle Julie is a very +astute lady."</p> +<p>A ripple from some source of secret amusement spread over the +dark-lined face.</p> +<p>"What do you mean by that?"</p> +<p>"She knows how to help her friends better than most people. I +have known three men, at least, <i>made</i> by Mademoiselle Le +Breton within the last two or three years. She has just got a fresh +one in tow."</p> +<p>Sir Wilfrid moved a little closer to his host. They turned +slightly from the table and seemed to talk into their cigars.</p> +<p>"Young Warkworth?" said Bury.</p> +<p>The Minister smiled again and hesitated.</p> +<p>"Oh, she doesn't bother me, she is much too clever. But she gets +at me in the most amusing, indirect ways. I know perfectly well +when she has been at work. There are two or three men--high up, you +understand--who frequent Lady Henry's evenings, and who are her +very good friends.... Oh, I dare say she'll get what she wants," he +added, with nonchalance.</p> +<p>"Between you and me, do you suspect any direct interest in the +young man?"</p> +<p>Montresor shrugged his shoulders.</p> +<p>"I don't know. Not necessarily. She loves to feel herself a +power--all the more, I think, because of her anomalous position. It +is very curious--at bottom very feminine and amusing--and quite +harmless."</p> +<p>"You and others don't resent it?"</p> +<p>"No, not from her," said the Minister, after a pause. "But she +is rather going it, just now. Three or four batteries have opened +upon me at once. She must be thinking of little else."</p> +<p>Sir Wilfrid grew a trifle red. He remembered the comedy of the +door-step. "Is there anything that he particularly wants?" His tone +assumed a certain asperity.</p> +<p>"Well, as for me, I cannot help feeling that Lady Henry has +something to say for herself. It is very strange--mysterious +even--the kind of ascendency this lady has obtained for herself in +so short a time."</p> +<p>"Oh, I dare say it's hard for Lady Henry to put up with," mused +Montresor. "Without family, without connections--"</p> +<p>He raised his head quietly and put on his eye-glasses. Then his +look swept the face of his companion.</p> +<p>Sir Wilfrid, with a scarcely perceptible yet significant +gesture, motioned towards Lord Lackington. Mr. Montresor started. +The eyes of both men travelled across the table, then met +again.</p> +<p>"You know?" said Montresor, under his breath.</p> +<p>Sir Wilfrid nodded. Then some instinct told him that he had now +exhausted the number of the initiated.</p> +<hr style="width: 25%;"> +<p>When the men reached the drawing-room, which was rather emptily +waiting for the "reception" Mrs. Montresor was about to hold in it, +Sir Wilfrid fell into conversation with Lord Lackington. The old +man talked well, though flightily, with a constant reference of all +topics to his own standards, recollections, and friendships, which +was characteristic, but in him not unattractive. Sir Wilfrid +noticed certain new and pitiful signs of age. The old man was still +a rattle. But every now and then the rattle ceased abruptly and a +breath of melancholy made itself felt--like a chill and sudden gust +from some unknown sea.</p> +<p>They were joined presently, as the room filled up, by a young +journalist--an art critic, who seemed to know Lord Lackington and +his ways. The two fell eagerly into talk about pictures, especially +of an exhibition at Antwerp, from which the young man had just +returned.</p> +<p>"I looked in at Bruges on the way back for a few hours," said +the new-comer, presently. "The pictures there are much better seen +than they used to be. When were you there last?" He turned to Lord +Lackington.</p> +<p>"Bruges?" said Lord Lackington, with a start. "Oh, I haven't +been there for twenty years."</p> +<p>And he suddenly sat down, dangling a paper-knife between his +hands, and staring at the carpet. His jaw dropped a little. A cloud +seemed to interpose between him and his companions.</p> +<p>Sir Wilfrid, with Lady Henry's story fresh in his memory, was +somehow poignantly conscious of the old man. Did their two minds +hold the same image--of Lady Rose drawing her last breath in some +dingy room beside one of the canals that wind through Bruges, +laying down there the last relics of that life, beauty, and +intelligence that had once made her the darling of the father, who, +for some reason still hard to understand, had let her suffer and +die alone?</p> +<br> +<br> +<hr style="width: 35%;"> +<br> +<br> +<h2><a name="V"></a>V</h2> +<br> +<p>On leaving the Montresors, Sir Wilfrid, seeing that it was a +fine night with mild breezes abroad, refused a hansom, and set out +to walk home to his rooms in Duke Street, St. James's. He was so +much in love with the mere streets, the mere clatter of the +omnibuses and shimmer of the lamps, after his long absence, that +every step was pleasure. At the top of Grosvenor Place he stood +still awhile only to snuff up the soft, rainy air, or to delight +his eye now with the shining pools which some showers of the +afternoon had left behind them on the pavement, and now with the +light veil of fog which closed in the distance of Piccadilly.</p> +<p>"And there are silly persons who grumble about the fogs!" he +thought, contemptuously, while he was thus yielding himself heart +and sense to his beloved London.</p> +<p>As for him, dried and wilted by long years of cloudless heat, he +drank up the moisture and the mist with a kind of physical +passion--the noises and the lights no less. And when he had resumed +his walk along the crowded street, the question buzzed within him, +whether he must indeed go back to his exile, either at Teheran, or +nearer home, in some more exalted post? "I've got plenty of money; +why the deuce don't I give it up, and come home and enjoy myself? +Only a few more years, after all; why not spend them here, in one's +own world, among one's own kind?"</p> +<p>It was the weariness of the governing Englishman, and it was +answered immediately by that other instinct, partly physical, +partly moral, which keeps the elderly man of affairs to his task. +Idleness? No! That way lies the end. To slacken the rush of life, +for men of his sort, is to call on death--death, the secret +pursuer, who is not far from each one of us. No, no! Fight on! It +was only the long drudgery behind, under alien suns, together with +the iron certainty of fresh drudgery ahead, that gave value, after +all, to this rainy, this enchanting Piccadilly--that kept the +string of feeling taut and all its notes clear.</p> +<p>"Going to bed, Sir Wilfrid?" said a voice behind him, as he +turned down St. James's Street.</p> +<p>"Delafield!" The old man faced round with alacrity. "Where have +you sprung from?"</p> +<p>Delafield explained that he had been dining with the +Crowboroughs, and was now going to his club to look for news of a +friend's success or failure in a north-country election.</p> +<p>"Oh, that'll keep!" said Sir Wilfrid. "Turn in with me for half +an hour. I'm at my old rooms, you know, in Duke Street."</p> +<p>"All right," said the young man, after what seemed to Sir +Wilfrid a moment of hesitation.</p> +<p>"Are you often up in town this way?" asked Bury, as they walked +on. "Land agency seems to be a profession with mitigations."</p> +<p>"There is some London business thrown in. We have some large +milk depots in town that I look after."</p> +<p>There was just a trace of hurry in the young man's voice, and +Bury surveyed him with a smile.</p> +<p>"No other attractions, eh?"</p> +<p>"Not that I know of. By-the-way, Sir Wilfrid, I never asked you +how Dick Mason was getting on?"</p> +<p>"Dick Mason? Is he a friend of yours?"</p> +<p>"Well, we were at Eton and Oxford together."</p> +<p>"Were you? I never heard him mention your name."</p> +<p>The young man laughed.</p> +<p>"I don't mean to suggest he couldn't live without me. You've +left him in charge, haven't you, at Teheran?"</p> +<p>"Yes, I have--worse luck. So you're deeply interested in Dick +Mason?"</p> +<p>"Oh, come--I liked him pretty well."</p> +<p>"Hm--I don't much care about him. And I don't somehow believe +you do."</p> +<p>And Bury, with a smile, slipped a friendly hand within the arm +of his companion.</p> +<p>Delafield reddened.</p> +<p>"It's decent, I suppose, to inquire after an old +school-fellow?"</p> +<p>"Exemplary. But--there are things more amusing to talk +about."</p> +<p>Delafield was silent. Sir Wilfrid's fair mustaches approached +his ear.</p> +<p>"I had my interview with Mademoiselle Julie."</p> +<p>"So I suppose. I hope you did some good."</p> +<p>"I doubt it. Jacob, between ourselves, the little Duchess hasn't +been a miracle of wisdom."</p> +<p>"No--perhaps not," said the other, unwillingly.</p> +<p>"She realizes, I suppose, that they are connected?"</p> +<p>"Of course. It isn't very close. Lady Rose's brother married +Evelyn's aunt, her mother's sister."</p> +<p>"Yes, that's it. She and Mademoiselle Julie <i>ought</i> to have +called the same person uncle; but, for lack of certain ceremonies, +they don't. By-the-way, what became of Lady Rose's younger +sister?"</p> +<p>"Lady Blanche? Oh, she married Sir John Moffatt, and has been a +widow for years. He left her a place in Westmoreland, and she lives +there generally with her girl."</p> +<p>"Has Mademoiselle Julie ever come across them?"</p> +<p>"No."</p> +<p>"She speaks of them?"</p> +<p>"Yes. We can't tell her much about them, except that the girl +was presented last year, and went to a few balls in town. But +neither she nor her mother cares for London."</p> +<p>"Lady Blanche Moffatt--Lady Blanche Moffatt?" said Sir Wilfrid, +pausing. "Wasn't she in India this winter?"</p> +<p>"Yes. I believe they went out in November and are to be home by +April."</p> +<p>"Somebody told me they had met her and the girl at Peshawar and +then at Simla," said Sir Wilfrid, ruminating. "Now I remember! +She's a great heiress, isn't she, and pretty to boot? I know! +Somebody told me that fellow Warkworth had been making up to +her."</p> +<p>"Warkworth?" Jacob Delafield stood still a moment, and Sir +Wilfrid caught a sudden contraction of the brow. "That, of course, +was just a bit of Indian gossip."</p> +<p>"I don't think so," said Sir Wilfrid, dryly. "My informants were +two frontier officers--I came from Egypt with them--who had +recently been at Peshawar; good fellows both of them, not at all +given to take young ladies' names in vain."</p> +<p>Jacob made no reply. They had let themselves into the Duke +Street house and were groping their way up the dim staircase to Sir +Wilfrid's rooms.</p> +<p>There all was light and comfort. Sir Wilfrid's valet, much the +same age as himself, hovered round his master, brought him his +smoking-coat, offered Delafield cigars, and provided Sir Wilfrid, +strange to say, with a large cup of tea.</p> +<p>"I follow Mr. Gladstone," said Sir Wilfrid, with a sigh of +luxury, as he sank into an easy-chair and extended a very neatly +made pair of legs and feet to the blaze. "He seems to have slept +the sleep of the just--on a cup of tea at midnight--through the +rise and fall of cabinets. So I'm trying the receipt."</p> +<p>"Does that mean that you are hankering after politics?"</p> +<p>"Heavens! When you come to doddering, Jacob, it's better to +dodder in the paths you know. I salute Mr. G.'s physique, that's +all. Well, now, Jacob, do you know anything about this +Warkworth?"</p> +<p>"Warkworth?" Delafield withdrew his cigar, and seemed to choose +his words a little. "Well, I know what all the world knows."</p> +<p>"Hm--you seemed very sure just now that he wasn't going to marry +Miss Moffatt."</p> +<p>"Sure? I'm not sure of anything," said the young man, +slowly.</p> +<p>"Well, what I should like to know," said Sir Wilfrid, cradling +his teacup in both hands, "is, what particular interest has +Mademoiselle Julie in that young soldier?"</p> +<p>Delafield looked into the fire.</p> +<p>"Has she any?"</p> +<p>"She seems to be moving heaven and earth to get him what he +wants. By-the-way, what does he want?"</p> +<p>"He wants the special mission to Mokembe, as I understand," said +Delafield, after a moment. "But several other people want it +too."</p> +<p>"Indeed!" Sir Wilfrid nodded reflectively. "So there is to be +one! Well, it's about time. The travellers of the other European +firms have been going it lately in that quarter. Jacob, your +mademoiselle also is a bit of an intriguer!"</p> +<p>Delafield made a restless movement. "Why do you say that?"</p> +<p>"Well, to say the least of it, frankness is not one of her +characteristics. I tried to question her about this man. I had seen +them together in the Park, talking as intimates. So, when our +conversation had reached a friendly stage, I threw out a feeler or +two, just to satisfy myself about her. But--"</p> +<p>He pulled his fair mustaches and smiled.</p> +<p>"Well?" said the young man, with a kind of reluctant +interrogation.</p> +<p>"She played with me, Jacob. But really she overdid it. For such +a clever woman, I assure you, she overdid it!"</p> +<p>"I don't see why she shouldn't keep her friendships to herself," +said Delafield, with sudden heat.</p> +<p>"Oh, so you admit it is a friendship?"</p> +<p>Delafield did not reply. He had laid down his cigar, and with +his hands on his knees was looking steadily into the fire. His +attitude, however, was not one of reverie, but rather of a strained +listening.</p> +<p>"What is the meaning, Jacob, of a young woman taking so keen an +interest in the fortunes of a dashing soldier--for, between you and +me, I hear she is moving heaven and earth to get him this post--and +then concealing it?"</p> +<p>"Why should she want her kindnesses talked of?" said the young +man, impetuously. "She was perfectly right, I think, to fence with +your questions, Sir Wilfrid. It's one of the secrets of her +influence that she can render a service--and keep it dark."</p> +<p>Sir Wilfrid shook his head.</p> +<p>"She overdid it," he repeated. "However, what do you think of +the man yourself, Jacob?"</p> +<p>"Well, I don't take to him," said the other, unwillingly. "He +isn't my sort of man."</p> +<p>"And Mademoiselle Julie--you think nothing but well of her? I +don't like discussing a lady; but, you see, with Lady Henry to +manage, one must feel the ground as one can."</p> +<p>Sir Wilfrid looked at his companion, and then stretched his legs +a little farther towards the fire. The lamp-light shone full on his +silky eyelashes and beard, on his neatly parted hair, and the +diamond on his fine left hand. The young man beside him could not +emulate his easy composure. He fidgeted nervously as he replied, +with warmth:</p> +<p>"I think she has had an uncommonly hard time, that she wants +nothing but what is reasonable, and that if she threw you off the +scent, Sir Wilfrid, with regard to Warkworth, she was quite within +her rights. You probably deserved it."</p> +<p>He threw up his head with a quick gesture of challenge. Sir +Wilfrid shrugged his shoulders.</p> +<p>"I vow I didn't," he murmured. "However, that's all right. What +do you do with yourself down in Essex, Jacob?"</p> +<p>The lines of the young man's attitude showed a sudden +unconscious relief from tension. He threw himself back in his +chair.</p> +<p>"Well, it's a big estate. There's plenty to do."</p> +<p>"You live by yourself?"</p> +<p>"Yes. There's an agent's house--a small one--in one of the +villages."</p> +<p>"How do you amuse yourself? Plenty of shooting, I suppose?"</p> +<p>"Too much. I can't do with more than a certain amount."</p> +<p>"Golfing?"</p> +<p>"Oh yes," said the young man, indifferently. "There's a fair +links."</p> +<p>"Do you do any philanthropy, Jacob?"</p> +<p>"I like 'bossing' the village," said Delafield, with a laugh. +"It pleases one's vanity. That's about all there is to it."</p> +<p>"What, clubs and temperance, that kind of thing? Can you take +any real interest in the people?"</p> +<p>Delafield hesitated.</p> +<p>"Well, yes," he said, at last, as though he grudged the +admission. "There's nothing else to take an interest in, is there? +By-the-way"--he jumped up--"I think I'll bid you good-night, for +I've got to go down to-morrow in a hurry. I must be off by the +first train in the morning."</p> +<p>"What's the matter?"</p> +<p>"Oh, it's only a wretched old man--that two beasts of women have +put into the workhouse infirmary against his will. I only heard it +to-night. I must go and get him out."</p> +<p>He looked round for his gloves and stick.</p> +<p>"Why shouldn't he be there?"</p> +<p>"Because it's an infernal shame!" said the other, shortly. "He's +an old laborer who'd saved quite a lot of money. He kept it in his +cottage, and the other day it was all stolen by a tramp. He has +lived with these two women--his sister-in-law and her daughter--for +years and years. As long as he had money to leave, nothing was too +good for him. The shock half killed him, and now that he's a pauper +these two harpies will have nothing to say to nursing him and +looking after him. He told me the other day he thought they'd force +him into the infirmary. I didn't believe it. But while I've been +away they've gone and done it."</p> +<p>"Well, what'll you do now?"</p> +<p>"Get him out."</p> +<p>"And then?"</p> +<p>Delafield hesitated. "Well, then, I suppose, he can come to my +place till I can find some decent woman to put him with."</p> +<p>Sir Wilfrid rose.</p> +<p>"I think I'll run down and see you some day. Will there be +paupers in all the bedrooms?"</p> +<p>Delafield grinned.</p> +<p>"You'll find a rattling good cook and a jolly snug little place, +I can tell you. Do come. But I shall see you again soon. I must be +up next week, and very likely I shall be at Lady Henry's on +Wednesday."</p> +<p>"All right. I shall see her on Sunday, so I can report."</p> +<p>"Not before Sunday?" Delafield paused. His clear blue eyes +looked down, dissatisfied, upon Sir Wilfrid.</p> +<p>"Impossible before. I have all sorts of official people to see +to-morrow and Saturday. And, Jacob, keep the Duchess quiet. She may +have to give up Mademoiselle Julie for her bazaar."</p> +<p>"I'll tell her."</p> +<p>"By-the-way, is that little person happy?" said Sir Wilfrid, as +he opened the door to his departing guest. "When I left England she +was only just married."</p> +<p>"Oh yes, she's happy enough, though Crowborough's rather an +ass."</p> +<p>"How--particularly?"</p> +<p>Delafield smiled.</p> +<p>"Well, he's rather a sticky sort of person. He thinks there's +something particularly interesting in dukes, which makes him a +bore."</p> +<p>"Take care, Jacob! Who knows that you won't be a duke yourself +some day?"</p> +<p>"What <i>do</i> you mean?" The young man glowered almost +fiercely upon his old friend.</p> +<p>"I hear Chudleigh's boy is but a poor creature," said Sir +Wilfrid, gravely. "Lady Henry doesn't expect him to live."</p> +<p>"Why, that's the kind that always does live!" cried Delafield, +with angry emphasis. "And as for Lady Henry, her imagination is a +perfect charnel-house. She likes to think that everybody's dead or +dying but herself. The fact is that Mervyn is a good deal stronger +this year than he was last. Really, Lady Henry--" The tone lost +itself in a growl of wrath.</p> +<p>"Well, well," said Sir Wilfrid, smiling, "'A man beduked against +his will,' etcetera. Good-night, my dear Jacob, and good luck to +your old pauper."</p> +<p>But Delafield turned back a moment on the stairs.</p> +<p>"I say"--he hesitated--"you won't shirk talking to Lady +Henry?"</p> +<p>"No, no. Sunday, certainly--honor bright. Oh, I think we shall +straighten it out."</p> +<p>Delafield ran down the stairs, and Sir Wilfrid returned to his +warm room and the dregs of his tea.</p> +<p>"Now--is he in love with her, and hesitating for social reasons? +Or--is he jealous of this fellow Warkworth? Or--has she snubbed +him, and both are keeping it dark? Not very likely, that, in view +of his prospects. She must want to regularize her position. Or--is +he not in love with her at all?"</p> +<p>On which cogitations there fell presently the strokes of many +bells tolling midnight, and left them still unresolved. Only one +positive impression remained--that Jacob Delafield had somehow +grown, vaguely but enormously, in mental and moral bulk during the +years since he had left Oxford--the years of Bury's Persian exile. +Sir Wilfrid had been an intimate friend of his dead father, Lord +Hubert, and on very friendly terms with his lethargic, good-natured +mother. She, by-the-way, was still alive, and living in London with +a daughter. He must go and see them.</p> +<p>As for Jacob, Sir Wilfrid had cherished a particular weakness +for him in the Eton-jacket stage, and later on, indeed, when the +lad enjoyed a brief moment of glory in the Eton eleven. But at +Oxford, to Sir Wilfrid's thinking, he had suffered eclipse--had +become a somewhat heavy, apathetic, pseudo-cynical youth, +displaying his mother's inertia without her good temper, too slack +to keep up his cricket, too slack to work for the honor schools, at +no time without friends, but an enigma to most of them, and, +apparently, something of a burden to himself.</p> +<p>And now, out of that ugly slough, a man had somehow emerged, in +whom Sir Wilfrid, who was well acquainted with the race, discerned +the stirring of all sorts of strong inherited things, formless +still, but struggling to expression.</p> +<p>"He looked at me just now, when I talked of his being duke, as +his father would sometimes look."</p> +<p>His father? Hubert Delafield had been an obstinate, dare-devil, +heroic sort of fellow, who had lost his life in the Chudleigh +salmon river trying to save a gillie who had missed his footing. A +man much hated--and much beloved; capable of the most contradictory +actions. He had married his wife for money, would often boast of +it, and would, none the less, give away his last farthing +recklessly, passionately, if he were asked for it, in some way that +touched his feelings. Able, too; though not so able as the great +Duke, his father.</p> +<p>"Hubert Delafield was never <i>happy</i>, that I can remember," +thought Wilfrid Bury, as he sat over his fire, "and this chap has +the same expression. That woman in Bruton Street would never do for +him--apart from all the other unsuitability. He ought to find +something sweet and restful. And yet I don't know. The Delafields +are a discontented lot. If you plague them, they are inclined to +love you. They want something hard to get their teeth in. How the +old Duke adored his termagant of a wife!"</p> +<hr style="width: 25%;"> +<p>It was late on Sunday afternoon before Sir Wilfrid was able to +present himself in Lady Henry's drawing-room; and when he arrived +there, he found plenty of other people in possession, and had to +wait for his chance.</p> +<p>Lady Henry received him with a brusque "At last," which, +however, he took with equanimity. He was in no sense behind his +time. On Thursday, when parting with her, he had pleaded for +deliberation. "Let me study the situation a little; and don't, for +Heaven's sake, let's be too tragic about the whole thing."</p> +<p>Whether Lady Henry was now in the tragic mood or no, he could +not at first determine. She was no longer confined to the inner +shrine of the back drawing-room. Her chair was placed in the large +room, and she was the centre of a lively group of callers who were +discussing the events of the week in Parliament, with the light and +mordant zest of people well acquainted with the personalities they +were talking of. She was apparently better in health, he noticed; +at any rate, she was more at ease, and enjoying herself more than +on the previous Wednesday. All her social characteristics were in +full play; the blunt and careless freedom which made her the good +comrade of the men she talked with--as good a brain and as hard a +hitter as they--mingled with the occasional sally or caprice which +showed her very much a woman.</p> +<p>Very few other women were there. Lady Henry did not want women +on Sundays, and was at no pains whatever to hide the fact. But +Mademoiselle Julie was at the tea-table, supported by an old +white-haired general, in whom Sir Wilfrid recognized a man recently +promoted to one of the higher posts in the War Office. Tea, +however, had been served, and Mademoiselle Le Breton was now +showing her companion a portfolio of photographs, on which the old +man was holding forth.</p> +<p>"Am I too late for a cup?" said Sir Wilfrid, after she had +greeted him with cordiality. "And what are those pictures?"</p> +<p>"They are some photos of the Khaibar and Tirah," said +Mademoiselle Le Breton. "Captain Warkworth brought them to show +Lady Henry."</p> +<p>"Ah, the scene of his exploits," said Sir Wilfrid, after a +glance at them. "The young man distinguished himself, I +understand?"</p> +<p>"Oh, very much so," said General M'Gill, with emphasis. "He +showed brains, and he had luck."</p> +<p>"A great deal of luck, I hear," said Sir Wilfrid, accepting a +piece of cake. "He'll get his step up, I suppose. Anything +else?"</p> +<p>"Difficult to say. But the good men are always in request," said +General M'Gill, smiling.</p> +<p>"By-the-way, I heard somebody mention his name last night for +this Mokembe mission," said Sir Wilfrid, helping himself to +tea-cake.</p> +<p>"Oh, that's quite undecided," said the General, sharply. "There +is no immediate hurry for a week or two, and the government must +send the best man possible."</p> +<p>"No doubt," said Sir Wilfrid.</p> +<p>It interested him to observe that Mademoiselle Le Breton was no +longer pale. As the General spoke, a bright color had rushed into +her cheeks. It seemed to Sir Wilfrid that she turned away and +busied herself with the photographs in order to hide it.</p> +<p>The General rose, a thin, soldierly figure, with gray hair that +drooped forward, and two bright spots of red on the cheek-bones. In +contrast with the expansiveness of his previous manner to +Mademoiselle Le Breton, he was now a trifle frowning and stiff--the +high official once more, and great man.</p> +<p>"Good-night, Sir Wilfrid. I must be off."</p> +<p>"How are your sons?" said Sir Wilfrid, as he rose.</p> +<p>"The eldest is in Canada with his regiment."</p> +<p>"And the second?"</p> +<p>"The second is in orders."</p> +<p>"Overworking himself in the East End, as all the young parsons +seem to be doing?"</p> +<p>"That is precisely what he <i>has</i> been doing. But now, I am +thankful to say, a country living has been offered him, and his +mother and I have persuaded him to take it."</p> +<p>"A country living? Where?"</p> +<p>"One of the Duke of Crowborough's Shropshire livings," said the +General, after what seemed to be an instant's hesitation. +Mademoiselle Le Breton had moved away, and was replacing the +photographs in the drawer of a distant bureau.</p> +<p>"Ah, one of Crowborough's? Well, I hope it is a living with +something to live on."</p> +<p>"Not so bad, as times go," said the General, smiling. "It has +been a great relief to our minds. There were some chest symptoms; +his mother was alarmed. The Duchess has been most kind; she took +quite a fancy to the lad, and--"</p> +<p>"What a woman wants she gets. Well, I hope he'll like it. +Good-night, General. Shall I look you up at the War Office some +morning?"</p> +<p>"By all means."</p> +<p>The old soldier, whose tanned face had shown a singular softness +while he was speaking of his son, took his leave.</p> +<p>Sir Wilfrid was left meditating, his eyes absently fixed on the +graceful figure of Mademoiselle Le Breton, who shut the drawer she +had been arranging and returned to him.</p> +<p>"Do you know the General's sons?" he asked her, while she was +preparing him a second cup of tea.</p> +<p>"I have seen the younger."</p> +<p>She turned her beautiful eyes upon him. It seemed to Sir Wilfrid +that he perceived in them a passing tremor of nervous defiance, as +though she were in some way bracing herself against him. But her +self-possession was complete.</p> +<p>"Lady Henry seems in better spirits," he said, bending towards +her.</p> +<p>She did not reply for a moment. Her eyes dropped. Then she +raised them again, and gently shook her head without a word. The +melancholy energy of her expression gave him a moment's thrill.</p> +<p>"Is it as bad as ever?" he asked her, in a whisper.</p> +<p>"It's pretty bad. I've tried to appease her. I told her about +the bazaar. She said she couldn't spare me, and, of course, I +acquiesced. Then, yesterday, the Duchess--hush!"</p> +<p>"Mademoiselle!"</p> +<p>Lady Henry's voice rang imperiously through the room.</p> +<p>"Yes, Lady Henry."</p> +<p>Mademoiselle Le Breton stood up expectant.</p> +<p>"Find me, please, that number of the <i>Revue des Deux +Mondes</i> which came in yesterday. I can prove it to you in two +minutes," she said, turning triumphantly to Montresor on her +right.</p> +<p>"What's the matter?" said Sir Wilfrid, joining Lady Henry's +circle, while Mademoiselle Le Breton disappeared into the back +drawing-room.</p> +<p>"Oh, nothing," said Montresor, tranquilly. "Lady Henry thinks +she has caught me out in a blunder--about Favre, and the +negotiations at Versailles. I dare say she has. I am the most +ignorant person alive."</p> +<p>"Then are the rest of us spooks?" said Sir Wilfrid, smiling, as +he seated himself beside his hostess. Montresor, whose information +on most subjects was prodigious, laughed and adjusted his +eye-glass. These battles royal on a date or a point of fact between +him and Lady Henry were not uncommon. Lady Henry was rarely +victorious. This time, however, she was confident, and she sat +frowning and impatient for the book that didn't come.</p> +<p>Mademoiselle Le Breton, indeed, returned from the back +drawing-room empty-handed; left the room apparently to look +elsewhere, and came back still without the book.</p> +<p>"Everything in this house is always in confusion!" said Lady +Henry, angrily. "No order, no method anywhere!"</p> +<p>Mademoiselle Julie said nothing. She retreated behind the circle +that surrounded Lady Henry. But Montresor jumped up and offered her +his chair.</p> +<p>"I wish I had you for a secretary, mademoiselle," he said, +gallantly. "I never before heard Lady Henry ask you for anything +you couldn't find."</p> +<p>Lady Henry flushed, and, turning abruptly to Bury, began a new +topic. Julie quietly refused the seat offered to her, and was +retiring to an ottoman in the background when the door was thrown +open and the footman announced:</p> +<p>"Captain Warkworth."</p> +<br> +<br> +<hr style="width: 35%;"> +<br> +<br> +<h2><a name="VI"></a>VI</h2> +<br> +<p>The new-comer drew all eyes as he approached the group +surrounding Lady Henry. Montresor put up his glasses and bestowed +on him a few moments of scrutiny, during which the Minister's +heavily marked face took on the wary, fighting aspect which his +department and the House of Commons knew. The statesman slipped in +for an instant between the trifler coming and the trifler gone.</p> +<p>As for Wilfrid Bury, he was dazzled by the young man's good +looks. "'Young Harry with his beaver up!'" he thought, admiring +against his will, as the tall, slim soldier paid his respects to +Lady Henry, and, with a smiling word or two to the rest of those +present, took his place beside her in the circle.</p> +<p>"Well, have you come for your letters?" said Lady Henry, eying +him with a grim favor.</p> +<p>"I think I came--for conversation," was Warkworth's laughing +reply, as he looked first at his hostess and then at the +circle.</p> +<p>"Then I fear you won't get it," said Lady Henry, throwing +herself back in her chair. "Mr. Montresor can do nothing but +quarrel and contradict."</p> +<p>Montresor lifted his hands in wonder.</p> +<p>"Had I been Æsop," he said, slyly, "I would have added +another touch to a certain tale. Observe, please!--even after the +Lamb has been devoured he is still the object of calumny on the +part of the Wolf! Well, well! Mademoiselle, come and console me. +Tell me what new follies the Duchess has on foot."</p> +<p>And, pushing his chair back till he found himself on a level +with Julie Le Breton, the great man plunged into a lively +conversation with her. Sir Wilfrid, Warkworth, and a few other +<i>habitués</i> endeavored meanwhile to amuse Lady Henry. +But it was not easy. Her brow was lowering, her talk forced. +Throughout, Sir Wilfrid perceived in her a strained attention +directed towards the conversation on the other side of the room. +She could neither see it nor hear it, but she was jealously +conscious of it. As for Montresor, there was no doubt an element of +malice in the court he was now paying to Mademoiselle Julie. Lady +Henry had been thorny over much during the afternoon; even for her +oldest friend she had passed bounds; he desired perhaps to bring it +home to her.</p> +<p>Meanwhile, Julie Le Breton, after a first moment of reserve and +depression, had been beguiled, carried away. She yielded to her own +instincts, her own gifts, till Montresor, drawn on and drawn out, +found himself floating on a stream of talk, which Julie led first +into one channel and then into another, as she pleased; and all to +the flattery and glorification of the talker. The famous Minister +had come to visit Lady Henry, as he had done for many Sundays in +many years; but it was not Lady Henry, but her companion, to whom +his homage of the afternoon was paid, who gave him his moment of +enjoyment--the moment that would bring him there again. Lady +Henry's fault, no doubt; but Wilfrid Bury, uneasily aware every now +and then of the dumb tumult that was raging in the breast of the +haughty being beside him, felt the pathos of this slow discrowning, +and was inclined, once more, rather to be sorry for the older woman +than to admire the younger.</p> +<p>At last Lady Henry could bear it no longer.</p> +<p>"Mademoiselle, be so good as to return his father's letters to +Captain Warkworth," she said, abruptly, in her coldest voice, just +as Montresor, dropping his--head thrown back and knees crossed--was +about to pour into the ears of his companion the whole confidential +history of his appointment to office three years before.</p> +<p>Julie Le Breton rose at once. She went towards a table at the +farther end of the large room, and Captain Warkworth followed her. +Montresor, perhaps repenting himself a little, returned to Lady +Henry; and though she received him with great coolness, the circle +round her, now augmented by Dr. Meredith, and another politician or +two, was reconstituted; and presently, with a conscious effort, +visible at least to Bury, she exerted herself to hold it, and +succeeded.</p> +<p>Suddenly--just as Bury had finished a very neat analysis of the +Shah's public and private character, and while the applauding +laughter of the group of intimates amid which he sat told him that +his epigrams had been good--he happened to raise his eyes towards +the distant settee where Julie Le Breton was sitting.</p> +<p>His smile stiffened on his lips. Like an icy wave, a swift and +tragic impression swept through him. He turned away, ashamed of +having seen, and hid himself, as it were, with relief, in the +clamor of amusement awakened by his own remarks.</p> +<p>What had he seen? Merely, or mainly, a woman's face. Young +Warkworth stood beside the sofa, on which sat Lady Henry's +companion, his hands in his pockets, his handsome head bent towards +her. They had been talking earnestly, wholly forgetting and +apparently forgotten by the rest of the room. On his side there was +an air of embarrassment. He seemed to be choosing his words with +difficulty, his eyes on the floor. Julie Le Breton, on the +contrary, was looking at him--looking with all her soul, her +ardent, unhappy soul--unconscious of aught else in the wide +world.</p> +<p>"Good God! she is in love with him!" was the thought that rushed +through Sir Wilfrid's mind. "Poor thing! Poor thing!"</p> +<hr style="width: 25%;"> +<p>Sir Wilfrid outstayed his fellow-guests. By seven o'clock all +were gone. Mademoiselle Le Breton had retired. He and Lady Henry +were left alone.</p> +<p>"Shut the doors!" she said, peremptorily, looking round her as +the last guest disappeared. "I must have some private talk with +you. Well, I understand you walked home from the Crowboroughs' the +other night with--that woman."</p> +<p>She turned sharply upon him. The accent was indescribable. And +with a fierce hand she arranged the folds of her own thick silk +dress, as though, for some relief to the stormy feeling within, she +would rather have torn than smoothed it.</p> +<p>Sir Wilfrid seated himself beside her, knees crossed, +finger-tips lightly touching, the fair eyelashes somewhat +lowered--Calm beside Tempest.</p> +<p>"I am sorry to hear you speak so," he said, gravely, after a +pause. "Yes, I talked with her. She met me very fairly, on the +whole. It seemed to me she was quite conscious that her behavior +had not been always what it should be, and that she was sincerely +anxious to change it. I did my best as a peacemaker. Has she made +no signs since--no advances?"</p> +<p>Lady Henry threw out her hand in disdain.</p> +<p>"She confessed to me that she had pledged a great deal of the +time for which I pay her to Evelyn Crowborough's bazaar, and asked +what she was to do. I told her, of course, that I would put up with +nothing of the kind."</p> +<p>"And were more annoyed, alack! than propitiated by her +confession?" said Sir Wilfrid, with a shrug.</p> +<p>"I dare say," said Lady Henry. "You see, I guessed that it was +not spontaneous; that you had wrung it out of her."</p> +<p>"What else did you expect me to do?" cried Sir Wilfrid. "I seem, +indeed, to have jolly well wasted my time."</p> +<p>"Oh no. You were very kind. And I dare say you might have done +some good. I was beginning to--to have some returns on myself, when +the Duchess appeared on the scene."</p> +<p>"Oh, the little fool!" ejaculated Sir Wilfrid, under his +breath.</p> +<p>"She came, of course, to beg and protest. She offered me her +valuable services for all sorts of superfluous things that I didn't +want--if only I would spare her Julie for this ridiculous bazaar. +So then my back was put up again, and I told her a few home truths +about the way in which she had made mischief and forced Julie into +a totally false position. On which she flew into a passion, and +said a lot of silly nonsense about Julie, that showed me, among +other things, that Mademoiselle Le Breton had broken her solemn +compact with me, and had told her family history both to Evelyn and +to Jacob Delafield. That alone would be sufficient to justify me in +dismissing her. <i>N'est-ce pas?</i>"</p> +<p>"Oh yes," murmured Sir Wilfrid, "if you want to dismiss +her."</p> +<p>"We shall come to that presently," said Lady Henry, shortly. +"Imagine, please, the kind of difficulties in which these +confidences, if they have gone any further--and who knows?--may +land me. I shall have old Lord Lackington--who behaved like a brute +to his daughter while she was alive, and is, all the same, a +<i>poseur</i> from top to toe--walking in here one night and +demanding his granddaughter--spreading lies, perhaps, that I have +been ill-treating her. Who can say what absurdities may happen if +it once gets out that she is Lady Rose's child? I could name half a +dozen people, who come here habitually, who would consider +themselves insulted if they knew--what you and I know."</p> +<p>"Insulted? Because her mother--"</p> +<p>"Because her mother broke the seventh commandment? Oh, dear, no! +That, in my opinion, doesn't touch people much nowadays. Insulted +because they had been kept in the dark--that's all. Vanity, not +morals."</p> +<p>"As far as I can ascertain," said Sir Wilfrid, meditatively, +"only the Duchess, Delafield, Montresor, and myself are in the +secret."</p> +<p>"Montresor!" cried Lady Henry, beside herself. +"<i>Montresor!</i> That's new to me. Oh, she shall go at once--at +once!" She breathed hard.</p> +<p>"Wait a little. Have you had any talk with Jacob?"</p> +<p>"I should think not! Evelyn, of course, brings him in +perpetually--Jacob this and Jacob that. He seems to have been +living in her pocket, and the three have been intriguing against +me, morning, noon, and night. Where Julie has found the time I +can't imagine; I thought I had kept her pretty well occupied."</p> +<p>Sir Wilfrid surveyed his angry companion and held his peace.</p> +<p>"So you don't know what Jacob thinks?"</p> +<p>"Why should I want to know?" said Lady Henry, disdainfully. "A +lad whom I sent to Eton and Oxford, when his father couldn't pay +his bills--what does it matter to me what he thinks?"</p> +<p>"Women are strange folk," thought Sir Wilfrid. "A man wouldn't +have said that."</p> +<p>Then, aloud:</p> +<p>"I thought you were afraid lest he should want to marry +her?"</p> +<p>"Oh, let him cut his throat if he likes!" said Lady Henry, with +the inconsistency of fury. "What does it matter to me?"</p> +<p>"By-the-way, as to that"--he spoke as though feeling his +way--"have you never had suspicions in quite another +direction?"</p> +<p>"What do you mean?"</p> +<p>"Well, I hear a good deal in various quarters of the trouble +Mademoiselle Le Breton is taking--on behalf of that young soldier +who was here just now--Harry Warkworth."</p> +<p>Lady Henry laughed impatiently.</p> +<p>"I dare say. She is always wanting to patronize or influence +somebody. It's in her nature. She's a born <i>intrigante</i>. If +you knew her as well as I do, you wouldn't think much of that. Oh +no--make your mind easy. It's Jacob she wants--it's Jacob she'll +get, very likely. What can an old, blind creature like me do to +stop it?"</p> +<p>"And as Jacob's wife--the wife perhaps of the head of the +family--you still mean to quarrel with her?"</p> +<p>"Yes, I <i>do</i> mean to quarrel with her!" and Lady Henry +lifted herself in her chair, a pale and quivering image of +war--"Duchess or no Duchess! Did you see the audacious way in which +she behaved this afternoon?--<i>how</i> she absorbs my guests?--how +she allows and encourages a man like Montresor to forget +himself?--eggs him on to put slights on me in my own +drawing-room!"</p> +<p>"No, no! You are really unjust," said Sir Wilfrid, laying a kind +hand upon her arm. "That was not her fault."</p> +<p>"It <i>is</i> her fault that she is what she is!--that her +character is such that she <i>forces</i> comparisons between +us--between <i>her</i> and <i>me!</i>--that she pushes herself into +a prominence that is intolerable, considering who and what she +is--that she makes me appear in an odious light to my old friends. +No, no, Wilfrid, your first instinct was the true one. I shall have +to bring myself to it, whatever it costs. She must take her +departure, or I shall go to pieces, morally and physically. To be +in a temper like this, at my age, shortens one's life--you know +that."</p> +<p>"And you can't subdue the temper?" he asked, with a queer +smile.</p> +<p>"No, I can't! That's flat. She gets on my nerves, and I'm not +responsible. <i>C'est fini</i>."</p> +<p>"Well," he said, slowly, "I hope you understand what it +means?"</p> +<p>"Oh, I know she has plenty of friends!" she said, defiantly. But +her old hands trembled on her knee.</p> +<p>"Unfortunately they were and are yours. At least," he entreated, +"don't quarrel with everybody who may sympathize with her. Let them +take what view they please. Ignore it--be as magnanimous as you +can."</p> +<p>"On the contrary!" She was now white to the lips. "Whoever goes +with her gives me up. They must choose--once for all."</p> +<p>"My dear friend, listen to reason."</p> +<p>And, drawing his chair close to her, he argued with her for half +an hour. At the end of that time her gust of passion had more or +less passed away; she was, to some extent, ashamed of herself, and, +as he believed, not far from tears.</p> +<p>"When I am gone she will think of what I have been saying," he +assured himself, and he rose to take his leave. Her look of +exhaustion distressed him, and, for all her unreason, he felt +himself astonishingly in sympathy with her. The age in him held out +secret hands to the age in her--as against encroaching and +rebellious youth.</p> +<p>Perhaps it was the consciousness of this mood in him which at +last partly appeased her.</p> +<p>"Well, I'll try again. I'll <i>try</i> to hold my tongue," she +granted him, sullenly. "But, understand, she, sha'n't go to that +bazaar!"</p> +<p>"That's a great pity," was his naïve reply. "Nothing would +put you in a better position than to give her leave."</p> +<p>"I shall do nothing of the kind," she vowed. "And now +good-night, Wilfrid--good-night. You're a very good fellow, and if +I <i>can</i> take your advice, I will."</p> +<hr style="width: 25%;"> +<p>Lady Henry sat alone in her brightly lighted drawing-room for +some time. She could neither read nor write nor sew, owing to her +blindness, and in the reaction from her passion of the afternoon +she felt herself very old and weary.</p> +<p>But at last the door opened and Julie Le Breton's light step +approached.</p> +<p>"May I read to you?" she said, gently.</p> +<p>Lady Henry coldly commanded the <i>Observer</i> and her +knitting.</p> +<p>She had no sooner, however, begun to knit than her very acute +sense of touch noticed something wrong with the wool she was +using.</p> +<p>"This is not the wool I ordered," she said, fingering it +carefully. "You remember, I gave you a message about it on +Thursday? What did they say about it at Winton's?"</p> +<p>Julie laid down the newspaper and looked in perplexity at the +ball of wool.</p> +<p>"I remember you gave me a message," she faltered.</p> +<p>"Well, what did they say?"</p> +<p>"I suppose that was all they had."</p> +<p>Something in the tone struck Lady Henry's quick ears. She raised +a suspicious face.</p> +<p>"Did you ever go to Winton's at all?" she said, quickly.</p> +<br> +<a name="illus-100.jpg"></a> +<p class="ctr"><a href="images/illus-100.jpg"><img src= +"images/illus-100.jpg" width="50%" alt=""></a><br> +<b>"LADY HENRY GASPED. SHE FELL BACK INTO HER CHAIR"</b></p> +<br> +<p>"I am so sorry. The Duchess's maid was going there," said Julie, +hurriedly, "and she went for me. I thought I had given her your +message most carefully."</p> +<p>"Hm," said Lady Henry, slowly. "So you didn't go to Winton's. +May I ask whether you went to Shaw's, or to Beatson's, or the +Stores, or any of the other places for which I gave you +commissions?" Her voice cut like a knife.</p> +<p>Julie hesitated. She had grown very white. Suddenly her face +settled and steadied.</p> +<p>"No," she said, calmly. "I meant to have done all your +commissions. But I was persuaded by Evelyn to spend a couple of +hours with her, and her maid undertook them."</p> +<p>Lady Henry flushed deeply.</p> +<p>"So, mademoiselle, unknown to me, you spent two hours of my time +amusing yourself at Crowborough House. May I ask what you were +doing there?"</p> +<p>"I was trying to help the Duchess in her plans for the +bazaar."</p> +<p>"Indeed? Was any one else there? Answer me, mademoiselle."</p> +<p>Julie hesitated again, and again spoke with a kind of passionate +composure.</p> +<p>"Yes. Mr. Delafield was there."</p> +<p>"So I supposed. Allow me to assure you, mademoiselle"--Lady +Henry rose from her seat, leaning on her stick; surely no old face +was ever more formidable, more withering--"that whatever ambitions +you may cherish, Jacob Delafield is not altogether the simpleton +you imagine. I know him better than you. He will take some time +before he really makes up his mind to marry a woman of your +disposition--and your history."</p> +<p>Julie Le Breton also rose.</p> +<p>"I am afraid, Lady Henry, that here, too, you are in the dark," +she said, quietly, though her thin arm shook against her dress. "I +shall not marry Mr. Delafield. But it is because--I have refused +him twice."</p> +<p>Lady Henry gasped. She fell back into her chair, staring at her +companion.</p> +<p>"You have--refused him?"</p> +<p>"A month ago, and last year. It is horrid of me to say a word. +But you forced me."</p> +<p>Julie was now leaning, to support herself, on the back of an old +French chair. Feeling and excitement had blanched her no less than +Lady Henry, but her fine head and delicate form breathed a will so +proud, a dignity so passionate, that Lady Henry shrank before +her.</p> +<p>"Why did you refuse him?"</p> +<p>Julie shrugged her shoulders.</p> +<p>"That, I think, is my affair. But if--I had loved him--I should +not have consulted your scruples, Lady Henry."</p> +<p>"That's frank," said Lady Henry. "I like that better than +anything you've said yet. You are aware that he <i>may</i> inherit +the dukedom of Chudleigh?"</p> +<p>"I have several times heard you say so," said the other, +coldly.</p> +<p>Lady Henry looked at her long and keenly. Various things that +Wilfrid Bury had said recurred to her. She thought of Captain +Warkworth. She wondered.</p> +<p>Suddenly she held out her hand.</p> +<p>"I dare say you won't take it, mademoiselle. I suppose I've been +insulting you. But--you have been playing tricks with me. In a good +many ways, we're quits. Still, I confess, I admire you a good deal. +Anyway, I offer you my hand. I apologize for my recent remarks. +Shall we bury the hatchet, and try and go on as before?"</p> +<p>Julie Le Breton turned slowly and took the hand--without +unction.</p> +<p>"I make you angry," she said, and her voice trembled, "without +knowing how or why."</p> +<p>Lady Henry gulped.</p> +<p>"Oh, it mayn't answer," she said, as their hands dropped. "But +we may as well have one more trial. And, mademoiselle, I shall be +delighted that you should assist the Duchess with her +<i>bazaar</i>."</p> +<p>Julie shook her head.</p> +<p>"I don't think I have any heart for it," she said, sadly; and +then, as Lady Henry sat silent, she approached.</p> +<p>"You look very tired. Shall I send your maid?"</p> +<p>That melancholy and beautiful voice laid a strange spell on Lady +Henry. Her companion appeared to her, for a moment, in a new +light--as a personage of drama or romance. But she shook off the +spell.</p> +<p>"At once, please. Another day like this would put an end to +me."</p> +<br> +<br> +<hr style="width: 35%;"> +<br> +<br> +<h2><a name="VII"></a>VII</h2> +<br> +<p>Julie le Breton was sitting alone in her own small sitting-room. +It was the morning of the Tuesday following her Sunday scene with +Lady Henry, and she was busy with various household affairs. A +small hamper of flowers, newly arrived from Lady Henry's Surrey +garden, and not yet unpacked, was standing open on the table, with +various empty flower-glasses beside it. Julie was, at the moment, +occupied with the "Stores order" for the month, and Lady Henry's +cook-housekeeper had but just left the room after delivering an +urgent statement on the need for "relining" a large number of Lady +Henry's copper saucepans.</p> +<p>The room was plain and threadbare. It had been the school-room +of various generations of Delafields in the past. But for an +observant eye it contained a good many objects which threw light +upon its present occupant's character and history. In a small +bookcase beside the fire were a number of volumes in French +bindings. They represented either the French classics--Racine, +Bossuet, Châteaubriand, Lamartine--which had formed the study +of Julie's convent days, or those other books--George Sand, Victor +Hugo, Alfred de Musset, Mazzini, Leopardi, together with the poets +and novelists of revolutionary Russia or Polish nationalism or +Irish rebellion--which had been the favorite reading of both Lady +Rose and her lover. They were but a hundred in all; but for Julie +Le Breton they stood for the bridge by which, at will, memory and +dreamful pity might carry her back into that vanished life she had +once shared with her parents--those strange beings, so calm and yet +so passionate in their beliefs, so wilful and yet so patient in +their deeds, by whose acts her own experience was still wholly +conditioned. In her little room there were no portraits of them +visible. But on a side-table stood a small carved triptych. The +oblong wings, which were open, contained photographs of figures +from one of the great Bruges Memlings. The centre was covered by +two wooden leaves delicately carved, and the leaves were locked. +The inquisitive housemaid who dusted the room had once tried to +open them.--in vain.</p> +<p>On a stand near the fire lay two or three yellow volumes--some +recent French essays, a volume of memoirs, a tale of Bourget's, and +so forth. These were flanked by Sir Henry Maine's <i>Popular +Government</i>, and a recent brilliant study of English policy in +Egypt--both of them with the name "Richard J. Montresor" on the +title-page. The last number of Dr. Meredith's paper, <i>The New +Rambler</i>, was there also; and, with the paper-knife still in its +leaves, the journal of the latest French traveller in Mokembe, a +small "H.W." inscribed in the top right-hand corner of its gray +cover.</p> +<p>Julie finished her Stores order with a sigh of relief. Then she +wrote half a dozen business notes, and prepared a few checks for +Lady Henry's signature. When this was done the two dachshunds, who +had been lying on the rug spying out her every movement, began to +jump upon her.</p> +<p>But Julie laughed in their faces. "It's raining," she said, +pointing to the window--"<i>raining!</i> So there! Either you won't +go out at all, or you'll go with John."</p> +<p>John was the second footman, whom the dogs hated. They returned +crestfallen to the rug and to a hungry waiting on Providence. Julie +took up a letter on foreign paper which had reached her that +morning, glanced at the door, and began to reread its closely +written sheets. It was from an English diplomat on a visit to +Egypt, a man on whom the eyes of Europe were at that moment fixed. +That he should write to a woman at all, on the subjects of the +letter, involved a compliment <i>hors ligne</i>; that he should +write with this ease, this abandonment, was indeed remarkable. +Julie flushed a little as she read. But when she came to the end +she put it aside with a look of worry. "I <i>wish</i> he'd write to +Lady Henry," was her thought. "She hasn't had a line from him for +weeks. I shouldn't wonder if she suspects already. When any one +talks of Egypt, I daren't open my lips."</p> +<p>For fear of betraying the very minute and first-hand information +that was possessed by Lady Henry's companion? With a smile and a +shrug she locked the letter away in one of the drawers of her +writing-table, and took up an envelope which had lain beneath it. +From this--again with a look round her--she half drew out a +photograph. The grizzled head and spectacled eyes of Dr. Meredith +emerged. Julie's expression softened; her eyebrows went up a +little; then she slightly shook her head, like one who protests +that if something has gone wrong, it isn't--isn't--their fault. +Unwillingly she looked at the last words of the letter:</p> +<p>/# "So, remember, I can give you work if you want it, and paying +work. I would rather give you my life and my all. But these, it +seems, are commodities for which you have no use. So be it. But if +you refuse to let me serve you, when the time comes, in such ways +as I have suggested in this letter, then, indeed, you would be +unkind--I would almost dare to say ungrateful! Yours always + +"F. M."<br> +#/</p> +<p>This letter also she locked away. But her hand lingered on the +last of all. She had read it three times already, and knew it +practically by heart. So she left the sheets undisturbed in their +envelope. But she raised the whole to her lips, and pressed it +there, while her eyes, as they slowly filled with tears, +travelled--unseeing--to the wintry street beyond the window. Eyes +and face wore the same expression as Wilfrid Bury had surprised +there--the dumb utterance of a woman hard pressed, not so much by +the world without as by some wild force within.</p> +<p>In that still moment the postman's knock was heard in the street +outside. Julie Le Breton started, for no one whose life is +dependent on a daily letter can hear that common sound without a +thrill. Then she smiled sadly at herself. "<i>My</i> joy is over +for to-day!" And she turned away with the letter in her hand.</p> +<p>But she did not place it in the same drawer with the others. She +moved across to the little carved triptych, and, after listening a +moment to the sounds in the house, she opened its closed doors with +a gold key that hung on her watch-chain and had been hidden in the +bosom of her dress.</p> +<p>The doors fell open. Inside, on a background of dark velvet, +hung two miniatures, lightly framed in gold and linked together by +a graceful scroll-work in gold. They were of fine French work, and +they represented a man and woman, both handsome, young, and of a +remarkable distinction of aspect. The faces, nevertheless, hardly +gave pleasure. There was in each of them a look at once absent and +eager--the look of those who have cared much and ardently for +"man," and very little, comparatively, for men.</p> +<p>The miniatures had not been meant for the triptych, nor the +triptych for them. It had been adapted to them by loving hands; but +there was room for other things in the velvet-lined hollow, and a +packet of letters was already reposing there. Julie slipped the +letter of the morning inside the elastic band which held the +packet; then she closed and locked the doors, returning the key to +its place in her dress. Both the lock and hinges of this little +hiding-place were well and strongly made, and when the wings also +were shut and locked one saw nothing but a massively framed +photograph of the Bruges belfry resting on a wooden support.</p> +<p>She had hardly completed her little task when there was a sudden +noise of footsteps in the passage outside.</p> +<p>"Julie!" said a light voice, subdued to a laughing whisper. "May +I come in?"</p> +<p>The Duchess stood on the threshold, her small, shell-pink face +emerging from a masterly study in gray, presented by a most +engaging costume.</p> +<p>Julie, in surprise, advanced to meet her visitor, and the old +butler, who was Miss Le Breton's very good friend, quickly and +discreetly shut the door upon the two ladies.</p> +<p>"Oh, my dear!" said the Duchess, throwing herself into Julie's +arms. "I came up so quietly! I told Hutton not to disturb Lady +Henry, and I just crept up-stairs, holding my skirts. Wasn't it +heroic of me to put my poor little head into the lion's den like +this? But when I got your letter this morning saying you couldn't +come to me, I vowed I would just see for myself how you were, and +whether there was anything left of you. Oh, you poor, pale +thing!"</p> +<p>And drawing Julie to a chair, the little Duchess sat down beside +her, holding her friend's hands and studying her face.</p> +<p>"Tell me what's been happening--I believe you've been crying! +Oh, the old wretch!"</p> +<p>"You're quite mistaken," said Julie, smiling. "Lady Henry says I +may help you with the bazaar."</p> +<p>"No!" The Duchess threw up her hands in amazement. "How have you +managed that?"</p> +<p>"By giving in. But, Evelyn, I'm not coming."</p> +<p>"Oh, Julie!" The Duchess threw herself back in her chair and +fixed a pair of very blue and very reproachful eyes on Miss Le +Breton.</p> +<p>"No, I'm not coming. If I'm to stay here, even for a time, I +mustn't provoke her any more. She says I may come, but she doesn't +mean it."</p> +<p>"She couldn't mean anything civil or agreeable. How has she been +behaving--since Sunday?"</p> +<p>Julie looked uncertain.</p> +<p>"Oh, there is an armed truce. I was made to have a fire in my +bedroom last night. And Hutton took the dogs out yesterday."</p> +<p>The Duchess laughed.</p> +<p>"And there was quite a scene on Sunday? You don't tell me much +about it in your letter. But, Julie"--her voice dropped to a +whisper--"was anything said about Jacob?"</p> +<p>Julie looked down. A bitterness crept into her face.</p> +<p>"Yes. I can't forgive myself. I was provoked into telling the +truth."</p> +<p>"You did! Well? I suppose Aunt Flora thought it was all your +fault that he proposed, and an impertinence that you refused?"</p> +<p>"She was complimentary at the time," said Julie, half smiling. +"But since--No, I don't feel that she is appeased."</p> +<p>"Of course not. Affronted, more likely."</p> +<p>There was a silence. The Duchess was looking at Julie, but her +thoughts were far away. And presently she broke out, with the +<i>étourderie</i> that became her:</p> +<p>"I wish I understood it myself, Julie. I know you like him."</p> +<p>"Immensely. But--we should fight!"</p> +<p>Miss Le Breton looked up with animation.</p> +<p>"Oh, that's not a reason," said the Duchess, rather annoyed.</p> +<p>"It's <i>the</i> reason. I don't know--there is something of +<i>iron</i> in Mr. Delafield;" and Julie emphasized the words with +a shrug which was almost a shiver. "And as I'm not in love with +him, I'm afraid of him."</p> +<p>"That's the best way of being in love," cried the Duchess. "And +then, Julie"--she paused, and at last added, naïvely, as she +laid her little hands on her friend's knee--"haven't you got +<i>any</i> ambitions?"</p> +<p>"Plenty. Oh, I should like very well to play the duchess, with +you to instruct me," said Julie, caressing the hands. "But I must +choose my duke. And till the right one appears, I prefer my own +wild ways."</p> +<p>"Afraid of Jacob Delafield? How odd!" said the Duchess, with her +chin on her hands.</p> +<p>"It may be odd to you," said Julie, with vivacity. "In reality, +it's not in the least odd. There's the same quality in him that +there is in Lady Henry--something that beats you down," she added, +under her breath. "There, that's enough about Mr. Delafield--quite +enough."</p> +<p>And, rising, Julie threw up her arms and clasped her hands above +her head. The gesture was all strength and will, like the +stretching of a sea-bird's wings.</p> +<p>The Duchess looked at her with eyes that had begun to waver.</p> +<p>"Julie, I heard such an odd piece of news last night."</p> +<p>Julie turned.</p> +<p>"You remember the questions you asked me about Aileen +Moffatt?"</p> +<p>"Perfectly."</p> +<p>"Well, I saw a man last night who had just come home from Simla. +He saw a great deal of her, and he says that she and her mother +were adored in India. They were thought so quaint and sweet--unlike +other people--and the girl so lovely, in a sort of gossamer way. +And who do you think was always about with them--at Peshawar first, +and then at Simla--so that everybody talked? Captain Warkworth! My +man believed there was an understanding between them."</p> +<p>Julie had begun to fill the flower-glasses with water and unpack +the flower-basket. Her back was towards the Duchess. After a moment +she replied, her hands full of forced narcissuses:</p> +<p>"Well, that would be a <i>coup</i> for him."</p> +<p>"I should think so. She is supposed to have half a million in +coal-mines alone, besides land. Has Captain Warkworth ever said +anything to you about them?"</p> +<p>"No. He has never mentioned them."</p> +<p>The Duchess reflected, her eyes still on Julie's back.</p> +<p>"Everybody wants money nowadays. And the soldiers are just as +bad as anybody else. They don't <i>look</i> money, as the City men +do--that's why we women fall in love with them--but they +<i>think</i> it, all the same."</p> +<p>Julie made no reply. The Duchess could see nothing of her. But +the little lady's face showed the flutter of one determined to +venture yet a little farther on thin ice.</p> +<p>"Julie, I've done everything you've asked me. I sent a card for +the 20th to that <i>rather</i> dreadful woman, Lady Froswick. I was +very clever with Freddie about that living; and I've talked to Mr. +Montresor. But, Julie, if you don't mind, I really should like to +know why you're so keen about it?"</p> +<p>The Duchess's cheeks were by now one flush. She had a romantic +affection for Julie, and would not have offended her for the +world.</p> +<p>Julie turned round. She was always pale, and the Duchess saw +nothing unusual.</p> +<p>"Am I so keen?"</p> +<p>"Julie, you have done everything in the world for this man since +he came home."</p> +<p>"Well, he interested me," said Julie, stepping back to look at +the effect of one of the vases. "The first evening he was here, he +saved me from Lady Henry--twice. He's alone in the world, too, +which attracts me. You see, I happen to know what it's like. An +only son, and an orphan, and no family interest to push him--"</p> +<p>"So you thought you'd push him? Oh, Julie, you're a darling--but +you're rather a wire-puller, aren't you?"</p> +<p>Julie smiled faintly.</p> +<p>"Well, perhaps I like to feel, sometimes, that I have a little +power. I haven't much else."</p> +<p>The Duchess seized one of her hands and pressed it to her +cheek.</p> +<p>"You have power, because every one loves and admires you. As for +me, I would cut myself in little bits to please you.... Well, I +only hope, when he's married his heiress, if he does marry her, +they'll remember what they owe to you."</p> +<p>Did she feel the hand lying in her own shake? At any rate, it +was brusquely withdrawn, and Julie walked to the end of the table +to fetch some more flowers.</p> +<p>"I don't want any gratitude," she said, abruptly, "from any one. +Well, now, Evelyn, you understand about the bazaar? I wish I could, +but I can't."</p> +<p>"Yes, I understand. Julie!" The Duchess rose impulsively, and +threw herself into a chair beside the table where she could watch +the face and movements of Mademoiselle Le Breton. "Julie, I want so +much to talk to you--about <i>business</i>. You're not to be +offended. Julie, <i>if</i> you leave Lady Henry, how will you +manage?"</p> +<p>"How shall I live, you mean?" said Julie, smiling at the +euphemism in which this little person, for whom existence had +rained gold and flowers since her cradle, had enwrapped the hard +facts of bread-and-butter--facts with which she was so little +acquainted that she approached them with a certain delicate +mystery.</p> +<p>"You must have some money, you know, Julie," said the Duchess, +timidly, her upraised face and Paris hat well matched by the gay +poinsettias, the delicate eucharis and arums with which the table +was now covered.</p> +<p>"I shall earn some," said Julie, quietly.</p> +<p>"Oh, but, Julie, you can't be bothered with any other tiresome +old lady!"</p> +<p>"No. I should keep my freedom. But Dr. Meredith has offered me +work, and got me a promise of more."</p> +<p>The Duchess opened her eyes.</p> +<p>"Writing! Well, of course, we all know you can do anything you +want to do. And you won't let anybody help you at all?"</p> +<p>"I won't let anybody give me money, if that's what you mean," +said Julie, smiling. But it was a smile without accent, without +gayety.</p> +<p>The Duchess, watching her, said to herself, "Since I came in she +is changed--quite changed."</p> +<p>"Julie, you're horribly proud!"</p> +<p>Julie's face contracted a little.</p> +<p>"How much 'power' should I have left, do you think--how much +self-respect--if I took money from my friends?"</p> +<p>"Well, not money, perhaps. But, Julie, you know all about +Freddie's London property. It's abominable how much he has. There +are always a few houses he keeps in his own hands. If Lady Henry +<i>does</i> quarrel with you, and we could lend you a little +house--for a time--<i>wouldn't</i> you take it, Julie?"</p> +<p>Her voice had the coaxing inflections of a child. Julie +hesitated.</p> +<p>"Only if the Duke himself offered it," she said, finally, with a +brusque stiffening of her whole attitude.</p> +<p>The Duchess flushed and stood up.</p> +<p>"Oh, well, that's all right," she said, but no longer in the +same voice. "Remember, I have your promise. Good-bye, Julie, you +darling!... Oh, by-the-way, what an idiot I am! Here am I +forgetting the chief thing I came about. Will you come with me to +Lady Hubert to-night? Do! Freddie's away, and I hate going by +myself."</p> +<p>"To Lady Hubert's?" said Julie, starting a little. "I wonder +what Lady Henry would say?"</p> +<p>"Tell her Jacob won't be there," said the Duchess, laughing. +"Then she won't make any difficulties."</p> +<p>"Shall I go and ask her?"</p> +<p>"Gracious! let me get out of the house first. Give her a message +from me that I will come and see her to-morrow morning. We've got +to make it up, Freddie says; so the sooner it's over, the better. +Say all the civil things you can to her about to-night, and wire me +this afternoon. If all's well, I come for you at eleven."</p> +<p>The Duchess rustled away. Julie was left standing by the table, +alone. Her face was very still, but her eyes shone, her teeth +pressed her lip. Unconsciously her hand closed upon a delicate +blossom of eucharis and crushed it.</p> +<p>"I'll go," she said, to herself. "Yes, I'll go."</p> +<p>Her letter of the morning, as it happened, had included the +following sentences:</p> +<p>"I think to-night I must put in an appearance at the Hubert +Delafields', though I own that neither the house nor the son of the +house is very much to my liking. But I hear that he has gone back +to the country. And there are a few people who frequent Lady +Hubert, who might just now be of use."</p> +<p>Lady Henry gave her consent that Mademoiselle Le Breton should +accompany the Duchess to Lady Hubert's party almost with effusion. +"It will be very dull," she said. "My sister-in-law makes a desert +and calls it society. But if you want to go, go. As to Evelyn +Crowborough, I am engaged to my dentist to-morrow morning."</p> +<p>When at night this message was reported to the Duchess, as she +and Julie were on their way to Rutland Gate, she laughed.</p> +<p>"How much leek shall I have to swallow? What's to-morrow? +Wednesday. Hm--cards in the afternoon; in the evening I appear, sit +on a stool at Lady Henry's feet, and look at you through my glasses +as though I had never seen you before. On Thursday I leave a French +book; on Friday I send the baby to see her. Goodness, what a time +it takes!" said the Duchess, raising her very white and very small +shoulders. "Well, for my life, I mustn't fail to-morrow night."</p> +<p>At Lady Hubert's they found a very tolerable, not to say lively, +gathering, which quite belied Lady Henry's slanders. There was not +the same conscious brilliance, the same thrill in the air, as +pertained to the gatherings in Bruton Street. But there was a more +solid social comfort, such as befits people untroubled by the +certainty that the world is looking on. The guests of Bruton Street +laughed, as well-bred people should, at the estimation in which +Lady Henry's salon was held, by those especially who did not belong +to it. Still, the mere knowledge of this outside estimate kept up a +certain tension. At Lady Hubert's there was no tension, and the +agreeable nobodies who found their way in were not made to blush +for the agreeable nothings of their conversation.</p> +<p>Lady Hubert herself made for ease--partly, no doubt, for +stupidity. She was fair, sleepy, and substantial. Her husband had +spent her fortune, and ruffled all the temper she had. The Hubert +Delafields were now, however, better off than they had +been--investments had recovered--and Lady Hubert's temper was once +more placid, as Providence had meant it to be. During the coming +season it was her firm intention to marry her daughter, who now +stood beside her as she received her guests--a blonde, +sweet-featured girl, given, however, so it was said, to good works, +and not at all inclined to trouble herself overmuch about a +husband.</p> +<p>The rooms were fairly full; and the entry of the Duchess and +Mademoiselle Le Breton was one of the incidents of the evening, and +visibly quickened the pulses of the assembly. The little +Dresden-china Duchess, with her clothes, her jewels, and her +smiles, had been, since her marriage, one of the chief favorites of +fashion. She had been brought up in the depths of the country, and +married at eighteen. After six years she was not in the least tired +of her popularity or its penalties. All the life in her dainty +person, her glancing eyes, and small, smiling lips rose, as it +were, to meet the stir that she evoked. She vaguely saw herself as +Titania, and played the part with childish glee. And like Titania, +as she had more than once ruefully reflected, she was liable to be +chidden by her lord.</p> +<p>But the Duke was on this particular evening debating high +subjects in the House of Lords, and the Duchess was amusing +herself. Sir Wilfrid Bury, who arrived not long after his +goddaughter, found her the centre first of a body-guard of cousins, +including among them apparently a great many handsome young men, +and then of a small crowd, whose vaguely smiling faces reflected +the pleasure that was to be got, even at a distance, out of her +young and merry beauty.</p> +<p>Julie Le Breton was not with her. But in the next room Sir +Wilfrid soon perceived the form and face which, in their own way, +exacted quite as much attention from the world as those of the +Duchess. She was talking with many people, and, as usual, he could +not help watching her. Never yet had he seen her wide, black eyes +more vivid than they were to-night. Now, as on his first sight of +her, he could not bring himself to call them beautiful. Yet +beautiful they were, by every canon of form and color. No doubt it +was something in their expression that offended his own +well-drilled instincts.</p> +<p>He found himself thinking suspicious thoughts about most of the +conversations in which he saw her engaged. Why was she bestowing +those careful smiles on that intolerable woman, Lady Froswick? And +what an acquaintance she seemed to have among these elderly +soldiers, who might at all times be reckoned on at Lady Hubert's +parties! One gray-haired veteran after another recalled himself to +her attention, got his few minutes with her, and passed on smiling. +Certain high officials, too, were no less friendly. Her court, it +seemed to him, was mainly composed of the middle-aged; to-night, at +any rate, she left the young to the Duchess. And it was on the +whole a court of men. The women, as he now perceived, were a trifle +more reserved. There was not, indeed, a trace of exclusion. They +were glad to see her; glad, he thought, to be noticed by her. But +they did not yield themselves--or so he fancied--with the same +wholeness as their husbands.</p> +<p>"How old is she?" he asked himself. "About nine-and-twenty?... +Jacob's age--or a trifle older."</p> +<p>After a time he lost sight of her, and in the amusement of his +own evening forgot her. But as the rooms were beginning to thin he +walked through them, looking for a famous collection of miniatures +that belonged to Lady Hubert. English family history was one of his +hobbies, and he was far better acquainted with the Delafield +statesmen, and the Delafield beauties of the past, than were any of +their modern descendants. Lady Hubert's Cosways and Plimers had +made a lively impression upon him in days gone by, and he meant to +renew acquaintance with them.</p> +<p>But they had been moved from the room in which he remembered +them, and he was led on through a series of drawing-rooms, now +nearly empty, till on the threshold of the last he paused +suddenly.</p> +<p>A lady and gentleman rose from a sofa on which they had been +sitting. Captain Warkworth stood still. Mademoiselle Le Breton +advanced to the new-comer.</p> +<p>"Is it very late?" she said, gathering up her fan and gloves. +"We have been looking at Lady Hubert's miniatures. That lady with +the muff"--she pointed to the case which occupied a conspicuous +position in the room--"is really wonderful. Can you tell me, Sir +Wilfrid, where the Duchess is?"</p> +<p>"No, but I can help you find her," said that gentleman, +forgetting the miniatures and endeavoring to look at neither of his +companions.</p> +<p>"And I must rush," said Captain Warkworth, looking at his watch. +"I told a man to come to my rooms at twelve. Heavens!"</p> +<p>He shook hands with Miss Le Breton and hurried away.</p> +<p>Sir Wilfrid and Julie moved on together. That he had disturbed a +most intimate and critical conversation was somehow borne in upon +Sir Wilfrid. But kind and even romantic as was the old man's inmost +nature, his feelings were not friendly.</p> +<p>"How does the biography get on?" he asked his companion, with a +smile.</p> +<p>A bright flush appeared in Mademoiselle Le Breton's cheek.</p> +<p>"I think Lady Henry has dropped it."</p> +<p>"Ah, well, I don't imagine she will regret it;" he said, +dryly.</p> +<p>She made no reply. He mentally accused himself for a brute, and +then shook off the charge. Surely a few pin-pricks were her desert! +That she should defend her own secrets was, as Delafield had said, +legitimate enough. But when a man offers you his services, you +should not befool him beyond a certain point.</p> +<p>She must be aware of what he was thinking. He glanced at her +curiously; at the stately dress gleaming with jet, which no longer +affected anything of the girl; at the fine but old-fashioned +necklace of pearls and diamonds--no doubt her mother's--which +clasped her singularly slender throat. At any rate, she showed +nothing. She began to talk again of the Delafield miniatures, using +her fan the while with graceful deliberation; and presently they +found the Duchess.</p> +<p>"Is she an adventuress, or is she not?" thought Bury, as his +hansom carried him away from Rutland Gate. "If she marries Jacob, +it will be a queer business."</p> +<br> +<br> +<hr style="width: 35%;"> +<br> +<br> +<h2><a name="VIII"></a>VIII</h2> +<br> +<p>Meanwhile the Duchess had dropped Julie Le Breton at Lady +Henry's door. Julie groped her way up-stairs through the sleeping +house. She found her room in darkness, and she turned on no light. +There was still a last glimmer of fire, and she sank down by it, +her long arms clasped round her knees, her head thrown back as +though she listened still to words in her ears.</p> +<p>"Oh, such a child! Such a dear, simple-minded child! Report +engaged her to at least ten different people at Simla. She had a +crowd of cavaliers there--I was one of them. The whole place adored +her. She is a very rare little creature, but well looked after, I +can tell you--a long array of guardians in the background."</p> +<p>How was it possible not to trust that aspect and that smile? Her +mind travelled back to the autumn days when she had seen them +first; reviewed the steps, so little noticed at first, so rapid +lately and full of fate, by which she had come into this bondage +wherein she stood. She saw the first appearance of the young +soldier in Lady Henry's drawing-room; her first conversation with +him; and all the subtle development of that singular relation +between them, into which so many elements had entered. The +flattering sense of social power implied both in the homage of this +young and successful man, and in the very services that she, on her +side, was able to render him; impulsive gratitude for that homage, +at a time when her very soul was smarting under Lady Henry's +contemptuous hostility; and then the sweet advances of a +"friendship" that was to unite them in a bond, secret and unique, a +bond that took no account of the commonplaces of love and marriage, +the link of equal and kindred souls in a common struggle with hard +and sordid circumstance.</p> +<p>"I have neither family nor powerful friends," he had written to +her a few weeks after their first meeting; "all that I have won, I +have won for myself. Nobody ever made 'interest' for me but you. +You, too, are alone in the world. You, too, have to struggle for +yourself. Let us unite our forces--cheer each other, care for each +other--and keep our friendship a sacred secret from the world that +would misunderstand it. I will not fail you, I will give you all my +confidence; and I will try and understand that noble, wounded heart +of yours, with its memories, and all those singular prides and +isolations that have been imposed on it by circumstance. I will not +say, let me be your brother; there is something <i>banal</i> in +that; 'friend' is good enough for us both; and there is between us +a community of intellectual and spiritual interest which will +enable us to add new meaning even to that sacred word. I will write +to you every day; you shall know all that happens to me; and +whatever grateful devotion can do to make your life smoother shall +be done."</p> +<p>Five months ago was it, that that letter was written?</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>"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 <i>Nineteenth +Century</i> article--of certain passages in her husband's Indian +career.</p> +<p>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?</p> +<p>"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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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?</p> +<hr style="width: 25%;"> +<p>"Dixon, how is Lady Henry?"</p> +<p>"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."</p> +<p>"Has Hatton had any orders?"</p> +<p>"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."</p> +<p>"Has Lady Henry all she wants, Dixon? Have you taken her the +evening papers?"</p> +<p>"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."</p> +<p>"Do you think I may go and say good-night to her, Dixon?"</p> +<p>The maid hesitated.</p> +<p>"I'll ask her, miss--I'll certainly ask her."</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>"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.</p> +<p>Hutton, the butler, came in to look at the fire.</p> +<p>"Will you be sitting here to-night, miss?"</p> +<p>"Oh no, Hutton. I shall go back to the library. I think the fire +in my own room is out."</p> +<p>"I had better put out these lights, anyway," said the man, +looking round the brilliant room.</p> +<p>"Oh, certainly," said Julie, and she began to assist him to do +so.</p> +<p>Suddenly a thought occurred to her.</p> +<p>"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?"</p> +<p>The man considered.</p> +<p>"I don't think there could be anything heard up-stairs, miss. I +should, of course, warn her grace that her ladyship was ill."</p> +<p>"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?"</p> +<p>"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."</p> +<p>"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."</p> +<p>The butler's face was respectful discretion itself.</p> +<p>"Of course, miss. And shall I bring tea and coffee?"</p> +<p>"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?"</p> +<p>"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."</p> +<p>Julie colored a little.</p> +<p>"Well, you might--not many. And, Hutton, you're sure we can't +disturb Lady Henry?"</p> +<p>Hutton's expression was not wholly confident.</p> +<p>"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."</p> +<p>"Thank you, Hutton--thank you. That'll be very good of you. And, +Hutton--"</p> +<p>"Yes, miss." The man paused with a large vase of white arums in +his hand.</p> +<p>"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."</p> +<p>"Very good, miss. Dixon will be down to her supper +presently."</p> +<p>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!</p> +<p>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!</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>"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."</p> +<p>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?</p> +<p>"Her ladyship would like to see you, miss."</p> +<p>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."</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>"Well, you have dressed?" she said, sharply, as Julie Le Breton +entered her room.</p> +<p>"I did not get your message till I had finished dinner. And I +dressed before dinner."</p> +<p>Lady Henry looked her up and down, like a cat ready to +pounce.</p> +<p>"You didn't bring me those letters to sign?"</p> +<p>"No, I thought you were not fit for it."</p> +<p>"I said they were to go to-night. Kindly bring them at +once."</p> +<p>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!</p> +<p>Mercifully, Lady Henry was already somewhat sleepy, partly from +weakness, partly from a dose of bromide.</p> +<p>"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?"</p> +<p>"I shall sit up a little to write some letters. But--I sha'n't +be late."</p> +<p>"Why should you be late?" said Lady Henry, tartly, as she turned +away.</p> +<hr style="width: 25%;"> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>"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."</p> +<p>"Please ask him to come in, Hutton."</p> +<p>Hutton effaced himself, and the young man entered, Then Julie +raised her voice.</p> +<p>"Remember, please, Hutton, that I <i>particularly</i> want to +see the Duchess."</p> +<p>Hutton bowed and retired. Warkworth came forward.</p> +<p>"What luck to find you like this!"</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>"He wants to know that my suspicions are gone," she thought. "At +any rate, he should believe it."</p> +<p>"The great thing," she said, with her finger to her lip, "is +that Lady Henry should hear nothing."</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>"Isn't this amusing? Isn't the room charming? I think I should +receive very well"--she looked round her--"in my own house."</p> +<p>"You would receive well in a garret--a stable," he said. "But +what is the meaning of this? Explain."</p> +<p>"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."</p> +<p>She bent towards him, her eyes dancing.</p> +<p>"Of course I did. Will there presently be a swarm on my heels, +all possessed with a similar eagerness, or--?"</p> +<p>He drew his chair, smiling, a little closer to her. She, on the +contrary, withdrew hers.</p> +<p>"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?"</p> +<p>"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.</p> +<p>She flushed.</p> +<p>"You have got your allotment? But I knew you would. Lady +Froswick promised."</p> +<p>"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--<i>if</i> 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."</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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....</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>Could anything more be done, and fresh threads set in +motion?</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>"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?"</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>"That is my risk," she said, with a little shrug. "If I make you +confident, and nothing comes of it--"</p> +<p>"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--"</p> +<p>"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?"</p> +<p>"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."</p> +<p>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 <i>esprits faits</i>--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.</p> +<p>Julie soon found herself unwilling to meet the gaze fixed upon +her. She flushed a little and began to talk of other things.</p> +<p>"Everybody, surely, is unusually late. It will be annoying, +indeed, if the Duchess doesn't come."</p> +<p>"The Duchess is a delicious creature, but not for me," said +Warkworth, with a laugh. "She dislikes me. Ah, now then for the +fray!"</p> +<p>For the outer bell rang loudly, and there were steps in the +hall.</p> +<p>"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?"</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>"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."</p> +<p>"I'll go and speak to Hutton," said Julie.</p> +<p>And she hurried into the hall.</p> +<br> +<br> +<hr style="width: 35%;"> +<br> +<br> +<h2><a name="IX"></a>IX</h2> +<br> +<p>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.</p> +<p>Julie Le Breton came forward. The hats were removed, and the +tall, stooping form of Montresor advanced.</p> +<p>"Lady Henry is <i>so</i> 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 <i>anybody</i> else?"</p> +<p>She looked at him uncertainly, as though appealing to him, as a +relation of Lady Henry's, to take the lead.</p> +<p>"By all means," said that young man, after perhaps a moment's +hesitation, and throwing off his coat.</p> +<p>"Only <i>please</i> make no noise!" said Miss Le Breton, turning +to the group. "Lady Henry might be disturbed."</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>"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!"</p> +<p>"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."</p> +<p>For they were both in uniform, and the General was resplendent +with stars and medals.</p> +<p>"We have been dining with royalty." said Montresor. "We want +some relaxation."</p> +<p>He put on his eye-glasses, looked round the room, and gently +rubbed his hands.</p> +<p>"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--"</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>"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!"</p> +<p>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 <i>la petite +fée</i> when we arrived."</p> +<p>And his shrewd, small eyes travelled from Warkworth to the +Duchess, his mind the while instinctively assuming some hidden +relation between them.</p> +<p>Meanwhile, Montresor was elaborately informing himself as to +Lady Henry.</p> +<p>"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--"</p> +<p>He sighed, and then quickly threw off his depression.</p> +<p>"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!"</p> +<p>For at the moment Hutton and two footmen entered with trays +containing tea and coffee, lemonade and cakes.</p> +<p>"Shut the door, Hutton, <i>please</i>," Mademoiselle Le Breton +implored, and the door was shut at once.</p> +<p>"We mustn't, <i>mustn't</i> 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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, <i>en +silhouette</i>, with a hostile touch so sure, an irony so light, +that his success was instant and great.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>"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."</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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!...</p> +<p>Suddenly there was a voice in her ear.</p> +<p>"Do you know, I think we ought to clear out. It must be close on +midnight."</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>But before she could reply, a sound struck on her ear. She +sprang to her feet.</p> +<p>"What was that?" she said.</p> +<p>A voice was heard in the hall.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>"Good Heavens!" said Montresor, springing to his feet. "Lady +Henry!"</p> +<hr style="width: 25%;"> +<p>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?</p> +<p>The Duchess rushed to her, and fell, of course, upon the one +thing she should not have said.</p> +<p>"Oh, Aunt Flora, dear Aunt Flora! But we thought you were too +ill to come down!"</p> +<p>"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.</p> +<p>"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--"</p> +<p>She looked round upon them, challenging and defying them +all.</p> +<p>Montresor went up to her.</p> +<p>"My dear old friend, let me introduce to you M. du Bartas, of +the French Foreign Office."</p> +<p>At this appeal to her English hospitality and her social +chivalry, Lady Henry looked grimly at the Frenchman.</p> +<p>"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."</p> +<p>"Enchanté, madame," murmured the Frenchman, more +embarrassed than he had ever been in his life. "Permettez--moi de +vous faire mes plus sincères excuses."</p> +<p>"Not at all, monsieur, you owe me none."</p> +<p>Montresor again approached her.</p> +<p>"Let me tell you," he said, imploringly, "how this has +happened--how innocent we all are--"</p> +<p>"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."</p> +<p>Montresor approached her again, in real and deep distress.</p> +<p>"Dear Lady Henry--"</p> +<p>"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.</p> +<p>"Dear Julie!" she cried, imploringly.</p> +<p>But Lady Henry turned.</p> +<p>"You will have every opportunity to-morrow," she said. "As far +as I am concerned, Miss Le Breton will have no engagements."</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>"<i>You</i> must help me," she said, brokenly. "It is my +right!"</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>Then Julie withdrew.</p> +<p>"I beg your pardon," she said, hurriedly. "I beg your pardon. +Good-night."</p> +<p>Lord Lackington hesitated. His face took a puzzled expression. +Then he held out his hand, and she placed hers in it +mechanically.</p> +<p>"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?"</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>"Don't deceive yourself," he said, quickly, in a low voice; +"this is the end. Remember my letter. Let me hear to-morrow."</p> +<p>As Dr. Meredith left the room, Julie lifted her eyes. Only Jacob +Delafield and Lady Henry were left.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>"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."</p> +<p>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.</p> +<hr style="width: 25%;"> +<p>That lady eyed her companion with composure, though by now even +the old lips were wholly blanched.</p> +<p>"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."</p> +<p>Julie stood stonily erect. She made her dry lips answer as best +they could.</p> +<p>"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."</p> +<p>Lady Henry smiled in contempt.</p> +<p>"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."</p> +<p>"Of course. Perhaps to-morrow you will allow me a few last +words?"</p> +<p>"I think not. This will cost me dear," said Lady Henry, her +white lips twitching. "Say them now, mademoiselle."</p> +<p>"You are suffering." Julie made an uncertain step forward. "You +ought to be in bed."</p> +<p>"That has nothing to do with it. What was your object +to-night?"</p> +<p>"I wished to see the Duchess--"</p> +<p>"It is not worth while to prevaricate. The Duchess was not your +first visitor."</p> +<p>Julie flushed.</p> +<p>"Captain Warkworth arrived first; that was a mere chance."</p> +<p>"It was to see him that you risked the whole affair. You have +used my house for your own intrigues."</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>"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--"</p> +<p>Lady Henry nodded grimly.</p> +<p>"It is true," she said, interrupting, "I was not able to take +your romantic view of the office of companion."</p> +<p>"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."</p> +<p>"Then at last we understand each other," said Lady Henry, with a +laugh. "Good-night, Miss Le Breton."</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>"Don't touch me! Don't come near me!"</p> +<p>She paused a moment to recover breath and balance. Then she +resumed her difficult walk. Julie followed her.</p> +<p>"Kindly put out the electric lights," said Lady Henry, and Julie +obeyed.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>"Oh, <i>do</i> let me help you!" said Julie, in an agony. "You +will kill yourself. Let me at least call Dixon."</p> +<p>"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."</p> +<p>"Oh!" cried Julie, as though she had been struck, and hid her +eyes with her hand.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>Julie looked round her, startled. She saw Jacob Delafield, who +put his finger to his lip.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>Jacob Delafield came up to her and took her hand. She felt his +own tremble, and yet its grasp was firm and supporting.</p> +<p>"Courage!" he said, bending over her. "Try not to give way. You +will want all your fortitude."</p> +<p>"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.</p> +<p>"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 +<i>could</i> have loved her."</p> +<p>She was in an anguish of feeling--of sharp and penetrating +remorse.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>"You know that I am your friend and servant," he said, in a +queer, muffled voice. "You promised I should be."</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>Presently, when once more she moved away, he said to her, in a +whisper:</p> +<p>"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."</p> +<p>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."</p> +<p>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.</p> +<br> +<br> +<hr style="width: 35%;"> +<br> +<br> +<h2><a name="X"></a>X</h2> +<br> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>"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 <i>have</i> 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>I</i> shall apologize to +Lady Henry."</p> +<p>"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--<i>asked</i> us to +come in."</p> +<p>"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.</p> +<p>"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--"</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>"If I only knew what?"</p> +<p>The Duchess pulled at the hair of the little spitz on her lap +without replying.</p> +<p>"What is there to know that I don't know?" insisted the Duke. +"Something that makes the matter still worse, I suppose?"</p> +<p>"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.</p> +<p>The Duke looked at his watch.</p> +<p>"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."</p> +<p>"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?"</p> +<p>"Once. I thought her a very pretentious person," said the Duke, +stiffly.</p> +<p>"I know--you didn't get on. But, Freddie, didn't she remind you +of somebody?"</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>"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.</p> +<p>"Of course I know. What on earth has that got to do with the +subject we have been discussing?"</p> +<p>"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!"</p> +<p>"What in the name of fortune do you mean?" said the Duke, +staring at her.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <i>en +route</i>, 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.</p> +<p>"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?"</p> +<p>"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!"</p> +<p>"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."</p> +<p>"How could she help her antecedents?" cried the Duchess.</p> +<p>"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."</p> +<p>"Freddie!" The Duchess went into a helpless, half-hysterical fit +of laughter.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>There could be no question about it, the Duke was painfully like +his mother as he replied:</p> +<p>"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 <i>does</i> carry a stigma, and the sins of +the fathers <i>are</i> 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."</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>"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."</p> +<p>The Duke shrugged his shoulders.</p> +<p>"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 <i>don't</i> 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."</p> +<p>"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 +<i>do</i> want is"--the Duchess looked up with calm audacity--"that +you should find her a house."</p> +<p>The Duke paused in his walk and surveyed his wife with +amazement.</p> +<p>"Evelyn, are you <i>quite</i> mad?"</p> +<p>"Not in the least. You have more houses than you know what to do +with, and a <i>great</i> 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!"</p> +<p>"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."</p> +<p>"It's most excellent sense!" cried the Duchess, springing up. +"You <i>have</i> 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 <i>very</i> thing for +Julie, if only you'd lend it to her till she can turn round."</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>"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?"</p> +<p>"She means to write," said the Duchess, shortly. "Dr. Meredith +has promised her work."</p> +<p>"Sheer lunacy! In six months time you'd have to step in and pay +all her bills."</p> +<p>"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."</p> +<p>"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! <i>Her friends</i>, 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--"</p> +<p>"Another situation!" cried the Duchess, beside herself. +"Freddie, you really are impossible! Do you understand that I +regard Julie Le Breton as <i>my relation</i>, 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 <i>proud</i> to do her a service--that I want you to have the +<i>honor</i> 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!"</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>The Duke rose in silent ferocity and sought for some letters +which he had left on the mantel-piece.</p> +<p>"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."</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>"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."</p> +<p>"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. <i>He</i> 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--"</p> +<p>"Does he know?" said the Duke, abruptly, marvelling at the +irrelevance of these remarks.</p> +<p>"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."</p> +<p>"Jacob!" said the Duke. "What's he got to do with it?"</p> +<p>The Duchess suddenly saw her opportunity, and rushed upon +it.</p> +<p>"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."</p> +<p>"Well, of all the extraordinary affairs!"</p> +<p>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."</p> +<hr style="width: 25%;"> +<p>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.</p> +<p>But the Duchess ran forward, and, quite heedless of her husband, +threw herself into her friend's arms.</p> +<p>"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 <i>great</i> friend, Miss Le +Breton."</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>"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?"</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>But the confusion in his mind had somehow to be mastered, and he +made an effort.</p> +<p>"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."</p> +<p>"You are quite right--quite right," said Julie, almost with +eagerness. "She has, indeed."</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>The Duchess meanwhile drew Julie impulsively towards a +chair.</p> +<p>"Do sit down. You look so tired."</p> +<p>But Julie's gaze was still bent upon the Duke. She restrained +her friend's eager hand, and the Duke collected himself. <i>He</i> +brought a chair, and Julie seated herself.</p> +<p>"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."</p> +<p>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 <i>not</i> found Julie alone with Harry Warkworth. But +her loyal lips would have suffered torments rather than accuse or +betray her friend.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>"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."</p> +<p>"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."</p> +<p>There was an uncomfortable pause; then Julie resumed, in another +tone:</p> +<p>"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."</p> +<p>"I know," said the Duke, sharply. "Her salon will break up. She +already foresees it."</p> +<p>"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."</p> +<p>"What about Mr. Montresor?" said the Duke, abruptly. Montresor +had been the well-known Châteaubriand to Lady Henry's Madame +Récamier for more than a generation.</p> +<p>Julie turned to him with eagerness.</p> +<p>"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."</p> +<p>"And you replied?" The Duke eyed her keenly.</p> +<p>Julie sighed and looked down.</p> +<p>"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."</p> +<p>"And so you refused--excuse these questions--Mrs. Montresor's +invitation?"</p> +<p>The working of the Duke's mind was revealed in his drawn and +puzzled brows.</p> +<p>"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.</p> +<p>"Yes?" said the Duchess, eagerly, throwing herself on a stool at +Julie's feet and looking up into her face.</p> +<p>"He, too, has written to me. He wants to help me. But--I can't +let him."</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>"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!"</p> +<p>He was a man with whom a <i>gran rifiuto</i> of this kind +weighed heavily. His moral sense exacted such things rather of +other people than himself. But, when made, he could appreciate +them.</p> +<p>After a few turns up and down the room, he walked up to the two +women.</p> +<p>"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."</p> +<p>Julie looked up gravely, her eyebrows lifting. The Duke found +himself reddening as he went on.</p> +<p>"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."</p> +<p>He paused. Miss Le Breton's face was grateful, touched with +emotion, but more than hesitating.</p> +<p>"You are very good. But I have no claim upon you at all. And I +can support myself."</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>"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!"</p> +<p>Julie shook her head.</p> +<p>"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."</p> +<p>And with trembling fingers she began to refasten her veil.</p> +<p>"Julie!--where are you going?" cried the Duchess "You're staying +here."</p> +<p>"Staying here?" said Julie, turning round upon her. "Do you +think I should be a burden upon you, or any one?"</p> +<p>"But, Julie, you told Jacob you would come."</p> +<p>"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."</p> +<p>The penitent, yet dignified, sadness of her manner and voice +completed the discomfiture--the temporary discomfiture--of the +Duke.</p> +<p>"Miss Le Breton," he said, abruptly, coming to stand beside her, +"I remember your mother."</p> +<p>Julie's eyes filled. Her hand still held her veil, but it paused +in its task.</p> +<p>"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."</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>The Duchess crept up to her and wound her arms round her.</p> +<p>"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 <i>must</i> let us help you!"</p> +<p>Julie did not answer, but, partially disengaging herself, and +without looking at him, she held out her hand to the Duke.</p> +<p>He pressed it with a cordiality that amazed him.</p> +<p>"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--"</p> +<p>"Yes."</p> +<p>"I think," he said, gravely, "you ought to reveal yourself to +Lord Lackington."</p> +<p>She shrank.</p> +<p>"You'll let me take my own time for that?" was her appealing +reply.</p> +<p>"Very well--very well. We'll speak of it again."</p> +<p>And he hurried away. As he descended his own stairs astonishment +at what he had done rushed upon him and overwhelmed him.</p> +<p>"How on earth am I ever to explain the thing to Lady Henry?"</p> +<p>And as he went citywards in his cab, he felt much more guilty +than his wife had ever done. What <i>could</i> 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?</p> +<br> +<br> +<hr style="width: 35%;"> +<br> +<br> +<h2><a name="XI"></a>XI</h2> +<br> +<p>"Here it is," said the Duchess, as the carriage stopped. "Isn't +it an odd little place?"</p> +<p>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 <i>mansarde</i> 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>"Oh, Julie, perhaps it's <i>too</i> 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--"</p> +<p>"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."</p> +<p>The Duchess glanced at her uneasily. "What is she thinking +about?" she wondered. But Julie roused herself.</p> +<p>"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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>"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.</p> +<p>"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."</p> +<p>"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 +<i>taste</i> the person who lived here."</p> +<p>"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 <i>his</i> cousin he +wouldn't mind her being a bit touched,' My maid said she had no +idea poke-bonnets could be so <i>sweet</i>. 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 <i>saw</i> 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--"</p> +<p>"Ghosts, too!" said Julie, crossing her hands before her with a +little shiver--"that completes it."</p> +<p>"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 <i>was</i> 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."</p> +<p>"Not in years? Cousin Mary outlived them."</p> +<p>"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 <i>Times</i>; 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?"</p> +<p>"You forget I'm a Catholic," said Julie, smiling rather +doubtfully.</p> +<p>"<i>Are</i> you, Julie? I'd forgotten."</p> +<p>"The good nuns at Bruges took care of that."</p> +<p>"Do you ever go to mass?"</p> +<p>"Sometimes."</p> +<p>"Then you're not a good Catholic, Julie?"</p> +<p>"No," said Julie, after a pause, "not at all. But it sometimes +catches hold of me."</p> +<p>The old clock in the hall struck. The Duchess sprang up.</p> +<p>"Oh, Julie, I have got to be at Clarisse's by four. I +<i>promised</i> her I'd go and settle about my Drawing-room dress +to-day. Let's see the rest of the house."</p> +<p>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."</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>"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!"</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>Suddenly Julie turned away and sat down by an open window, +carrying her eyes far from the house and its stores.</p> +<p>"It is too much, Evelyn," she said, sombrely. "It oppresses me. +I don't think I can live up to it."</p> +<p>"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."</p> +<p>"She would have hated me with all her strength," said Miss Le +Breton, probably with much truth.</p> +<p>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!</p> +<p>"Julie," said the Duchess, softly, in her ear, "you know you +can't live here alone. I'm afraid Freddie would make a fuss."</p> +<p>"I've thought of that," said Julie, wearily. "But, shall we +really go on with it, Evelyn?"</p> +<p>The Duchess looked entreaty. Julie repented, and, drawing her +friend towards her, rested her head against the chinchilla +cloak.</p> +<p>"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."</p> +<p>"Madame Bornier and the little cripple girl?" cried the Duchess. +"Excellent! Where are they?"</p> +<p>"Léonie is in the French Governesses' Home, as it +happens, looking out for a situation, and the child is in the +Orthopædic Hospital. They've been straightening her foot. +It's wonderfully better, and she's nearly ready to come out."</p> +<p>"Are they nice, Julie?"</p> +<p>"Thérèse is an angel--you must be the one thing or +the other, apparently, if you're a cripple. And as for +Léonie--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."</p> +<p>"But is she nice?" repeated the Duchess.</p> +<p>"I'm used to her," said Julie, in the same inanimate voice.</p> +<p>Suddenly the clock in the hall below struck four.</p> +<p>"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?"</p> +<p>"Don't trouble about me. I should like to look round me here a +little longer."</p> +<p>"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."</p> +<p>"Have you? That's noble of you--for you don't like him."</p> +<p>"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.</p> +<p>"What a word to apply to anybody or anything connected with last +night!"</p> +<p>"Are you very sore, Julie?"</p> +<p>"Well, on this very day of being turned out it hurts. I wonder +who is writing Lady Henry's letters for her this afternoon?"</p> +<p>"I hope they are not getting written," said the Duchess, +savagely; "and that she's missing you abominably. Good-bye--<i>au +revoir!</i> If I am twenty minutes late with Clarisse, I sha'n't +get any fitting, duchess or no duchess."</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>Julie rose and made her way down to the drawing-room again. The +Scotchwoman saw that she wanted to be alone and left her.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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!</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>Unless, indeed, if it came to this--that one must think no more +of love--but only of power--why, then--</p> +<p>A ring at the door, resounding through the quiet side street. +After a minute the Scotchwoman opened the drawing-room door.</p> +<p>"Please, miss, is this meant for you?"</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>"I don't understand him," said the Scotchwoman, shaking her +head.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>The man was soon feed and dismissed, and Miss Le Breton took the +letter back to the drawing-room.</p> +<p>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?</p> +<p>Now for his explanation:</p> +<p>/# "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.</p> +<p>"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.</p> +<p>"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.</p> +<p>"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.</p> +<p>"After all, when the pricks and pains of this great wrench are +over, shall we not all acknowledge that it is best the crash should +have come? You have suffered and borne too much. Now we shall see +you expand in a freer and happier life. The Duchess has asked me to +dinner to-morrow--the note has just arrived--so that I shall soon +have the chance of hearing from you some of those details I so much +want to know. But before then you will write?</p> +<p>"As for me, I am full of alternate hopes and fears. General +Fergus, as we walked home, was rather silent and bearish--I could +not flatter myself that he had any friendly intentions towards me +in his mind. But Montresor was more than kind, and gave me some +fresh opportunities of which I was very glad to avail myself. Well, +we shall know soon.</p> +<p>"You told me once that if, or when, this happened, you would +turn to your pen, and that Dr. Meredith would find you openings. +That is not to be regretted, I think. You have great gifts, which +will bring you pleasure in the using. I have got a good deal of +pleasure out of my small ones. Did you know that once, long ago, +when I was stationed at Gibraltar, I wrote a military novel?</p> +<p>"No, I don't pity you because you will need to turn your +intellect to account. You will be free, and mistress of your fate. +That, for those who, like you and me, are the 'children of their +works,' as the Spaniards say, is much.</p> +<p>"Dear friend--kind, persecuted friend!--I thought of you in the +watches of the night--I think of you this morning. Let me soon have +news of you." #/</p> +<p>Julie put the letter down upon her knee. Her face stiffened. +Nothing that she had ever received from him yet had rung so +false.</p> +<p>Grief? Complaint? No! Just a calm grasp of the game--a quick +playing of the pieces--so long as the game was there to play. If he +was appointed to this mission, in two or three weeks he would be +gone--to the heart of Africa. If not--</p> +<p>Anyway, two or three weeks were hers. Her mind seemed to settle +and steady itself.</p> +<p>She got up and went once more carefully through the house, +giving her attention to it. Yes, the whole had character and a kind +of charm. The little place would make, no doubt, an interesting and +distinguished background for the life she meant to put into it. She +would move in at once--in three days at most. Ways and means were +for the moment not difficult. During her life with Lady Henry she +had saved the whole of her own small <i>rentes</i>. Three hundred +pounds lay ready to her hand in an investment easily realized. And +she would begin to earn at once.</p> +<p>Thérèse--that should be her room--the cheerful, +blue-papered room with the south window. Julie felt a strange rush +of feeling as she thought of it. How curious that these +two--Léonie and little Thérèse--should be thus +brought back into her life! For she had no doubt whatever that they +would accept with eagerness what she had to offer. Her +foster-sister had married a school-master in one of the Communal +schools of Bruges while Julie was still a girl at the convent. +Léonie's lame child had been much with her grandmother, old +Madame Le Breton. To Julie she had been at first unwelcome and +repugnant. Then some quality in the frail creature had unlocked the +girl's sealed and often sullen heart.</p> +<p>While she had been living with Lady Henry, these two, the mother +and child, had been also in London; the mother, now a widow, +earning her bread as an inferior kind of French governess, the +child boarded out with various persons, and generally for long +periods of the year in hospital or convalescent home. To visit her +in her white hospital bed--to bring her toys and flowers, or merely +kisses and chat--had been, during these years, the only work of +charity on Julie's part which had been wholly secret, +disinterested, and constant.</p> +<br> +<br> +<hr style="width: 35%;"> +<br> +<br> +<h2><a name="XII"></a>XII</h2> +<br> +<p>It was a somewhat depressed company that found its straggling +way into the Duchess's drawing-room that evening between tea and +dinner.</p> +<p>Miss Le Breton did not appear at tea. The Duchess believed that, +after her inspection of the house in Heribert Street, Julie had +gone on to Bloomsbury to find Madame Bornier. Jacob Delafield was +there, not much inclined to talk, even as Julie's champion. And, +one by one, Lady Henry's oldest <i>habitués</i>, the +"criminals" of the night before, dropped in.</p> +<p>Dr. Meredith arrived with a portfolio containing what seemed to +be proof-sheets.</p> +<p>"Miss Le Breton not here?" he said, as he looked round him.</p> +<p>The Duchess explained that she might be in presently. The great +man sat down, his portfolio carefully placed beside him, and drank +his tea under what seemed a cloud of preoccupation.</p> +<p>Then appeared Lord Lackington and Sir Wilfrid Bury. Montresor +had sent a note from the House to say that if the debate would let +him he would dash up to Grosvenor Square for some dinner, but could +only stay an hour.</p> +<p>"Well, here we are again--the worst of us!" said the Duchess, +presently, with a sigh of bravado, as she handed Lord Lackington +his cup of tea and sank back in her chair to enjoy her own.</p> +<p>"Speak for yourselves, please," said Sir Wilfrid's soft, smiling +voice, as he daintily relieved his mustache of some of the +Duchess's cream.</p> +<p>"Oh, that's all very well," said the Duchess, throwing up a hand +in mock annoyance; "but why weren't you there?"</p> +<p>"I knew better."</p> +<p>"The people who keep out of scrapes are not the people one +loves," was the Duchess's peevish reply.</p> +<p>"Let him alone," said Lord Lackington, coming for some more +tea-cake. "He will get his deserts. Next Wednesday he will be +<i>tête-à-tête</i> with Lady Henry."</p> +<p>"Lady Henry is going to Torquay to-morrow," said Sir Wilfrid, +quietly.</p> +<p>"Ah!"</p> +<p>There was a general chorus of interrogation, amid which the +Duchess made herself heard.</p> +<p>"Then you've seen her?"</p> +<p>"To-day, for twenty minutes--all she was able to bear. She was +ill yesterday. She is naturally worse to-day. As to her state of +mind--"</p> +<p>The circle of faces drew eagerly nearer.</p> +<p>"Oh, it's war," said Sir Wilfrid, nodding--"undoubtedly +war--upon the Cave--if there is a Cave."</p> +<p>"Well, poor things, we must have something to shelter us!" cried +the Duchess. "The Cave is being aired to-day."</p> +<p>The interrogating faces turned her way. The Duchess explained +the situation, and drew the house in Heribert Street--with its +Cyclops-eye of a dormer window, and its Ionian columns--on the +tea-cloth with her nail.</p> +<p>"Ah," said Sir Wilfrid, crossing his knees reflectively. "Ah, +that makes it serious."</p> +<p>"Julie must have a place to live in," said the Duchess, +stiffly.</p> +<p>"I suppose Lady Henry would reply that there are still a few +houses in London which do not belong to her kinsman, the Duke of +Crowborough."</p> +<p>"Not perhaps to be had for the lending, and ready to step into +at a day's notice," said Lord Lackington, with his queer smile, +like the play of sharp sunbeams through a mist. "That's the worst +of our class. The margin between us and calamity is too wide. We +risk too little. Nobody goes to the workhouse."</p> +<p>Sir Wilfrid looked at him curiously. "Do I catch your meaning?" +he said, dropping his voice; "is it that if there had been no +Duchess, and no Heribert Street, Miss Le Breton would have managed +to put up with Lady Henry?"</p> +<p>Lord Lackington smiled again. "I think it probable.... As it is, +however, we are all the gainers. We shall now see Miss Julie at her +ease and ours."</p> +<p>"You have been for some time acquainted with Miss Le +Breton?"</p> +<p>"Oh, some time. I don't exactly remember. Lady Henry, of course, +is an old friend of mine, as she is of yours. Sometimes she is rude +to me. Then I stay away. But I always go back. She and I can +discuss things and people that nobody else recollects--no, as far +as that's concerned, you're not in it, Bury. Only this winter, +somehow, I have often gone round to see Lady Henry, and have found +Miss Le Breton instead so attractive--"</p> +<p>"Precisely," said Sir Wilfrid, laughing; "the whole case in a +nutshell."</p> +<p>"What puzzles me," continued his companion, in a musing voice, +"is how she can be so English as she is--with her foreign bringing +up. She has a most extraordinary instinct for people--people in +London--and their relations. I have never known her make a mistake. +Yet it is only five years since she began to come to England at +all; and she has lived but three with Lady Henry. It was clear, I +thought, that neither she nor Lady Henry wished to be questioned. +But, do you, for instance--I have no doubt Lady Henry tells you +more than she tells me--do you know anything of Mademoiselle +Julie's antecedents?"</p> +<p>Sir Wilfrid started. Through his mind ran the same reflection as +that to which the Duke had given expression in the morning--"<i>she +ought to reveal herself!</i>" Julie Le Breton had no right to leave +this old man in his ignorance, while those surrounding him were in +the secret. Thereby she made a spectacle of her mother's +father--made herself and him the sport of curious eyes. For who +could help watching them--every movement, every word? There was a +kind of indelicacy in it.</p> +<p>His reply was rather hesitating. "Yes, I happen to know +something. But I feel sure Miss Le Breton would prefer to tell you +herself. Ask her. While she was with Lady Henry there were reasons +for silence--"</p> +<p>"But, of course, I'll ask her," said his companion, eagerly, "if +you suppose that I may. A more hungry curiosity was never raised in +a human breast than in mine with regard to this dear lady. So +charming, handsome, and well bred--and so forlorn! That's the +paradox of it. The personality presupposes a <i>milieu</i>--else +how produce it? And there is no <i>milieu</i>, save this little +circle she has made for herself through Lady Henry.... Ah, and you +think I may ask her? I will--that's flat--I will!"</p> +<p>And the old man gleefully rubbed his hands, face and form full +of the vivacity of his imperishable youth.</p> +<p>"Choose your time and place," said Sir Wilfrid, hastily. "There +are very sad and tragic circumstances--"</p> +<p>Lord Lackington looked at him and nodded gayly, as much as to +say, "You distrust me with the sex? Me, who have had the whip-hand +of them since my cradle!"</p> +<p>Suddenly the Duchess interrupted. "Sir Wilfrid, you have seen +Lady Henry; which did she mind most--the coming-in or the +coffee?"</p> +<p>Bury returned, smiling, to the tea-table.</p> +<p>"The coming-in would have been nothing if it had led quickly to +the going-out. It was the coffee that ruined you."</p> +<p>"I see," said the Duchess, pouting--"it meant that it was +possible for us to enjoy ourselves without Lady Henry. That was the +offence."</p> +<p>"Precisely. It showed that you <i>were</i> enjoying yourselves. +Otherwise there would have been no lingering, and no coffee."</p> +<p>"I never knew coffee so fatal before," sighed the Duchess. "And +now"--it was evident that she shrank from the answer to her own +question--"she is really irreconcilable?"</p> +<p>"Absolutely. Let me beg you to take it for granted."</p> +<p>"She won't see any of us--not me?"</p> +<p>Sir Wilfrid hesitated.</p> +<p>"Make the Duke your ambassador."</p> +<p>The Duchess laughed, and flushed a little.</p> +<p>"And Mr. Montresor?"</p> +<p>"Ah," said Sir Wilfrid in another tone, "that's not to be +lightly spoken of."</p> +<p>"You don't mean--"</p> +<p>"How many years has that lasted?" said Sir Wilfrid, +meditatively.</p> +<p>"Thirty, I think--if not more. It was Lady Henry who told him of +his son's death, when his wife daren't do it."</p> +<p>There was a silence. Montresor had lost his only son, a +subaltern in the Lancers, in the action of Alumbagh, on the way to +the relief of Lucknow.</p> +<p>Then the Duchess broke out:</p> +<p>"I know that you think in your heart of hearts that Julie has +been in fault, and that we have all behaved abominably!"</p> +<p>"My dear lady," said Sir Wilfrid, after a moment, "in Persia we +believe in fate; I have brought the trick home."</p> +<p>"Yes, yes, that's it!" exclaimed Lord Lackington--it! When Lady +Henry wanted a companion--and fate brought her Miss Le +Breton--"</p> +<p>"Last night's coffee was already drunk," put in Sir Wilfrid.</p> +<p>Meredith's voice, raised and a trifle harsh, made itself +heard.</p> +<p>"Why you should dignify an ugly jealousy by fine words I don't +know. For some women--women like our old friend--gratitude is hard. +That is the moral of this tale."</p> +<p>"The only one?" said Sir Wilfrid, not without a mocking twist of +the lip.</p> +<p>"The only one that matters. Lady Henry had found, or might have +found, a daughter--"</p> +<p>"I understand she bargained for a companion."</p> +<p>"Very well. Then she stands upon her foolish rights, and loses +both daughter and companion. At seventy, life doesn't forgive you a +blunder of that kind."</p> +<p>Sir Wilfrid silently shook his head. Meredith threw back his +blanched mane of hair, his deep eyes kindling under the implied +contradiction.</p> +<p>"I am an old comrade of Lady Henry's," he said, quickly. "My +record, you'll find, comes next to yours, Bury. But if Lady Henry +is determined to make a quarrel of this, she must make it. I regret +nothing."</p> +<p>"What madness has seized upon all these people?" thought Bury, +as he withdrew from the discussion. The fire, the unwonted fire, in +Meredith's speech and aspect, amazed him. From the corner to which +he had retreated he studied the face of the journalist. It was a +face subtly and strongly lined by much living--of the intellectual, +however, rather than the physical sort; breathing now a studious +dignity, the effect of the broad sweep of brow under the +high-peaked lines of grizzled hair, and now broken, tempestuous, +scornful, changing with the pliancy of an actor. The head was sunk +a little in the shoulders, as though dragged back by its own +weight. The form which it commanded had the movements of a man no +less accustomed to rule in his own sphere than Montresor +himself.</p> +<p>To Sir Wilfrid the famous editor was still personally +mysterious, after many years of intermittent acquaintance. He was +apparently unmarried; or was there perhaps a wife, picked up in a +previous state of existence, and hidden away with her offspring at +Clapham or Hornsey or Peckham? Bury could remember, years before, a +dowdy old sister, to whom Lady Henry had been on occasion formally +polite. Otherwise, nothing. What were the great man's origins and +antecedents--his family, school, university? Sir Wilfrid did not +know; he did not believe that any one knew. An amazing mastery of +the German, and, it was said, the Russian tongues, suggested a +foreign education; but neither on this ground nor any other +connected with his personal history did Meredith encourage the +inquirer. It was often reported that he was of Jewish descent, and +there were certain traits, both of feature and character, that lent +support to the notion. If so, the strain was that of Heine or +Disraeli, not the strain of Commerce.</p> +<p>At any rate, he was one of the most powerful men of his day--the +owner, through <i>The New Rambler</i>, of an influence which now +for some fifteen years had ranked among the forces to be reckoned +with. A man in whom politics assumed a tinge of sombre poetry; a +man of hatreds, ideals, indignations, yet of habitually sober +speech. As to passions, Sir Wilfrid could have sworn that, wife or +no wife, the man who could show that significance of mouth and eye +had not gone through life without knowing the stress and shock of +them.</p> +<p>Was he, too, beguiled by this woman?--<i>he, too?</i> For a +little behind him, beside the Duchess, sat Jacob Delafield; and, +during his painful interview that day with Lady Henry, Sir Wilfrid +had been informed of several things with regard to Jacob Delafield +he had not known before. So she had refused him--this lady who was +now the heart of this whirlwind? Permanently? Lady Henry had poured +scorn on the notion. She was merely sure of him; could keep him in +a string to play with as she chose. Meanwhile the handsome soldier +was metal more attractive. Sir Wilfrid reflected, with an inward +shrug, that, once let a woman give herself to such a fury as +possessed Lady Henry, and there did not seem to be much to choose +between her imaginings and those of the most vulgar of her sex.</p> +<p>So Jacob could be played with--whistled on and whistled off as +Miss Le Breton chose? Yet his was not a face that suggested it, any +more than the face of Dr. Meredith. The young man's countenance was +gradually changing its aspect for Sir Wilfrid, in a somewhat +singular way, as old impressions of his character died away and new +ones emerged. The face, now, often recalled to Bury a portrait by +some Holbeinesque master, which he had seen once in the Basle +Museum and never forgotten. A large, thin-lipped mouth that, +without weakness, suggested patience; the long chin of a man of +will; nose, bluntly cut at the tip, yet in the nostril and bridge +most delicate; grayish eyes, with a veil of reverie drawn, as it +were, momentarily across them, and showing behind the veil a kind +of stern sweetness; fair hair low on the brow, which was heavy, and +made a massive shelter for the eyes. So looked the young German who +had perhaps heard Melanchthon; so, in this middle nineteenth +century, looked Jacob Delafield. No, anger makes obtuse; that, no +doubt, was Lady Henry's case. At any rate, in Delafield's presence +her theory did not commend itself.</p> +<p>But if Delafield had not echoed them, the little Duchess had +received Meredith's remarks with enthusiasm.</p> +<p>"Regret! No, indeed! Why should we regret anything, except that +Julie has been miserable so long? She <i>has</i> had a bad time. +Every day and all day. Ah, you don't know--none of you. You haven't +seen all the little things as I have."</p> +<p>"The errands, and the dogs," said Sir William, slyly.</p> +<p>The Duchess threw him a glance half conscious, half resentful, +and went on:</p> +<p>"It has been one small torture after another. Even when a +person's old you can't bear more than a certain amount, can you? +You oughtn't to. No, let's be thankful it's all over, and +Julie--our dear, delightful Julie--who has done everybody in this +room all sorts of kindnesses, hasn't she?"</p> +<p>An assenting murmur ran round the circle.</p> +<p>"Julie's <i>free</i>! Only she's <i>very</i> lonely. We must see +to that, mustn't we? Lady Henry can buy another companion +to-morrow--she will. She has heaps of money and heaps of friends, +and she'll tell her own story to them all. But Julie has only us. +If we desert her--"</p> +<p>"Desert her!" said a voice in the distance, half amused, half +electrical. Bury thought it was Jacob's.</p> +<p>"Of course we sha'n't desert her!" cried the Duchess. "We shall +rally round her and carry her through. If Lady Henry makes herself +disagreeable, then we'll fight. If not, we'll let her cool down. +Oh, Julie, darling--here you are!"</p> +<p>The Duchess sprang up and caught her entering friend by the +hand.</p> +<p>"And here are we," with a wave round the circle. "This is your +court--your St. Germain."</p> +<p>"So you mean me to die in exile," said Julie, with a quavering +smile, as she drew off her gloves. Then she looked at her friends. +"Oh, how good of you all to come! Lord Lackington!" She went up to +him impetuously, and he, taken by surprise, yielded his hands, +which she took in both hers. "It was foolish, I know, but you don't +think it was so <i>bad</i>, do you?"</p> +<p>She gazed up at him wistfully. Her lithe form seemed almost to +cling to the old man. Instinctively, Jacob, Meredith, Sir Wilfrid +Bury withdrew their eyes. The room held its breath. As for Lord +Lackington, he colored like a girl.</p> +<p>"No, no; a mistake, perhaps, for all of us; but more ours than +yours, mademoiselle--much more! Don't fret. Indeed, you look as if +you hadn't slept, and that mustn't be. You must think that, sooner +or later, it was bound to come. Lady Henry will soften in time, and +you will know so well how to meet her. But now we have your future +to think of. Only sit down. You mustn't look so tired. Where have +you been wandering?"</p> +<p>And with a stately courtesy, her hand still in his, he took her +to a chair and helped her to remove her heavy cloak.</p> +<p>"My future!" She shivered as she dropped into her seat.</p> +<p>How weary and beaten-down she looked--the heroine of such a +turmoil! Her eyes travelled from face to face, +shrinking--unconsciously appealing. In the dim, soft color of the +room, her white face and hands, striking against her black dress, +were strangely living and significant. They spoke command--through +weakness, through sex. For that, in spite of intellectual +distinction, was, after all, her secret. She breathed +femininity--the old common spell upon the blood.</p> +<p>"I don't know why you're all so kind to me," she murmured. "Let +me disappear. I can go into the country and earn my living there. +Then I shall be no more trouble."</p> +<p>Unseen himself, Sir Wilfrid surveyed her. He thought her a +consummate actress, and revelled in each new phase.</p> +<p>The Duchess, half laughing, half crying, began to scold her +friend. Delafield bent over Julie Le Breton's chair.</p> +<p>"Have you had some tea?"</p> +<p>The smile in his eyes provoked a faint answer in hers. While she +was declaring that she was in no need whatever of physical +sustenance, Meredith advanced with his portfolio. He looked the +editor merely, and spoke with a business-like brevity.</p> +<p>"I have brought the sheets of the new Shelley book, Miss Le +Breton. It is due for publication on the 22d. Kindly let me have +your review within a week. It may run to two columns--possibly even +two and a half. You will find here also the particulars of one or +two other things--let me know, please, what you will +undertake."</p> +<p>Julie put out a languid hand for the portfolio.</p> +<p>"I don't think you ought to trust me."</p> +<p>"What do you want of her?" said Lord Lackington, briskly. +"'Chatter about Harriet?' I could write you reams of that myself. I +once saw Harriet."</p> +<p>"Ah!"</p> +<p>Meredith, with whom the Shelley cult was a deep-rooted passion, +started and looked round; then sharply repressed the eagerness on +his tongue and sat down by Miss Le Breton, with whom, in a lowered +voice, he began to discuss the points to be noticed in the sheets +handed over to her. No stronger proof could he have given of his +devotion to her. Julie knew it, and, rousing herself, she met him +with a soft attention and docility; thus tacitly relinquishing, as +Bury noticed with amusement, all talk of "disappearance."</p> +<p>Only with himself, he suspected, was the fair lady ill at ease. +And, indeed, it was so. Julie, by her pallor, her humility, had +thrown herself, as it were, into the arms of her friends, and each +was now vying with the other as to how best to cheer and console +her. Meanwhile her attention was really bent upon her critic--her +only critic in this assembly; and he discovered various attempts to +draw him into conversation. And when Lord Lackington, discomfited +by Meredith, had finished discharging his literary recollections +upon him, Sir Wilfrid became complaisant; Julie slipped in and held +him.</p> +<p>Leaning her chin on both hands, she bent towards him, fixing him +with her eyes. And in spite of his antagonism he no longer felt +himself strong enough to deny that the eyes were beautiful, +especially with this tragic note in them of fatigue and pain.</p> +<p>"Sir Wilfrid"--she spoke in low entreaty--"you <i>must</i> help +me to prevent any breach between Lady Henry and Mr. Montresor."</p> +<p>He looked at her gayly.</p> +<p>"I fear," he said, "you are too late. That point is settled, as +I understand from herself."</p> +<p>"Surely not--so soon!"</p> +<p>"There was an exchange of letters this morning."</p> +<p>"Oh, but you can prevent it--you must!" She clasped her +hands.</p> +<p>"No," he said, slowly, "I fear you must accept it. Their +relation was a matter of old habit. Like other things old and +frail, it bears shock and disturbance badly."</p> +<p>She sank back in her chair, raising her hands and letting them +fall with a gesture of despair.</p> +<p>One little stroke of punishment--just one! Surely there was no +cruelty in that. Sir Wilfrid caught the Horatian lines dancing +through his head:</p> + "Just oblige me and touch<br> + With your wand that minx +Chloe--<br> + But don't hurt her much!"<br> +<p>Yet here was Jacob interposing!--Jacob, who had evidently been +watching his mild attempt at castigation, no doubt with +disapproval. Lover or no lover--what did the man expect? Under his +placid exterior, Sir Wilfrid's mind was, in truth, hot with +sympathy for the old and helpless.</p> +<p>Delafield bent over Miss Le Breton.</p> +<p>"You will go and rest? Evelyn advises it."</p> +<p>She rose to her feet, and most of the party rose, too.</p> +<p>"Good-bye--good-bye," said Lord Lackington, offering her a +cordial hand. "Rest and forget. Everything blows over. And at +Easter you must come to me in the country. Blanche will be with me, +and my granddaughter Aileen, if I can tempt them away from Italy. +Aileen's a little fairy; you'd be charmed with her. Now mind, +that's a promise. You must certainly come."</p> +<p>The Duchess had paused in her farewell nothings with Sir Wilfrid +to observe her friend. Julie, with her eyes on the ground, murmured +thanks; and Lord Lackington, straight as a dart to-night, carrying +his seventy-five years as though they were the merest trifle, made +a stately and smiling exit. Julie looked round upon the faces left. +In her own heart she read the same judgment as in their eyes: +"<i>The old man must know!</i>"</p> +<p>The Duke came into the drawing-room half an hour later in quest +of his wife. He was about to leave town by a night train for the +north, and his temper was, apparently, far from good.</p> +<p>The Duchess was stretched on the sofa in the firelight, her +hands behind her head, dreaming. Whether it was the sight of so +much ease that jarred on the Duke's ruffled nerves or no, certain +it is that he inflicted a thorny good-bye. He had seen Lady Henry, +he said, and the reality was even worse than he had supposed. There +was absolutely nothing to be said for Miss Le Breton, and he was +ashamed of himself to have been so weakly talked over in the matter +of the house. His word once given, of course, there was an end of +it--for six months. After that, Miss Le Breton must provide for +herself. Meanwhile, Lady Henry refused to receive the Duchess, and +would be some time before she forgave himself. It was all most +annoying, and he was thankful to be going away, for, Lady Rose or +no Lady Rose, he really could not have entertained the lady with +civility.</p> +<p>"Oh, well, never mind, Freddie," said the Duchess, springing up. +"She'll be gone before you come back, and I'll look after her."</p> +<p>The Duke offered a rather sulky embrace, walked to the door, and +came back.</p> +<p>"I really very much dislike this kind of gossip," he said, +stiffly, "but perhaps I had better say that Lady Henry believes +that the affair with Delafield was only one of several. She talks +of a certain Captain Warkworth--"</p> +<p>"Yes," said the Duchess, nodding. "I know; but he sha'n't have +Julie."</p> +<p>Her smile completed the Duke's annoyance.</p> +<p>"What have you to do with it? I beg, Evelyn--I insist--that you +leave Miss Le Breton's love affairs alone."</p> +<p>"You forget, Freddie, that she is my <i>friend</i>."</p> +<p>The little creature fronted him, all wilfulness and breathing +hard, her small hands clasped on her breast.</p> +<p>With an angry exclamation the Duke departed.</p> +<hr style="width: 25%;"> +<p>At half-past eight a hansom dashed up to Crowborough House. +Montresor emerged.</p> +<p>He found the two ladies and Jacob Delafield just beginning +dinner, and stayed with them an hour; but it was not an hour of +pleasure. The great man was tired with work and debate, depressed +also by the quarrel with his old friend. Julie did not dare to put +questions, and guiltily shrank into herself. She divined that a +great price was being paid on her behalf, and must needs bitterly +ask whether anything that she could offer or plead was worth +it--bitterly suspect, also, that the query had passed through other +minds than her own.</p> +<p>After dinner, as Montresor rose with the Duchess to take his +leave, Julie got a word with him in the corridor.</p> +<p>"You will give me ten minutes' talk?" she said, lifting her pale +face to him. "You mustn't, mustn't quarrel with Lady Henry because +of me."</p> +<p>He drew himself up, perhaps with a touch of haughtiness.</p> +<p>"Lady Henry could end it in a moment. Don't, I beg of you, +trouble your head about the matter. Even as an old friend, one must +be allowed one's self-respect."</p> +<p>"But mayn't I--"</p> +<p>"Nearly ten o'clock!" he cried, looking at his watch. "I must be +off this moment. So you are going to the house in Heribert Street? +I remember Lady Mary Leicester perfectly. As soon as you are +settled, tell me, and I will present myself. Meanwhile "--he smiled +and bent his black head towards her--"look in to-morrow's papers +for some interesting news."</p> +<p>He sprang into his hansom and was gone.</p> +<p>Julie went slowly up-stairs. Of course she understood. The long +intrigue had reached its goal, and within twelve hours the +<i>Times</i> would announce the appointment of Captain Warkworth, +D.S.O., to the command of the Mokembe military mission. He would +have obtained his heart's desire--through her.</p> +<p>How true were those last words, perhaps only Julie knew. She +looked back upon all the manoeuvres and influences she had brought +to bear--flattery here, interest or reciprocity there, the lures of +Crowborough House, the prestige of Lady Henry's drawing-room. Wheel +by wheel she had built up her cunning machine, and the machine had +worked. No doubt the last completing touch had been given the night +before. Her culminating offence against Lady Henry--the occasion of +her disgrace and banishment--had been to Warkworth the +stepping-stone of fortune.</p> +<p>What "gossamer girl" could have done so much? She threw back her +head proudly and heard the beating of her heart.</p> +<p>Lady Henry was fiercely forgotten. She opened the drawing-room +door, absorbed in a counting of the hours till she and Warkworth +should meet.</p> +<p>Then, amid the lights and shadows of the Duchess's drawing-room, +Jacob Delafield rose and came towards her. Her exaltation dropped +in a moment. Some testing, penetrating influence seemed to breathe +from this man, which filled her with a moral discomfort, a curious +restlessness. Did he guess the nature of her feeling for Warkworth? +Was he acquainted with the efforts she had been making for the +young soldier? She could not be sure; he had never given her the +smallest sign. Yet she divined that few things escaped him where +the persons who touched his feelings were concerned. And +Evelyn--the dear chatterbox--certainly suspected.</p> +<p>"How tired you are!" he said to her, gently. "What a day it has +been for you! Evelyn is writing letters. Let me bring you the +papers--and please don't talk."</p> +<p>She submitted to a sofa, to an adjusted light, to the papers on +her knee. Then Delafield withdrew and took up a book.</p> +<p>She could not rest, however; visions of the morrow and of +Warkworth's triumphant looks kept flashing through her. Yet all the +while Delafield's presence haunted her--she could not forget him, +and presently she addressed him.</p> +<p>"Mr. Delafield!"</p> +<p>He heard the low voice and came.</p> +<p>"I have never thanked you for your goodness last night. I do +thank you now--most earnestly."</p> +<p>"You needn't. You know very well what I would do to serve you if +I could."</p> +<p>"Even when you think me in the wrong?" said Julie, with a +little, hysterical laugh.</p> +<p>Her conscience smote her. Why provoke this intimate +talk--wantonly--with the man she had made suffer? Yet her +restlessness, which was partly nervous fatigue, drove her on.</p> +<p>Delafield flushed at her words.</p> +<p>"How have I given you cause to say that?"</p> +<p>"Oh, you are very transparent. One sees that you are always +troubling yourself about the right and wrong of things."</p> +<p>"All very well for one's self," said Delafield, trying to laugh. +"I hope I don't seem to you to be setting up as a judge of other +people's right and wrong?"</p> +<p>"Yes, yes, you do!" she said, passionately. Then, as he winced, +"No, I don't mean that. But you do judge--it is in your nature--and +other people feel it."</p> +<p>"I didn't know I was such a prig," said Delafield, humbly. "It +is true I am always puzzling over things."</p> +<p>Julie was silent. She was indeed secretly convinced that he no +more approved the escapade of the night before than did Sir Wilfrid +Bury. Through the whole evening she had been conscious of a +watchful anxiety and resistance on his part. Yet he had stood by +her to the end--so warmly, so faithfully.</p> +<p>He sat down beside her, and Julie felt a fresh pang of remorse, +perhaps of alarm. Why had she called him to her? What had they to +do with each other? But he soon reassured her. He began to talk of +Meredith, and the work before her--the important and glorious work, +as he naïvely termed it, of the writer.</p> +<p>And presently he turned upon her with sudden feeling.</p> +<p>"You accused me, just now, of judging what I have no business to +judge. If you think that I regret the severance of your relation +with Lady Henry, you are quite, quite mistaken. It has been the +dream of my life this last year to see you free--mistress of your +own life. It--it made me mad that you should be ordered about like +a child--dependent upon another person's will."</p> +<p>She looked at him curiously.</p> +<p>"I know. That revolts you always--any form of command? Evelyn +tells me that you carry it to curious lengths with your servants +and laborers."</p> +<p>He drew back, evidently disconcerted.</p> +<p>"Oh, I try some experiments. They generally break down."</p> +<p>"You try to do without servants, Evelyn says, as much as +possible."</p> +<p>"Well, if I do try, I don't succeed," he said, laughing. +"But"--his eyes kindled--"isn't it worth while, during a bit of +one's life, to escape, if one can, from some of the paraphernalia +in which we are all smothered? Look there! What right have I to +turn my fellow-creatures into bedizened automata like that?"</p> +<p>And he threw out an accusing hand towards the two powdered +footmen, who were removing the coffee-cups and making up the fire +in the next room, while the magnificent groom of the chambers stood +like a statue, receiving some orders from the Duchess.</p> +<p>Julie, however, showed no sympathy.</p> +<p>"They are only automata in the drawing-room. Down-stairs they +are as much alive as you or I."</p> +<p>"Well, let us put it that I prefer other kinds of luxury," said +Delafield. "However, as I appear to have none of the qualities +necessary to carry out my notions, they don't get very far."</p> +<p>"You would like to shake hands with the butler?" said Julie, +musing. "I knew a case of that kind. But the butler gave +warning."</p> +<p>Delafield laughed.</p> +<p>"Perhaps the simpler thing would be to do without the +butler."</p> +<p>"I am curious," she said, smiling--"very curious. Sir Wilfrid, +for instance, talks of going down to stay with you?"</p> +<p>"Why not? He'd come off extremely well. There's an ex-butler, +and an ex-cook of Chudleigh's settled in the village. When I have a +visitor, they come in and take possession. We live like +fighting-cocks."</p> +<p>"So nobody knows that, in general, you live like a workman?"</p> +<p>Delafield looked impatient.</p> +<p>"Somebody seems to have been cramming Evelyn with ridiculous +tales, and she's been spreading them. I must have it out with +her."</p> +<p>"I expect there is a good deal in them," said Julie. Then, +unexpectedly, she raised her eyes and gave him a long and rather +strange look. "Why do you dislike having servants and being waited +upon so much, I wonder? Is it--you won't be angry?--that you have +such a strong will, and you do these things to tame it?"</p> +<p>Delafield made a sudden movement, and Julie had no sooner spoken +the words than she regretted them.</p> +<p>"So you think I should have made a jolly tyrannical +slave-owner?" said Delafield, after a moment's pause.</p> +<p>Julie bent towards him with a charming look of appeal--almost of +penitence. "On the contrary, I think you would have been as good to +your slaves as you are to your friends."</p> +<p>His eyes met hers quietly.</p> +<p>"Thank you. That was kind of you. And as to giving orders, and +getting one's way, don't suppose I let Chudleigh's estate go to +ruin! It's only"--he hesitated--"the small personal tyrannies of +every day that I'd like to minimize. They brutalize half the +fellows I know."</p> +<p>"You'll come to them," said Julie, absently. Then she colored, +suddenly remembering the possible dukedom that awaited him.</p> +<p>His brow contracted a little, as though he understood. He made +no reply. Julie, with her craving to be approved--to say what +pleased--could not leave it there.</p> +<p>"I wish I understood," she said, softly, after a moment, "what, +or who it was that gave you these opinions."</p> +<p>Getting still no answer, she must perforce meet the gray eyes +bent upon her, more expressively, perhaps, than their owner knew. +"That you shall understand," he said, after a minute, in a voice +which was singularly deep and full, "whenever you choose to +ask."</p> +<p>Julie shrank and drew back.</p> +<p>"Very well," she said, trying to speak lightly. "I'll hold you +to that. Alack! I had forgotten a letter I must write."</p> +<p>And she pretended to write it, while Delafield buried himself in +the newspapers.</p> +<br> +<br> +<hr style="width: 35%;"> +<br> +<br> +<h2><a name="XIII"></a>XIII</h2> +<br> +<p>Julie's curiosity--passing and perfunctory as it was--concerning +the persons and influences that had worked upon Jacob Delafield +since his college days, was felt in good earnest by not a few of +Delafield's friends. For he was a person rich in friends, reserved +as he generally was, and crotchety as most of them thought him. The +mixture of self-evident strength and manliness in his physiognomy +with something delicate and evasive, some hindering element of +reflection or doubt, was repeated in his character. On the one side +he was a robust, healthy Etonian, who could ride, shoot, and golf +like the rest of his kind, who used the terse, slangy ways of +speech of the ordinary Englishman, who loved the land and its +creatures, and had a natural hatred for a poacher; and on another +he was a man haunted by dreams and spiritual voices, a man for +whom, as he paced his tired horse homeward after a day's run, there +would rise on the grays and purples of the winter dusk far-shining +"cities of God" and visions of a better life for man. He read much +poetry, and the New Testament spoke to him imperatively, though in +no orthodox or accustomed way. Ruskin, and the earlier work of +Tolstoy, then just beginning to take hold of the English mind, had +affected his thought and imagination, as the generation before him +had been affected by Carlyle, Emerson, and George Sand.</p> +<p>This present phase of his life, however, was the outcome of much +that was turbulent and shapeless in his first youth. He seemed to +himself to have passed through Oxford under a kind of eclipse. All +that he could remember of two-thirds of his time there was an +immoderate amount of eating, drinking, and sleeping. A heavy animal +existence, disturbed by moments of unhappiness and remorse, or, at +best, lightened by intervals and gleams of friendship with two or +three men who tried to prod him out of his lethargy, and cherished +what appeared, to himself in particular, a strange and unreasonable +liking for him. Such, to his own thinking, had been his Oxford +life, up to the last year of his residence there.</p> +<p>Then, when he was just making certain of an ignominious failure +in the final schools, he became more closely acquainted with one of +the college tutors, whose influence was to be the spark which +should at last fire the clay. This modest, heroic, and learned man +was a paralyzed invalid, owing to an accident in the prime of life. +He had lost the use of his lower limbs--"dead from the waist down." +Yet such was the strength of his moral and intellectual life that +he had become, since the catastrophe, one of the chief forces of +his college. The invalid-chair on which he wheeled himself, +recumbent, from room to room, and from which he gave his lectures, +was, in the eyes of Oxford, a symbol not of weakness, but of +touching and triumphant victory. He gave himself no airs of +resignation or of martyrdom. He simply lived his life--except +during those crises of weakness or pain when his friends were shut +out--as though it were like any other life, save only for what he +made appear an insignificant physical limitation. Scholarship, +college business or college sports, politics and literature--his +mind, at least, was happy, strenuous, and at home in them all. To +have pitied him would have been a mere impertinence. While in his +own heart, which never grieved over himself, there were treasures +of compassion for the weak, the tempted, and the unsuccessful, +which spent themselves in secret, simple ways, unknown to his most +intimate friends.</p> +<p>This man's personality it was which, like the branch of healing +on bitter waters, presently started in Jacob Delafield's nature +obscure processes of growth and regeneration. The originator of +them knew little of what was going on. He was Delafield's tutor for +Greats, in the ordinary college routine; Delafield took essays to +him, and occasionally lingered to talk. But they never became +exactly intimate. A few conversations of "pith and moment"; a warm +shake of the hand and a keen look of pleasure in the blue eyes of +the recumbent giant when, after one year of superhuman but belated +effort, Delafield succeeded in obtaining a second class; a little +note of farewell, affectionate and regretful, when Delafield left +the university; an occasional message through a common +friend--Delafield had little more than these to look back upon, +outside the discussions of historical or philosophical subjects +which had entered into their relation as pupil and teacher.</p> +<p>And now the paralyzed tutor was dead, leaving behind him a +volume of papers on classical subjects, the reputation of an +admirable scholar, and the fragrance of a dear and honored name. +His pupils had been many; they counted among the most distinguished +of England's youth; and all of them owed him much. Few people +thought of Delafield when the list of them was recited; and yet, in +truth, Jacob's debt was greater than any; for he owed this man +nothing less than his soul.</p> +<p>No doubt the period at Oxford had been rather a period of +obscure conflict than of mere idleness and degeneracy, as it had +seemed to be. But it might easily have ended in physical and moral +ruin, and, as it was--thanks to Courtenay--Delafield went out to +the business of life, a man singularly master of himself, +determined to live his own life for his own ends.</p> +<p>In the first place, he was conscious, like many other young men +of his time, of a strong repulsion towards the complexities and +artificialities of modern society. As in the forties, a time of +social stir was rising out of a time of stagnation. Social +settlements were not yet founded, but the experiments which led to +them were beginning. Jacob looked at the life of London, the clubs +and the country-houses, the normal life of his class, and turned +from it in aversion. He thought, sometimes, of emigrating, in +search of a new heaven and a new earth, as men emigrated in the +forties.</p> +<p>But his mother and sister were alone in the world--his mother a +somewhat helpless being, his sister still very young and unmarried. +He could not reconcile it to his conscience to go very far from +them.</p> +<p>He tried the bar, amid an inner revolt that only increased with +time. And the bar implied London, and the dinners and dances of +London, which, for a man of his family, the probable heir to the +lands and moneys of the Chudleighs, were naturally innumerable. He +was much courted, in spite, perhaps because, of his oddities; and +it was plain to him that with only a small exercise of those +will-forces he felt accumulating within him, most of the normal +objects of ambition were within his grasp. The English aristocratic +class, as we all know, is no longer exclusive. It mingles freely +with the commoner world on apparently equal terms. But all the +while its personal and family cohesion is perhaps greater than +ever. The power of mere birth, it seemed to Jacob, was hardly less +in the England newly possessed of household suffrage than in the +England of Charles James Fox's youth, though it worked through +other channels. And for the persons in command of this power, a +certain <i>appareil de vie</i> was necessary, taken for granted. So +much income, so many servants, such and such habits--these things +imposed themselves. Life became a soft and cushioned business, with +an infinity of layers between it and any hard reality--a round pea +in a silky pod.</p> +<p>And he meanwhile found himself hungry to throw aside these tamed +and trite forms of existence, and to penetrate to the harsh, true, +simple things behind. His imagination and his heart turned towards +the primitive, indispensable labors on which society rests--the +life of the husbandman, the laborer, the smith, the woodman, the +builder; he dreamed the old, enchanted dream of living with nature; +of becoming the brother not of the few, but of the many. He was +still reading in chambers, however, when his first cousin, the +Duke, a melancholy semi-invalid, a widower, with an only son +tuberculous almost from his birth, arrived from abroad. Jacob was +brought into new contact with him. The Duke liked him, and offered +him the agency of his Essex property. Jacob accepted, partly that +he might be quit of the law, partly that he might be in the country +and among the poor, partly for reasons, or ghosts of reasons, +unavowed even to himself. The one terror that haunted his life was +the terror of the dukedom. This poor, sickly lad, the heir, with +whom he soon made warm friends, and the silent, morbid Duke, with +the face of Charles V. at St. Just--he became, in a short time, +profoundly and pitifully attached to them. It pleased him to serve +them; above all did it please him to do all he could, and to incite +others to do all they could, to keep these two frail persons +cheered and alive. His own passionate dread lest he should suddenly +find himself in their place, gave a particular poignancy to the +service he was always ready to render them of his best.</p> +<p>The Duke's confidence in him had increased rapidly. Delafield +was now about to take over the charge of another of the Duke's +estates, in the Midlands, and much of the business connected with +some important London property was also coming into his hands. He +had made himself a good man of business where another's interests +were concerned, and his dreams did no harm to the Duke's revenues. +He gave, indeed, a liberal direction to the whole policy of the +estate, and, as he had said to Julie, the Duke did not forbid +experiments.</p> +<p>As to his own money, he gave it away as wisely as he could, +which is, perhaps, not saying very much for the schemes and +Quixotisms of a young man of eight-and-twenty. At any rate, he gave +it away--to his mother and sister first, then to a variety of +persons and causes. Why should he save a penny of it? He had some +money of his own, besides his income from the Duke. It was +disgusting that he should have so much, and that it should be, +apparently, so very easy for him to have indefinitely more if he +wanted it.</p> +<p>He lived in a small cottage, in the simplest, plainest way +compatible with his work and with the maintenance of two decently +furnished rooms for any friend who might chance to visit him. He +read much and thought much. But he was not a man of any commanding +speculative or analytic ability. It would have been hard for him to +give any very clear or logical account of himself and his deepest +beliefs. Nevertheless, with every year that passed he became a more +remarkable <i>character</i>--his will stronger, his heart gentler. +In the village where he lived they wondered at him a good deal, and +often laughed at him. But if he had left them, certainly the +children and the old people would have felt as though the sun had +gone out.</p> +<p>In London he showed little or nothing of his peculiar ways and +pursuits; was, in fact, as far as anybody knew--outside half a +dozen friends--just the ordinary, well-disposed young man, engaged +in a business that every one understood. With Lady Henry, his +relations, apart from his sympathy with Julie Le Breton, had been +for some time rather difficult. She made gratitude hard for one of +the most grateful of men. When the circumstances of the Hubert +Delafields had been much straitened, after Lord Hubert's death, +Lady Henry had come to their aid, and had, in particular, spent +fifteen hundred pounds on Jacob's school and college education. But +there are those who can make a gift burn into the bones of those +who receive it. Jacob had now saved nearly the whole sum, and was +about to repay her. Meanwhile his obligation, his relationship, and +her age made it natural, or rather imperative, that he should be +often in her house; but when he was with her the touch of arrogant +brutality in her nature, especially towards servants and +dependants, roused him almost to fury. She knew it, and would often +exercise her rough tongue merely for the pleasure of tormenting +him.</p> +<p>No sooner, therefore, had he come to know the fragile, +distinguished creature whom Lady Henry had brought back with her +one autumn as her companion than his sympathies were instantly +excited, first by the mere fact that she was Lady Henry's +dependant, and then by the confidence, as to her sad story and +strange position, which she presently reposed in him and his cousin +Evelyn. On one or two occasions, very early in his acquaintance +with her, he was a witness of some small tyranny of Lady Henry's +towards her. He saw the shrinking of the proud nature, and the pain +thrilled through his own nerves as though the lash had touched +himself. Presently it became a joy to him whenever he was in town +to conspire with Evelyn Crowborough for her pleasure and relief. It +was the first time he had ever conspired, and it gave him sometimes +a slight shock to see how readily these two charming women lent +themselves, on occasion, to devices that had the aspect of +intrigue, and involved a good deal of what, in his own case, he +would have roundly dubbed lying. And, in truth, if he had known, +they did not find him a convenient ally, and he was by no means +always in their confidence.</p> +<p>Once, about six months after Julie's arrival in Bruton Street, +he met her on a spring morning crossing Kensington Gardens with the +dogs. She looked startlingly white and ill, and when he spoke to +her with eager sympathy her mouth quivered and her dark eyes +clouded with tears. The sight produced an extraordinary effect on a +man large-hearted and simple, for whom women still moved in an +atmosphere of romance. His heart leaped within him as she let +herself be talked with and comforted. And when her delicate hand +rested in his as they said good-bye, he was conscious of +feelings--wild, tumultuous feelings--to which, in his walk homeward +through the spring glades of the park, he gave impetuous +course.</p> +<p>Romantic, indeed, the position was, for romance rests on +contrast. Jacob, who knew Julie Le Breton's secret, was thrilled or +moved by the contrasts of her existence at every turn. Her success +and her subjection; the place in Lady Henry's circle which Lady +Henry had, in the first instance, herself forced her to take, +contrasted with the shifts and evasions, the poor, tortuous ways by +which, alas! she must often escape Lady Henry's later jealousy; her +intellectual strength and her most feminine weaknesses; these +things stirred and kept up in Jacob a warm and passionate pity. The +more clearly he saw the specks in her glory, the more vividly did +she appear to him a princess in distress, bound by physical or +moral fetters not of her own making. None of the well-born, +well-trained damsels who had been freely thrown across his path had +so far beguiled him in the least. Only this woman of doubtful birth +and antecedents, lonely, sad, and enslaved amid what people called +her social triumphs, stole into his heart--beautified by what he +chose to consider her misfortunes, and made none the less +attractive by the fact that as he pursued, she retreated; as he +pressed, she grew cold.</p> +<p>When, indeed, after their friendship had lasted about a year, he +proposed to her and she refused him, his passion, instead of +cooling, redoubled. It never occurred to him to think that she had +done a strange thing from the worldly point of view--that would +have involved an appreciation of himself, as a prize in the +marriage market, he would have loathed to make. But he was one of +the men for whom resistance enhances the value of what they desire, +and secretly he said to himself, "Persevere!" When he was repelled +or puzzled by certain aspects of her character, he would say to +himself:</p> +<p>"It is because she is alone and miserable. Women are not meant +to be alone. What soft, helpless creatures they are!--even when +intellectually they fly far ahead of us. If she would but put her +hand in mine I would so serve and worship her, she would have no +need for these strange things she does--the doublings and ruses of +the persecuted." Thus the touches of falsity that repelled Wilfrid +Bury were to Delafield's passion merely the stains of rough travel +on a fair garment.</p> +<p>But she refused him, and for another year he said no more. Then, +as things got worse and worse for her, he spoke +again--ambiguously--a word or two, thrown out to sound the waters. +Her manner of silencing him on this second occasion was not what it +had been before. His suspicions were aroused, and a few days later +he divined the Warkworth affair.</p> +<p>When Sir Wilfrid Bury spoke to him of the young officer's +relations to Mademoiselle Le Breton, Delafield's stiff defence of +Julie's prerogatives in the matter masked the fact that he had just +gone through a week of suffering, wrestling his heart down in +country lanes; a week which had brought him to somewhat curious +results.</p> +<p>In the first place, as with Sir Wilfrid, he stood up stoutly for +her rights. If she chose to attach herself to this man, whose +business was it to interfere? If he was worthy and loved her, Jacob +himself would see fair play, would be her friend and supporter.</p> +<p>But the scraps of gossip about Captain Warkworth which the +Duchess--who had disliked the man at first sight--gathered from +different quarters and confided to Jacob were often disquieting. It +was said that at Simla he had entrapped this little heiress, and +her obviously foolish and incapable mother, by devices generally +held to be discreditable; and it had taken two angry guardians to +warn him off. What was the state of the case now no one exactly +knew; though it was shrewdly suspected that the engagement was only +dormant. The child was known to have been in love with him; in two +years more she would be of age; her fortune was enormous, and +Warkworth was a poor and ambitious man.</p> +<p>There was also an ugly tale of a civilian's wife in a hill +station, referring to a date some years back; but Delafield did not +think it necessary to believe it.</p> +<p>As to his origins--there again, Delafield, making cautious +inquiries, came across some unfavorable details, confided to him by +a man of Warkworth's own regiment. His father had retired from the +army immediately after the Mutiny, broken in health, and much +straitened in means. Himself belonging to a family of the poorer +middle class, he had married late, a good woman not socially his +equal, and without fortune. They settled in the Isle of Wight, on +his half-pay, and harassed by a good many debts. Their two +children, Henry and Isabella, were then growing up, and the +parents' hopes were fixed upon their promising and good-looking +son. With difficulty they sent him to Charterhouse and a "crammer." +The boy coveted a "crack" regiment; by dint of mustering all the +money and all the interest they could, they procured him his +heart's desire. He got unpardonably into debt; the old people's +resources were lessening, not expanding; and ultimately the poor +father died broken down by the terror of bankruptcy for himself and +disgrace for Henry. The mother still survived, in very straitened +circumstances.</p> +<p>"His sister," said Delafield's informant, "married one of the +big London tailors, whom she met first on the Ryde pier. I happen +to know the facts, for my father and I have been customers of his +for years, and one day, hearing that I was in Warkworth's regiment, +he told me some stories of his brother-in-law in a pretty hostile +tone. His sister, it appears, has often financed him of late. She +must have done. How else could he have got through? Warkworth may +be a fine, showy fellow when there's fighting about. In private +life he's one of the most self-indulgent dogs alive. And yet he's +ashamed of the sister and her husband, and turns his back on them +whenever he can. Oh, he's not a person of nice feeling, is +Warkworth--but, mark my words, he'll be one of the most successful +men in the army."</p> +<p>There was one side. On the other was to be set the man's +brilliant professional record; his fine service in this recent +campaign; the bull-dog defence of an isolated fort, which insured +the safety of most important communications; contempt of danger, +thirst, exposure; the rescue of a wounded comrade from the glacis +of the fort, under a murderous fire; facts, all of them, which had +fired the public imagination and brought his name to the front. No +such acts as these could have been done by any mere self-indulgent +pretender.</p> +<p>Delafield reserved his judgment. He set himself to watch. In his +inmost heart there was a strange assumption of the right to watch, +and, if need be, to act. Julie's instinct had told her truly. +Delafield, the individualist, the fanatic for freedom--he, also, +had his instinct of tyranny. She should not destroy herself, the +dear, weak, beloved woman! He would prevent it.</p> +<hr style="width: 25%;"> +<p>Thus, during these hours of transition, Delafield thought much +of Julie. Julie, on the other hand, had no sooner said good-night +to him after the conversation described in the last chapter than +she drove him from her thoughts--one might have said, with +vehemence.</p> +<hr style="width: 25%;"> +<p>The <i>Times</i> of the following morning duly contained the +announcement of the appointment of Captain Warkworth, D.S.O., of +the Queen's Grays, to the command of the military mission to +Mokembe recently determined on by her Majesty's government. The +mission would proceed to Mokembe as soon as possible, but of two +officers who on the ground of especial knowledge would form part of +it, under Captain Warkworth's command, one was at present in Canada +and the other at the Cape. It would, therefore, hardly be possible +for the mission to start from the coast for the interior before the +beginning of May. In the same paper certain promotions and +distinctions on account of the recent Mahsud campaign were +reprinted from the <i>Gazette</i>. Captain Henry Warkworth's brevet +majority was among them.</p> +<p>The <i>Times</i> leader on the announcement pointed out that the +mission would be concerned with important frontier questions, still +more with the revival of the prestige of England in regions where a +supine government had allowed it to wither unaccountably. Other +powers had been playing a filching and encroaching game at the +expense of the British lion in these parts, and it was more than +time that he should open his sleepy eyes upon what was going on. As +to the young officer who was to command the mission, the great +journal made a few civil though guarded remarks. His record in the +recent campaign was indeed highly distinguished; still it could +hardly be said that, take it as a whole, his history so far gave +him a claim to promotion so important as that which he had now +obtained.</p> +<p>Well, now he had his chance. English soldiers had a way of +profiting by such chances. The <i>Times</i> courteously gave him +the benefit of the doubt, prophesying that he would rise to the +occasion and justify the choice of his superiors.</p> +<p>The Duchess looked over Julie's shoulder as she read.</p> +<p>"Schemer," she said, as she dropped a kiss on the back of +Julie's neck, "I hope you're satisfied. The <i>Times</i> doesn't +know what to make of it."</p> +<p>Julie put down the paper with a glowing cheek.</p> +<p>"They'll soon know," she said, quietly.</p> +<p>"Julie, do you believe in him so much?"</p> +<p>"What does it matter what I think? It is not I who have +appointed him."</p> +<p>"Not so sure," laughed the Duchess. "As if he would have had a +chance without you. Whom did he know last November when you took +him up?"</p> +<p>Julie moved to and fro, her hands behind her. The tremor on her +lip, the light in her eye showed her sense of triumph.</p> +<p>"What have I done," she said, laughing, "but push a few stones +out of the way of merit?"</p> +<p>"Some of them were heavy," said the Duchess, making a little +face. "Need I invite Lady Froswick any more?"</p> +<p>Julie threw her arms about her.</p> +<p>"Evelyn, what a darling you've been! Now I'll never worry you +again."</p> +<p>"Oh, for some people I would do ten times as much!" cried the +Duchess. "But, Julie, I wish I knew why you think so well of this +man. I--I don't always hear very nice things about him."</p> +<p>"I dare say not," said Julie, flushing. "It is easy to hate +success."</p> +<p>"No, come, we're not as mean as that!" cried the Duchess. "I vow +that all the heroes I've ever known had a ripping time. Julie"--she +kissed her friend impulsively--"Julie, don't like him too much. I +don't think he's good enough."</p> +<p>"Good enough for what?" said Julie's bitter voice. "Make +yourself easy about Captain Warkworth, Evelyn; but please +understand--<i>anything</i> is good enough for me. Don't let your +dear head be troubled about my affairs. They are never serious, and +nothing counts--except," she added, recklessly, "that I get a +little amusement by the way."</p> +<p>"Julie," cried the Duchess, "as if Jacob--"</p> +<p>Julie frowned and released herself; then she laughed.</p> +<p>"Nothing that one ever says about ordinary mortals applies to +Mr. Delafield. He is, of course, <i>hors concours</i>."</p> +<p>"Julie!"</p> +<p>"It is you, Evelyn, who make me <i>méchante</i>. I could +be grateful--and excellent friends with that young man--in my own +way."</p> +<p>The Duchess sighed, and held her tongue with difficulty.</p> +<hr style="width: 25%;"> +<p>When the successful hero arrived that night for dinner he found +a solitary lady in the drawing-room.</p> +<p>Was this, indeed, Julie Le Breton--this soft, smiling vision in +white?</p> +<p>He expected to have found a martyr, pale and wan from the shock +of the catastrophe which had befallen her, and, even amid the +intoxication of his own great day, he was not easy as to how she +might have taken his behavior on the fatal night. But here was some +one, all joy, animation, and indulgence--a glorified Julie who trod +on air. Why? Because good-fortune had befallen her friend? His +heart smote him. He had never seen her so touching, so charming. +Since the incubus of Lady Henry's house and presence had been +removed she seemed to have grown years younger. A white muslin +dress of her youth, touched here and there by the Duchess's maid, +replaced the familiar black satin. When Warkworth first saw her he +paused unconsciously in surprise.</p> +<p>Then he advanced to meet her, broadly smiling, his blue eyes +dancing.</p> +<p>"You got my note this morning?"</p> +<p>"Yes," she said, demurely. "You were much too kind, and +much--much too absurd. I have done nothing."</p> +<p>"Oh, nothing, of course." Then, after a moment: "Are you going +to tie me to that fiction, or am I to be allowed a little decent +sincerity? You know perfectly well that you have done it all. +There, there; give me your hand."</p> +<p>She gave it, shrinking, and he kissed it joyously.</p> +<p>"Isn't it jolly!" he said, with a school-boy's delight as he +released her hand. "I saw Lord M---- this morning." He named the +Prime Minister. "Very civil, indeed. Then the +Commander-in-Chief--and Montresor gave me half an hour. It is all +right. They are giving me a capital staff. Excellent fellows, all +of them. Oh, you'll see, I shall pull it through--I shall pull it +through. By George! it is a chance!"</p> +<p>And he stood radiant, rubbing his hands over the blaze.</p> +<p>The Duchess came in accompanied by an elderly cousin of the +Duke's, a white-haired, black-gowned spinster, Miss Emily +Lawrence--one of those single women, travelled, cultivated, and +good, that England produces in such abundance.</p> +<p>"Well, so you're going," said the Duchess, to Warkworth. "And I +hear that we ought to think you a lucky man."</p> +<p>"Indeed you ought, and you must," he said, gayly. "If only the +climate will behave itself. The blackwater fever has a way of +killing you in twenty-four hours if it gets hold of you; but short +of that--"</p> +<p>"Oh, you will be quite safe," said the Duchess. "Let me +introduce you to Miss Lawrence. Emily, this is Captain +Warkworth."</p> +<p>The elderly lady gave a sudden start. Then she quietly put on +her spectacles and studied the young soldier with a pair of +intelligent gray eyes.</p> +<hr style="width: 25%;"> +<p>Nothing could have been more agreeable than Warkworth at dinner. +Even the Duchess admitted as much. He talked easily, but not too +much, of the task before him; told amusing tales of his sporting +experience of years back in the same regions which were now to be +the scene of his mission; discussed the preparations he would have +to make at Denga, the coast town, before starting on his five +weeks' journey to the interior; drew the native porter and the +native soldier, not to their advantage, and let fall, by the way, +not a few wise or vivacious remarks as to the races, resources, and +future of this illimitable and mysterious Africa--this cavern of +the unknown, into which the waves of white invasion, one upon +another, were now pressing fast and ceaselessly, towards what goal, +only the gods knew.</p> +<p>A few other men were dining; among them two officers from the +staff of the Commander-in-Chief. Warkworth, much their junior, +treated them with a skilful deference; but through the talk that +prevailed his military competence and prestige appeared plainly +enough, even to the women. His good opinion of himself was indeed +sufficiently evident; but there was no crude vainglory. At any +rate, it was a vainglory of youth, ability, and good looks, +ratified by these budding honors thus fresh upon him, and no one +took it amiss.</p> +<p>When the gentlemen returned to the drawing-room, Warkworth and +Julie once more found themselves together, this time in the +Duchess's little sitting-room at the end of the long suite of +rooms.</p> +<p>"When do you go?" she asked him, abruptly.</p> +<p>"Not for about a month." He mentioned the causes of delay.</p> +<p>"That will bring you very late--into the worst of the heat?" Her +voice had a note of anxiety.</p> +<p>"Oh, we shall all be seasoned men. And after the first few days +we shall get into the uplands."</p> +<p>"What do your home people say?" she asked him, rather shyly. She +knew, in truth, little about them.</p> +<p>"My mother? Oh, she will be greatly pleased. I go down to the +Isle of Wight for a day or two to see her to-morrow. But now, dear +lady, that is enough of my wretched self. You--do you stay on here +with the Duchess?"</p> +<p>She told him of the house in Heribert Street. He listened with +attention.</p> +<p>"Nothing could be better. You will have a most distinguished +little setting of your own, and Lady Henry will repent at leisure. +You won't be lonely?"</p> +<p>"Oh no!" But her smile was linked with a sigh.</p> +<p>He came nearer to her.</p> +<p>"You should never be lonely if I could help it," he said, in a +low voice.</p> +<p>"When people are nameless and kinless," was her passionate +reply, in the same undertone as his, "they must be lonely."</p> +<p>He looked at her with eagerness. She lay back in the firelight, +her beautiful brow and eyes softly illuminated. He felt within him +a sudden snapping of restraints. Why--why refuse what was so +clearly within his grasp? Love has many manners--many +entrances--and many exits.</p> +<p>"When will you tell me all that I want to know about you?" he +said, bending towards her with tender insistence. "There is so much +I have to ask."</p> +<p>"Oh, some time," she said, hurriedly, her pulses quickening. +"Mine is not a story to be told on a great day like this."</p> +<p>He was silent a moment, but his face spoke for him.</p> +<p>"Our friendship has been a beautiful thing, hasn't it?" he said, +at last, in a voice of emotion. "Look here!" He thrust his hand +into his breast-pocket and half withdrew it. "Do you see where I +carry your letters?"</p> +<p>"You shouldn't--they are not worthy."</p> +<p>"How charming you are in that dress--in that light! I shall +always see you as you are to-night."</p> +<p>A silence. Excitement mounted in their veins. Suddenly he +stooped and kissed her hands. They looked into each other's eyes, +and the seconds passed like hours.</p> +<p>Presently, in the nearer drawing-room, there was a sound of +approaching voices and they moved apart.</p> +<p>"Julie, Emily Lawrence is going," said the Duchess's voice, +pitched in what seemed to Julie a strange and haughty note. +"Captain Warkworth, Miss Lawrence thinks that you and she have +common friends--Lady Blanche Moffatt and her daughter."</p> +<p>Captain Warkworth murmured some conventionality, and passed into +the next drawing-room with Miss Lawrence.</p> +<p>Julie rose to her feet, the color dying out of her face, her +passionate eyes on the Duchess, who stood facing her friend, +guiltily pale, and ready to cry.</p> +<br> +<br> +<hr style="width: 35%;"> +<br> +<br> +<h2><a name="XIV"></a>XIV</h2> +<br> +<p>On the morning following these events, Warkworth went down to +the Isle of Wight to see his mother. On the journey he thought much +of Julie. They had parted awkwardly the night before. The evening, +which had promised so well, had, after all, lacked finish and +point. What on earth had that tiresome Miss Lawrence wanted with +him? They had talked of Simla and the Moffatts. The conversation +had gone in spurts, she looking at him every now and then with eyes +that seemed to say more than her words. All that she had actually +said was perfectly insignificant and trivial. Yet there was +something curious in her manner, and when the time came for him to +take his departure she had bade him a frosty little farewell.</p> +<p>She had described herself once or twice as a <i>great</i> friend +of Lady Blanche Moffatt. Was it possible?</p> +<p>But if Lady Blanche, whose habits of sentimental indiscretion +were ingrained, <i>had</i> gossiped to this lady, what then? Why +should he be frowned on by Miss Lawrence, or anybody else? That +malicious talk at Simla had soon exhausted itself. His present +appointment was a triumphant answer to it all. His +slanderers--including Aileen's ridiculous guardians--could only +look foolish if they pursued the matter any further. What "trap" +was there--what <i>mésalliance</i>? A successful soldier was +good enough for anybody. Look at the first Lord Clyde, and scores +besides.</p> +<p>The Duchess, too. Why had she treated him so well at first, and +so cavalierly after dinner? Her manners were really too +uncertain.</p> +<p>What was the matter, and why did she dislike him? He pondered +over it a good deal, and with much soreness of spirit. Like many +men capable of very selfish or very cruel conduct, he was extremely +sensitive, and took keen notice of the fact that a person liked or +disliked him.</p> +<p>If the Duchess disliked him it could not be merely on account of +the Simla story, even though the old maid might conceivably have +given her a jaundiced account. The Duchess knew nothing of Aileen, +and was little influenced, so far as he had observed her, by +considerations of abstract justice or propriety, affecting persons +whom she had never seen.</p> +<p>No, she was Julie's friend, the little wilful lady, and it was +for Julie she ruffled her feathers, like an angry dove.</p> +<p>So his thoughts had come back to Julie, though, indeed, it +seemed to him that they were never far from her. As he looked +absently from the train windows on the flying landscape, Julie's +image hovered between him and it--a magic sun, flooding soul and +senses with warmth. How unconsciously, how strangely his feelings +had changed towards her! That coolness of temper and nerve he had +been able to preserve towards her for so long was, indeed, breaking +down. He recognized the danger, and wondered where it would lead +him. What a fascinating, sympathetic creature!--and, by George! +what she had done for him!</p> +<p>Aileen! Aileen was a little sylph, a pretty child-angel, +white-winged and innocent, who lived in a circle of convent +thoughts, knowing nothing of the world, and had fallen in love with +him as the first man who had ever made love to her. But this +intelligent, full-blooded woman, who could understand at a word, or +a half word, who had a knowledge of affairs which many a +high-placed man might envy, with whom one never had a dull +moment--this courted, distinguished Julie Le Breton--his mind +swelled with half-guilty pride at the thought that for six months +he had absorbed all her energies, that a word from him could make +her smile or sigh, that he could force her to look at him with eyes +so melting and so troubled as those with which she had given him +her hands--her slim, beautiful hands--that night in Grosvenor +Square.</p> +<p>How freedom became her! Dependency had dropped from her, like a +cast-off cloak, and beside her fresh, melancholy charm, the airs +and graces of a child of fashion and privilege like the little +Duchess appeared almost cheap and trivial. Poor Julie! No doubt +some social struggle was before her. Lady Henry was strong, after +all, in this London world, and the solider and stupider people who +get their way in the end were not, she thought, likely to side with +Lady Henry's companion in a quarrel where the facts of the story +were unquestionably, at first sight, damaging to Miss Le Breton. +Julie would have her hours of bitterness and humiliation; and she +would conquer by boldness, if she conquered at all--by originality, +by determining to live her own life. That would preserve for her +the small circle, if it lost her the large world. And the small +circle was what she lived for, what she ought, at any rate, to live +for.</p> +<p>It was not likely she would marry. Why should she desire it? +From any blundering tragedy a woman of so acute a brain would, of +course, know how to protect herself. But within the limits of her +life, why should she refuse herself happiness, intimacy, love?</p> +<p>His heart beat fast; his thoughts were in a whirl. But the train +was nearing Portsmouth, and with an effort he recalled his mind to +the meeting with his mother, which was then close upon him.</p> +<p>He spent nearly a week in the little cottage at Sea View, and +Mrs. Warkworth got far more pleasure than usual, poor lady, out of +his visit. She was a thin, plain woman, not devoid of either +ability or character. But life had gone hardly with her, and since +her husband's death what had been reserve had become melancholy. +She had always been afraid of her only son since they had sent him +to Charterhouse, and he had become so much "finer" than his +parents. She knew that he must consider her a very ignorant and +narrow-minded person; when he was with her she was humiliated in +her own eyes, though as soon as he was gone she resumed what was in +truth a leading place among her own small circle.</p> +<p>She loved him, and was proud of him; yet at the bottom of her +heart she had never absolved him from his father's death. But for +his extravagance, and the misfortunes he had brought upon them, her +old general would be alive still--pottering about in the spring +sunshine, spudding the daisies from the turf, or smoking his pipe +beneath the thickening trees. Silently her heart still yearned and +hungered for the husband of her youth; his son did not replace +him.</p> +<p>Nevertheless, when he came down to her with this halo of glory +upon him, and smoked up and down her small garden through the mild +spring days, gossiping to her of all the great things that had +befallen him, repeating to her, word for word, his conversation +with the Prime Minister, and his interview with the +Commander-in-Chief, or making her read all the letters of +congratulation he had received, her mother's heart thawed within +her as it had not done for long. Her ears told her that he was +still vain and a boaster; her memory held the indelible records of +his past selfishness; but as he walked beside her, his fair hair +blown back from his handsome brow, and eyes that were so much +younger than the rest of the face, his figure as spare and boyish +now as when he had worn the colors of the Charterhouse eleven, she +said to herself, in that inward and unsuspected colloquy she was +always holding with her own heart about him, that if his father +could have seen him now he would have forgiven him everything. +According to her secret Evangelical faith, God "deals" with every +soul he has created--through joy or sorrow, through good or evil +fortune. He had dealt with herself through anguish and loss. Henry, +it seemed, was to be moulded through prosperity. His good fortune +was already making a better man of him.</p> +<p>Certainly he was more affectionate and thoughtful than before. +He would have liked to give her money, of which he seemed to have +an unusual store; but she bade him keep what he had for his own +needs. Her own little bit of money, saved from the wreck of their +fortunes, was enough for her. Then he went into Ryde and brought +her back a Shetland shawl and a new table-cloth for her little +sitting-room, which she accepted with a warmer kiss than she had +given him for years.</p> +<p>He left her on a bright, windy morning which flecked the blue +Solent with foam and sent the clouds racing to westward. She walked +back along the sands, thinking anxiously of the African climate and +the desert hard-ships he was going to face. And she wondered what +significance there might be in the fact that he had written twice +during his stay with her to a Miss Le Breton, whose name, +nevertheless, he had not mentioned in their conversations. Well, he +would marry soon, she supposed, and marry well, in circles out of +her ken. With the common prejudice of the English middle class, she +hoped that if this Miss Le Breton were his choice, she might be +only French in name and not in blood.</p> +<p>Meanwhile, Warkworth sped up to London in high spirits, enjoying +the comforts of a good conscience.</p> +<p>He drove first to his club, where a pile of letters awaited +him--some letters of congratulation, others concerned with the +business of his mission. He enjoyed the first, noticing jealously +who had and who had not written to him; then he applied himself to +the second. His mind worked vigorously and well; he wrote his +replies in a manner that satisfied him. Then throwing himself into +a chair, with a cigar, he gave himself up to the close and shrewd +planning of the preparations necessary for his five weeks' march, +or to the consideration of two or three alternative lines of action +which would open before him as soon as he should find himself +within the boundaries of Mokembe. Some five years before, the +government of the day had sent a small expedition to this Debatable +Land, which had failed disastrously, both from the diplomatic and +the military points of view. He went backward and forward to the +shelves of the fine "Service" library which surrounded him, taking +down the books and reports which concerned this expedition. He +buried himself in them for an hour, then threw them aside with +contempt. What blunders and short-sight everywhere! The general +public might well talk of the stupidity of English officers. And +blunders so easily avoided, too! It was sickening. He felt within +himself a fulness of energy and intelligence, a perspicacity of +brain which judged mistakes of this kind unpardonable.</p> +<p>As he was replacing some of the books he had been using in the +shelves, the club began to fill up with men coming in to lunch. A +great many congratulated him; and a certain number who of old had +hardly professed to know him greeted him with cordiality. He found +himself caught in a series of short but flattering conversations, +in which he bore himself well--neither over-discreet nor too elate. +"I declare that fellow's improved," said one man, who might +certainly have counted as Warkworth's enemy the week before, to his +companion at table. "The government's been beastly remiss so far. +Hope he'll pull it off. Ripping chance, anyway. Though what they +gave it to him for, goodness knows! There were a dozen fellows, at +least, did as well as he in the Mahsud business. And the +Staff-College man had a thousand times more claim."</p> +<p>Nevertheless, Warkworth felt the general opinion friendly, a +little surprised, no doubt, but showing that readiness to believe +in the man coming to the front, which belongs much more to the +generous than to the calculating side of the English character. +Insensibly his mental and moral stature rose. He exchanged a few +words on his way out with one of the most distinguished members of +the club, a man of European reputation, whom he had seen the week +before in the Commander-in-Chief's room at the War Office. The +great man spoke to him with marked friendliness, and Warkworth +walked on air as he went his way. Potentially he felt himself the +great man's equal; the gates of life seemed to be opening before +him.</p> +<p>And with the rise of fortune came a rush of magnanimous +resolution. No more shady episodes; no more mean devices; no more +gambling, and no more debt. <i>Major</i> Warkworth's sheet was +clean, and it should remain so. A man of his prospects must run +straight.</p> +<p>He felt himself at peace with all the world. By-the-way, just +time to jump into a cab and get to Park Crescent in time for his +sister's luncheon. His last interview with his brother-in-law had +not been agreeable. But now--he felt for the check-book in his +pocket--he was in a position to repay at least half the last sum of +money which Bella had lent him. He would go and give it her now, +and report news of the mother. And if the two chicks were +there--why, he had a free hour and he would take them to the +Zoo--he vowed he would!--give them something pleasant to remember +their uncle by.</p> +<p>And a couple of hours later a handsome, soldierly man might have +been seen in the lion-house at the Zoo, leading a plump little girl +by either hand. Rose and Katie Mullins enjoyed a golden time, and +started a wholly new adoration for the uncle who had so far taken +small notice of them, and was associated in their shrewd, childish +minds rather with tempests at home than buns abroad. But this time +buns, biscuits, hansom-drives and elephant-rides were showered upon +them by an uncle who seemed to make no account of money, while his +gracious and captivating airs set their little hearts beating in a +common devotion.</p> +<p>"Now go home--go home, little beggars!" said that golden +gentleman, as he packed them into a hansom and stood on the step to +accept a wet kiss on his mustache from each pink mouth. "Tell your +mother all about it, and don't forget your uncle Harry. There's a +shilling for each of you. Don't you spend it on sweets. You're +quite fat enough already. Good-bye!"</p> +<p>"That's the hardest work I've done for many a long day," he said +to himself, with a sigh of relief, as the hansom drove away. "I +sha'n't turn nurse-maid when other trades fail. But they're nice +little kids all the same.</p> +<p>"Now, then, Cox's--and the City"--he ran over the list of his +engagements for the afternoon--"and by five o'clock shall I find my +fair lady--at home--and established? Where on earth is Heribert +Street?"</p> +<hr style="width: 25%;"> +<p>He solved the question, for a few minutes after five he was on +Miss Le Breton's doorstep. A quaint little house--and a strange +parlor-maid! For the door was opened to him by a large-eyed, sickly +child, who looked at him with the bewilderment of one trying to +follow out instructions still strange to her.</p> +<br> +<a name="illus-242.jpg"></a> +<p class="ctr"><a href="images/illus-242.jpg"><img src= +"images/illus-242.jpg" width="50%" alt=""></a><br> +<b>"HE ENTERED UPON A MERRY SCENE"</b></p> +<br> +<p>"Yes, sir, Miss Le Breton is in the drawing-room," she said, in +a sweet, deliberate voice with a foreign accent, and she led the +way through the hall.</p> +<p>Poor little soul--what a twisted back, and what a limp! She +looked about fourteen, but was probably older. Where had Julie +discovered her?</p> +<p>Warkworth looked round him at the little hall with its relics of +country-house sports and amusements; his eye travelled through an +open door to the little dining-room and the Russell pastels of Lady +Mary's parents, as children, hanging on the wall. The +<i>character</i> of the little dwelling impressed itself at once. +Smiling; he acknowledged its congruity with Julie. Here was a lady +who fell on her feet!</p> +<p>The child, leading him, opened the door to the left.</p> +<p>"Please walk in, sir," she said, shyly, and stood aside.</p> +<p>As the door opened, Warkworth was conscious of a noise of +tongues.</p> +<p>So Julie was not alone? He prepared his manner accordingly.</p> +<p>He entered upon a merry scene. Jacob Delafield was standing on a +chair, hanging a picture, while Dr. Meredith and Julie, on either +side, directed or criticised the operation. Meredith carried +picture-cord and scissors; Julie the hammer and nails. Meredith was +expressing the profoundest disbelief in Jacob's practical +capacities; Jacob was defending himself hotly; and Julie laughed at +both.</p> +<p>Towards the other end of the room stood the tea-table, between +the fire and an open window. Lord Lackington sat beside it, smiling +to himself, and stroking a Persian kitten. Through the open window +the twinkling buds on the lilacs in the Cureton House garden shone +in the still lingering sun. A recent shower had left behind it +odors of earth and grass. Even in this London air they spoke of the +spring--the spring which already in happier lands was drawing veils +of peach and cherry blossom, over the red Sienese earth or the +green terraces of Como. The fire crackled in the grate. The pretty, +old-fashioned room was fragrant with hyacinth and narcissus; +Julie's books lay on the tables; Julie's hand and taste were +already to be felt everywhere. And Lord Lackington with the kitten, +beside the fire, gave the last touch of home and domesticity.</p> +<p>"So I find you established?" said Warkworth, smiling, to the +lady with the nails, while Delafield nodded to him from the top of +the steps and Meredith ceased to chatter.</p> +<p>"I haven't a hand, I fear," said Julie. "Will you have some tea? +Ah, Léonie, tu vas en faire de nouveau, n'est-ce pas, pour +ce monsieur?"</p> +<p>A little woman in black, with a shawl over her shoulders, had +just glided into the room. She had a small, wrinkled face, bright +eyes, and a much-flattened nose.</p> +<p>"Tout de suite, monsieur," she said, quickly, and disappeared +with the teapot. Warkworth guessed, of course, that she was Madame +Bornier, the foster-sister--the "Propriety" of this +<i>ménage</i>.</p> +<p>"Can't I help?" he said to Julie, with a look at Delafield.</p> +<p>"It's just done," she said, coldly, handing a nail to Delafield. +"<i>Just</i> a trifle more to the right. Ecco! Perfection!"</p> +<p>"Oh, you spoil him," said Meredith, "And not one word of praise +for me!"</p> +<p>"What have you done?" she said, laughing. "Tangled the +cord--that's all!"</p> +<p>Warkworth turned away. His face, so radiant as he entered, had +settled into sharp, sudden lines. What was the meaning of this +voice, this manner? He remembered that to his three letters he had +received no word of reply. But he had interpreted that to mean that +she was in the throes of moving and could find no time to +write.</p> +<p>As he neared the tea-table, Lord Lackington looked up. He +greeted the new-comer with the absent stateliness he generally put +on when his mind was in a state of confusion as to a person's +identity.</p> +<p>"Well, so they're sending you to D----? There'll be a row there +before long. Wish you joy of the missionaries!"</p> +<p>"No, not D----," said Warkworth, smiling. "Nothing so amusing. +Mokembe's my destination."</p> +<p>"Oh, Mokembe!" said Lord Lackington, a little abashed. "That's +where Cecil Ray, Lord R's second son, was killed last +year--lion-hunting? No, it was of fever that he died. By-the-way, a +vile climate!"</p> +<p>"In the plains, yes," said Warkworth, seating himself. "As to +the uplands, I understand they are to be the Switzerland of +Africa."</p> +<p>Lord Lackington did not appear to listen.</p> +<p>"Are you a homoeopath?" he said, suddenly, rising to his full +and immense stature and looking down with eagerness on +Warkworth.</p> +<p>"No. Why?"</p> +<p>"Because it's your only chance, for those parts. If Cecil Ray +had had their medicines with him he'd be alive now. Look here; when +do you start?" The speaker took out his note-book.</p> +<p>"In rather less than a month I start for Denga."</p> +<p>"All right. I'll send you a medicine-case--from Epps. If you're +ill, take 'em."</p> +<p>"You're very good."</p> +<p>"Not at all. It's my hobby--one of the last." A broad, boyish +smile flashed over the handsome old face. "Look at me; I'm +seventy-five, and I can tire out my own grandsons at riding and +shooting. That comes of avoiding all allopathic messes like the +devil. But the allopaths are such mean fellows they filch all our +ideas."</p> +<p>The old man was off. Warkworth submitted to five minutes' +tirade, stealing a glance sometimes at the group of Julie, +Meredith, and Delafield in the farther window--at the happy ease +and fun that seemed to prevail in it. He fiercely felt himself shut +out and trampled on.</p> +<p>Suddenly, Lord Lackington pulled up, his instinct for +declamation qualified by an equally instinctive dread of boring or +being bored. "What did you think of Montresor's statement?" he +said, abruptly, referring to a batch of army reforms that Montresor +the week before had endeavored to recommend to a sceptical House of +Commons.</p> +<p>"All very well, as far as it goes," said Warkworth, with a +shrug.</p> +<p>"Precisely! We English want an army and a navy; we don't like it +when those fellows on the Continent swagger in our faces, and yet +we won't pay either for the ships or the men. However, now that +they've done away with purchase--Gad! I could fight them in the +streets for the way in which they've done it!--now that they've +turned the army into an examination-shop, tempered with jobbery, +whatever we do, we shall go to the deuce. So it don't matter."</p> +<p>"You were against the abolition?"</p> +<p>"I was, sir--with Wellington and Raglan and everybody else of +any account. And as for the violence, the disgraceful violence with +which it was carried--"</p> +<p>"Oh no, no," said Warkworth, laughing. "It was the Lords who +behaved abominably, and it'll do a deal of good."</p> +<p>Lord Lackington's eyes flashed.</p> +<p>"I've had a long life," he said, pugnaciously. "I began as a +middy in the American war of 1812, that nobody remembers now. Then +I left the sea for the army. I knocked about the world. I commanded +a brigade in the Crimea--"</p> +<p>"Who doesn't remember that?" said Warkworth, smiling.</p> +<p>The old man acknowledged the homage by a slight inclination of +his handsome head.</p> +<p>"And you may take my word for it that this new system will not +give you men worth <i>a tenth part</i> of those fellows who bought +and bribed their way in under the old. The philosophers may like +it, or lump it, but so it is."</p> +<p>Warkworth dissented strongly. He was a good deal of a +politician, himself a "new man," and on the side of "new men." Lord +Lackington warmed to the fight, and Warkworth, with bitterness in +his heart--because of that group opposite--was nothing loath to +meet him. But presently he found the talk taking a turn that +astonished him. He had entered upon a drawing-room discussion of a +subject which had, after all, been settled, if only by what the +Tories were pleased to call the <i>coup d'état</i> of the +Royal Warrant, and no longer excited the passions of a few years +back. What he had really drawn upon himself was a hand-to-hand +wrestle with a man who had no sooner provoked contradiction than he +resented it with all his force, and with a determination to crush +the contradictor.</p> +<p>Warkworth fought well, but with a growing amazement at the tone +and manner of his opponent. The old man's eyes darted war-flames +under his finely arched brows. He regarded the younger with a more +and more hostile, even malicious air; his arguments grew personal, +offensive; his shafts were many and barbed, till at last Warkworth +felt his face burning and his temper giving way.</p> +<p>"What <i>are</i> you talking about?" said Julie Le Breton, at +last, rising and coming towards them.</p> +<p>Lord Lackington broke off suddenly and threw himself into his +chair.</p> +<p>Warkworth rose from his.</p> +<p>"We had better have been handing nails," he said, "but you +wouldn't give us any work." Then, as Meredith and Delafield +approached, he seized the opportunity of saying, in a low +voice:</p> +<p>"Am I not to have a word?"</p> +<p>She turned with composure, though it seemed to him she was very +pale.</p> +<p>"Have you just come back from the Isle of Wight?"</p> +<p>"This morning." He looked her in the eyes. "You got my +letters?"</p> +<p>"Yes, but I have had no time for writing. I hope you found your +mother well."</p> +<p>"Very well, thank you. You have been hard at work?"</p> +<p>"Yes, but the Duchess and Mr. Delafield have made it all +easy."</p> +<p>And so on, a few more insignificant questions and answers.</p> +<p>"I must go," said Delafield, coming up to them, "unless there is +any more work for me to do. Good-bye, Major, I congratulate you. +They have given you a fine piece of work."</p> +<p>Warkworth made a little bow, half ironical. Confound the +fellow's grave and lordly ways! He did not want his +congratulations.</p> +<p>He lingered a little, sorely, full of rage, yet not knowing how +to go.</p> +<p>Lord Lackington's eyes ceased to blaze, and the kitten ventured +once more to climb upon his knee. Meredith, too, found a +comfortable arm-chair, and presently tried to beguile the kitten +from his neighbor. Julie sat erect between them, very silent, her +thin, white hands on her lap, her head drooped a little, her eyes +carefully restrained from meeting Warkworth's. He meanwhile leaned +against the mantel-piece, irresolute.</p> +<p>Meredith, it was clear, made himself quite happy and at home in +the little drawing-room. The lame child came in and took a stool +beside him. He stroked her head and talked nonsense to her in the +intervals of holding forth to Julie on the changes necessary in +some proofs of his which he had brought back. Lord Lackington, now +quite himself again, went back to dreams, smiling over them, and +quite unaware that the kitten had been slyly ravished from him. The +little woman in black sat knitting in the background. It was all +curiously intimate and domestic, only Warkworth had no part in +it.</p> +<p>"Good-bye, Miss Le Breton," he said, at last, hardly knowing his +own voice. "I am dining out."</p> +<p>She rose and gave him her hand. But it dropped from his like a +thing dead and cold. He went out in a sudden suffocation of rage +and pain; and as he walked in a blind haste to Cureton Street, he +still saw her standing in the old-fashioned, scented room, so +coldly graceful, with those proud, deep eyes.</p> +<hr style="width: 25%;"> +<p>When he had gone, Julie moved to the window and looked out into +the gathering dusk. It seemed to her as if those in the room must +hear the beating of her miserable heart.</p> +<p>When she rejoined her companions, Dr. Meredith had already risen +and was stuffing various letters and papers into his pockets with a +view to departure.</p> +<p>"Going?" said Lord Lackington. "You shall see the last of me, +too, Mademoiselle Julie."</p> +<p>And he stood up. But she, flushing, looked at him with a wistful +smile.</p> +<p>"Won't you stay a few minutes? You promised to advise me about +Thérèse's drawings."</p> +<p>"By all means."</p> +<p>Lord Lackington sat down again. The lame child, it appeared, had +some artistic talent, which Miss Le Breton wished to cultivate. +Meredith suddenly found his coat and hat, and, with a queer look at +Julie, departed in a hurry.</p> +<p>"Thérèse, darling," said Julie, "will you go +up-stairs, please, and fetch me that book from my room that has +your little drawings inside it?"</p> +<p>The child limped away on her errand. In spite of her lameness +she moved with wonderful lightness and swiftness, and she was back +again quickly with a calf-bound book in her hand.</p> +<p>"Léonie!" said Julie, in a low voice, to Madame +Bornier.</p> +<p>The little woman looked up startled, nodded, rolled up her +knitting in a moment, and was gone.</p> +<p>"Take the book to his lordship, Thérèse," she +said, and then, instead of moving with the child, she again walked +to the window, and, leaning her head against it, looked out. The +hand hanging against her dress trembled violently.</p> +<p>"What did you want me to look at, my dear?" said Lord +Lackington, taking the book in his hand and putting on his +glasses.</p> +<p>But the child was puzzled and did not know. She gazed at him +silently with her sweet, docile look.</p> +<p>"Run away, Thérèse, and find mother," said Julie, +from the window.</p> +<p>The child sped away and closed the door behind her.</p> +<p>Lord Lackington adjusted his glasses and opened the book. Two or +three slips of paper with drawings upon them fluttered out and fell +on the table beneath. Suddenly there was a cry. Julie turned round, +her lips parted.</p> +<p>Lord Lackington walked up to her.</p> +<p>"Tell me what this means," he said, peremptorily. "How did you +come by it?"</p> +<p>It was a volume of George Sand. He pointed, trembling, to the +name and date on the fly-leaf--"Rose Delaney, 1842."</p> +<p>"It is mine," she said, softly, dropping her eyes.</p> +<p>"But how--how, in God's name, did you come by it?"</p> +<p>"My mother left it to me, with all her other few books and +possessions."</p> +<p>There was a pause. Lord Lackington came closer.</p> +<p>"Who was your mother?" he said, huskily.</p> +<p>The words in answer were hardly audible. Julie stood before him +like a culprit, her beautiful head humbly bowed.</p> +<p>Lord Lackington dropped the book and stood bewildered.</p> +<p>"Rose's child?" he said--"Rose's child?"</p> +<p>Then, approaching her, he placed his hand on her arm.</p> +<p>"Let me look at you," he commanded.</p> +<p>Julie raised her eyes to him, and at the same time dumbly held +out to him a miniature she had been keeping hidden in her hand. It +was one of the miniatures from the locked triptych.</p> +<p>He took it, looked from the pictured to the living face, then, +turning away with a groan, he covered his face with his hands and +fell again into the chair from which he had risen.</p> +<p>Julie hurried to him. Her own eyes were wet with tears. After a +moment's hesitation she knelt down beside him.</p> +<p>"I ought to ask your pardon for not having told you before," she +murmured.</p> +<p>It was some time before Lord Lackington looked up. When at last +his hands dropped, the face they uncovered was very white and +old.</p> +<p>"So you," he said, almost in a whisper, "are the child she wrote +to me about before she died?"</p> +<p>Julie made a sign of assent.</p> +<p>"How old are you?"</p> +<p>"Twenty-nine."</p> +<p>"<i>She</i> was thirty-two when I saw her last."</p> +<p>There was a silence. Julie lifted one of his hands and kissed +it. But he took no notice.</p> +<p>"You know that I was going to her, that I should have reached +her in time"--the words seemed wrung from him--"but that I was +myself dangerously ill?"</p> +<p>"I know. I remember it all."</p> +<p>"Did she speak of me?"</p> +<p>"Not often. She was very reserved, you remember. But not long +before she died--she seemed half asleep--I heard her say, +'Papa!--Blanche!' and she smiled."</p> +<p>Lord Lackington's face contracted, and the slow tears of old age +stood in his eyes.</p> +<p>"You are like her in some ways," he said, brusquely, as though +to cover his emotion; "but not very like her."</p> +<p>"She always thought I was like you."</p> +<p>A cloud came over Lord Lackington's face. Julie rose from her +knees and sat beside him. He lost himself a few moments amid the +painful ghosts of memory. Then, turning to her abruptly, he +said:</p> +<p>"You have wondered, I dare say, why I was so hard--why, for +seventeen years, I cast her off?"</p> +<p>"Yes, often. You could have come to see us without anybody +knowing. Mother loved you very much."</p> +<p>Her voice was low and sad. Lord Lackington rose, fidgeted +restlessly with some of the small ornaments on the mantel-piece, +and at last turned to her.</p> +<p>"She brought dishonor," he said, in the same stifled voice, "and +the women of our family have always been stainless. But that I +could have forgiven. After a time I should have resumed +relations--private relations--with her. But it was your father who +stood in the way. I was then--I am now--you saw me with that young +fellow just now--quarrelsome and hot-tempered. It is my nature." He +drew himself up obstinately. "I can't help it. I take great pains +to inform myself, then I cling to my opinions tenaciously, and in +argument my temper gets the better of me. Your father, too, was +hot-tempered. He came, with my consent, once to see me--after your +mother had left her husband--to try and bring about some +arrangement between us. It was the Chartist time. He was a Radical, +a Socialist of the most extreme views. In the course of our +conversation something was said that excited him. He went off at +score. I became enraged, and met him with equal violence. We had a +furious argument, which ended in each insulting the other past +forgiveness. We parted enemies for life. I never could bring myself +to see him afterwards, nor to run the risk of seeing him. Your +mother took his side and espoused his opinions while he lived. +After his death, I suppose, she was too proud and sore to write to +me. I wrote to her once--it was not the letter it might have been. +She did not reply till she felt herself dying. That is the +explanation of what, no doubt, must seem strange to you."</p> +<br> +<a name="illus-254.jpg"></a> +<p class="ctr"><a href="images/illus-254.jpg"><img src= +"images/illus-254.jpg" width="45%" alt=""></a><br> +<b>"'FOR MY ROSE'S CHILD,' HE SAID, GENTLY"</b></p> +<br> +<p>He turned to her almost pleadingly. A deep flush had replaced +the pallor of his first emotion, as though in the presence of these +primal realities of love, death, and sorrow which she had recalled +to him, his old quarrel, on a political difference, cut but a +miserable figure.</p> +<p>"No," she said, sadly, "not very strange. I understood my +father--my dear father," she added, with soft, deliberate +tenderness.</p> +<p>Lord Lackington was silent a little, then he threw her a sudden, +penetrating look.</p> +<p>"You have been in London three years. You ought to have told me +before."</p> +<p>It was Julie's turn to color.</p> +<p>"Lady Henry bound me to secrecy."</p> +<p>"Lady Henry did wrong," he said, with emphasis. Then he asked, +jealously, with a touch of his natural irascibility, "Who else has +been in the secret?"</p> +<p>"Four people, at most--the Duchess, first of all. I couldn't +help it," she pleaded. "I was so unhappy with Lady Henry."</p> +<p>"You should have come to me. It was my right."</p> +<p>"But"--she dropped her head--"you had made it a condition that I +should not trouble you."</p> +<p>He was silenced; and once more he leaned against the +mantel-piece and hid his face from her, till, by a secret impulse, +both moved. She rose and approached him; he laid his hands on her +arms. With his persistent instinct for the lovely or romantic he +perceived, with sudden pleasure, the grave, poetic beauty of her +face and delicate form. Emotion had softened away all that was +harsh; a quivering charm hovered over the features. With a strange +pride, and a sense of mystery, he recognized his daughter and his +race.</p> +<p>"For my Rose's child," he said, gently, and, stooping, he kissed +her on the brow. She broke out into weeping, leaning against his +shoulder, while the old man comforted and soothed her.</p> +<br> +<br> +<hr style="width: 35%;"> +<br> +<br> +<h2><a name="XV"></a>XV</h2> +<br> +<p>After the long conversation between herself and Lord Lackington +which followed on the momentous confession of her identity, Julie +spent a restless and weary evening, which passed into a restless +and weary night. Was she oppressed by this stirring of old +sorrows?--haunted afresh by her parents' fate?</p> +<p>Ah! Lord Lackington had no sooner left her than she sank +motionless into her chair, and, with the tears excited by the +memories of her mother still in her eyes, she gave herself up to a +desperate and sombre brooding, of which Warkworth's visit of the +afternoon was, in truth, the sole cause, the sole subject.</p> +<p>Why had she received him so? She had gone too far--much too far. +But, somehow, she had not been able to bear it--that buoyant, +confident air, that certainty of his welcome. No! She would show +him that she was <i>not</i> his chattel, to be taken or left on his +own terms. The, careless good-humor of his blue eyes was too much, +after those days she had passed through.</p> +<p>He, apparently, to judge from his letters to her from the Isle +of Wight, had been conscious of no crisis whatever. Yet he must +have seen from the little Duchess's manner, as she bade farewell to +him that night at Crowborough House, that something was wrong. He +must have realized that Miss Lawrence was an intimate friend of the +Moffatts, and that--Or was he really so foolish as to suppose that +his quasi-engagement to this little heiress, and the encouragement +given him, in defiance of the girl's guardians, by her silly and +indiscreet mother, were still hidden and secret matters?--that he +could still conceal them from the world, and deny them to +Julie?</p> +<p>Her whole nature was sore yet from her wrestle with the Duchess +on that miserable evening.</p> +<p>"Julie, I can't help it! I know it's impertinent--but--Julie, +darling!--do listen! What business has that man to make love to you +as he does, when all the time--Yes, he does make love to you--he +does! Freddie had a most ill-natured letter from Lady Henry this +morning. Of course he had--and of course she'll write that kind of +letter to as many people as she can. And it wouldn't matter a bit, +if--But, you see, you <i>have</i> been moving heaven and earth for +him! And now his manner to you" (while the sudden flush burned her +cheek, Julie wondered whether by chance the Duchess had seen +anything of the yielded hands and the kiss) "and that ill-luck of +his being the first to arrive, last night, at Lady Henry's! Oh, +Julie, he's a wretch--<i>he is!</i> Of course he is in love with +you. That's natural enough. But all the time--listen, that nice +woman told me the whole story--he's writing regularly to that +little girl. She and her mother, in spite of the guardians, regard +it as an engagement signed and sealed, and all his friends believe +he's <i>quite</i> determined to marry her because of the money. You +may think me an odious little meddler, Julie, if you like, but I +vow I could stab him to the heart, with all the pleasure in +life!"</p> +<p>And neither the annoyance, nor the dignity, nor the ridicule of +the supposed victim--not Julie's angry eyes, nor all her mocking +words from tremulous lips--had availed in the least to silence the +tumult of alarmed affection in the Duchess's breast. Her Julie had +been flouted and trifled with; and if she was so blind, so +infatuated, as not to see it, she should at least be driven to +realize what other people felt about it.</p> +<p>So she had her say, and Julie had been forced, willy-nilly, upon +discussion and self-defence--nay, upon a promise also. Pale, and +stiffly erect, yet determined all the same to treat it as a +laughing matter, she had vouchsafed the Duchess some kind of +assurance that she would for the future observe a more cautious +behavior towards Warkworth. "He is my <i>friend</i>, and whatever +any one may say, he shall remain so," she had said, with a smiling +stubbornness which hid something before which the little Duchess +shrank. "But, of course, if I can do anything to please you, +Evelyn--you know I like to please you."</p> +<p>But she had never meant, she had never promised to forswear his +society, to ban him from the new house. In truth she would rather +have left home and friends and prospects, at one stroke, rather +than have pledged herself to anything of the sort. Evelyn should +never bind her to that.</p> +<p>Then, during his days of absence, she had passed through wave +after wave of feeling, while all the time to the outer eye she was +occupied with nothing but the settlement into Lady Mary's strange +little house. She washed, dusted, placed chairs and tables. And +meanwhile a wild expectancy of his first letter possessed her. +Surely there would be some anxiety in it, some fear, some +disclosure of himself, and of the struggle in his mind between +interest and love?</p> +<p>Nothing of the kind. His first letter was the letter of one sure +of his correspondent, sure of his reception and of his ground; a +happy and intimate certainty shone through its phrases; it was the +letter, almost, of a lover whose doubts are over.</p> +<p>The effect of it was to raise a tempest, sharp and obscure, in +Julie's mind. The contrast between the <i>pose</i> of the letter +and the sly reality behind bred a sudden anguish of jealousy, +concerned not so much with Warkworth as with this little, unknown +creature, who, without any effort, any desert--by the mere virtue +of money and blood--sat waiting in arrogant expectancy till what +she desired should come to her. How was it possible to feel any +compunction towards her? Julie felt none.</p> +<p>As to the rest of Miss Lawrence's gossip--that Warkworth was +supposed to have "behaved badly," to have led the pretty child to +compromise herself with him at Simla in ways which Simla society +regarded as inadmissible and "bad form"; that the guardians had +angrily intervened, and that he was under a promise, habitually +broken by the connivance of the girl's mother, not to see or +correspond with the heiress till she was twenty-one, in other +words, for the next two years--what did these things matter to her? +Had she ever supposed that Warkworth, in regard to money or his +career, was influenced by any other than the ordinary worldly +motives? She knew very well that he was neither saint nor ascetic. +These details--or accusations--did not, properly speaking, concern +her at all. She had divined and accepted his character, in all its +average human selfishness and faultiness, long ago. She loved him +passionately in spite of it--perhaps, if the truth were known, +because of it.</p> +<p>As for the marrying, or rather the courting, for money, that +excited in her no repulsion whatever. Julie, in her own way, was a +great romantic; but owing to the economic notions of marriage, +especially the whole conception of the <i>dot</i>, prevailing in +the French or Belgian minds amid whom she had passed her later +girlhood, she never dreamed for a moment of blaming Warkworth for +placing money foremost in his plans of matrimony. She resembled one +of the famous <i>amoureuses</i> of the eighteenth century, who in +writing to the man she loved but could not marry, advises him to +take a wife to mend his fortunes, and proposes to him various +tempting morsels--<i>une jeune personne</i>, sixteen, with neither +father nor mother, only a brother. "They will give her on her +marriage thirteen thousand francs a year, and the aunt will be +quite content to keep her and look after her for some time." And if +that won't do--"I know a man who would be only too happy to have +you for a son-in-law; but his daughter is only eleven; she is an +only child, however, and she will be <i>very</i> rich. You know, +<i>mon ami</i>, I desire your happiness above all things; how to +procure it--there lies the chief interest of my life."</p> +<p>This notion of things, more or less disguised, was to Julie +customary and familiar; and it was no more incompatible in her with +the notions and standards of high sentiment, such as she might be +supposed to have derived from her parents, than it is in the Latin +races generally.</p> +<p>No doubt it had been mingled in her, especially since her +settlement in Lady Henry's house, with the more English idea of +"falling in love"--the idea which puts personal choice first in +marriage, and makes the matter of dowry subordinate to that +mysterious election and affinity which the Englishman calls "love." +Certainly, during the winter, Julie had hoped to lead Warkworth to +marry her. As a poor man, of course, he must have money. But her +secret feeling had been that her place in society, her influence +with important people, had a money value, and that he would +perceive this.</p> +<p>Well, she had been a mere trusting fool, and he had deceived +her. There was his crime--not in seeking money and trusting to +money. He had told her falsehoods and misled her. He was doing it +still. His letter implied that he loved her? Possibly. It implied +to Julie's ear still more plainly that he stood tacitly and +resolutely by Aileen Moffatt and her money, and that all he was +prepared to offer to the dear friend of his heart was a more or +less ambiguous relation, lasting over two years perhaps--till his +engagement might be announced.</p> +<p>A dumb and bitter anger mounted within her. She recalled the +manner in which he had evaded her first questions, and her opinion +became very much that of the Duchess. She had, indeed, been mocked, +and treated like a child. So she sent no answer to his first +letter, and when his second came she forbade herself to open it. It +lay there on her writing-table. At night she transferred it to the +table beside her bed, and early in the spring dawn her groping +fingers drew it trembling towards her and slipped it under her +pillow. By the time the full morning had come she had opened it, +read and reread it--had bathed it, indeed, with her tears.</p> +<p>But her anger persisted, and when Warkworth appeared on her +threshold it flamed into sudden expression. She would make him +realize her friends, her powerful friends--above all, she would +make him realize Delafield.</p> +<p>Well, now it was done. She had repelled her lover. She had shown +herself particularly soft and gracious to Delafield. Warkworth now +would break with her--might, perhaps, be glad of the chance to +return safely and without further risks to his heiress.</p> +<p>She sat on in the dark, thinking over every word, every look. +Presently Thérèse stole in.</p> +<p>"Mademoiselle, le souper sera bientôt prêt."</p> +<p>Julie rose wearily, and the child slipped a thin hand into +hers.</p> +<p>"J'aime tant ce vieux monsieur," she said, softly. "Je l'aime +tant!"</p> +<p>Julie started. Her thoughts had wandered far, indeed, from Lord +Lackington.</p> +<p>As she went up-stairs to her little room her heart reproached +her. In their interview the old man had shown great sweetness of +feeling, a delicate and remorseful tenderness, hardly to have been +looked for in a being so fantastic and self-willed. The shock of +their conversation had deepened the lines in a face upon which age +had at last begun to make those marks which are not another beauty, +but the end of beauty. When she had opened the door for him in the +dusk, Julie had longed, indeed, to go with him and soothe his +solitary evening. His unmarried son, William, lived with him +intermittently; but his wife was dead. Lady Blanche seldom came to +town, and, for the most part, he lived alone in the fine house in +St. James's Square, of which she had heard her mother talk.</p> +<p>He liked her--had liked her from the first. How natural that she +should tend and brighten his old age--how natural, and how +impossible! He was not the man to brave the difficulties and +discomforts inseparable from the sudden appearance of an +illegitimate granddaughter in his household, and if he had been, +Julie, in her fierce, new-born independence, would have shrunk from +such a step. But she had been drawn to him; her heart had yearned +to her kindred.</p> +<p>No; neither love nor kindred were for her. As she entered the +little, bare room over the doorway, which she had begun to fill +with books and papers, and all the signs of the literary trade, she +miserably bid herself be content with what was easily and certainly +within her grasp. The world was pleased to say that she had a +remarkable social talent. Let her give her mind to the fight with +Lady Henry, and prove whether, after all, the salon could not be +acclimatized on English soil. She had the literary instinct and +aptitude, and she must earn money. She looked at her half-written +article, and sighed to her books to save her.</p> +<p>That evening Thérèse, who adored her, watched her +with a wistful and stealthy affection. Her idol was strangely sad +and pale. But she asked no questions. All she could do was to hover +about "mademoiselle" with soft, flattering services, till +mademoiselle went to bed, and then to lie awake herself, quietly +waiting till all sounds in the room opposite had died away, and she +might comfort her dumb and timid devotion with the hope that Julie +slept.</p> +<p>Sleep, however, or no sleep, Julie was up early next day. Before +the post arrived she was already dressed, and on the point of +descending to the morning coffee, which, in the old, frugal, Bruges +fashion, she and Léonie and the child took in the kitchen +together. Lady Henry's opinion of her as a soft and luxurious +person dependent on dainty living was, in truth, absurdly far from +the mark. After those years of rich food and many servants in Lady +Henry's household, she had resumed the penurious Belgian ways at +once, without effort--indeed, with alacrity. In the morning she +helped Léonie and Thérèse with the housework. +Her quick fingers washed and rubbed and dusted. In less than a week +she knew every glass and cup in Cousin Mary Leicester's well-filled +china cupboard, and she and Thérèse between them kept +the two sitting-rooms spotless. She who had at once made friends +and tools of Lady Henry's servants, disdained, so it appeared, to +be served beyond what was absolutely necessary in her own house. A +charwoman, indeed, came in the morning for the roughest work, but +by ten o'clock she was gone, and Julie, Madame Bornier, and the +child remained in undisputed possession. Little, flat-nosed, silent +Madame Bornier bought and brought in all they ate. She denounced +the ways, the viands, the brigand's prices of English +<i>fournisseurs</i>, but it seemed to Julie, all the same, that she +handled them with a Napoleonic success. She bought as the French +poor buy, so far as the West End would let her, and Julie had soon +perceived that their expenditure, even in this heart of Mayfair, +would be incredibly small. Whereby she felt herself more and more +mistress of her fate. By her own unaided hands would she provide +for herself and her household. Each year there should be a little +margin, and she would owe no man anything. After six months, if she +could not afford to pay the Duke a fair rent for his house--always +supposing he allowed her to remain in it--she would go +elsewhere.</p> +<p>As she reached the hall, clad in an old serge dress, which was a +survival from Bruges days, Thérèse ran up to her with +the letters.</p> +<p>Julie looked through them, turned and went back to her room. She +had expected the letter which lay on the top, and she must brace +herself to read it.</p> +<p>It began abruptly:</p> +<p>/# "You will hardly wonder that I should write at once to ask if +you have no explanation to give me of your manner of this +afternoon. Again and again I go over what happened, but no light +comes. It was as though you had wiped out all the six months of our +friendship; as though I had become for you once more the merest +acquaintance. It is impossible that I can have been mistaken. You +meant to make me--and others?--clearly understand--what? That I no +longer deserved your kindness--that you had broken altogether with +the man on whom you had so foolishly bestowed it?</p> +<p>"My friend, what have I done? How have I sinned? Did that sour +lady, who asked me questions she had small business to ask, tell +you tales that have set your heart against me? But what have +incidents and events that happened, or may have happened, in India, +got to do with our friendship, which grew up for definite reasons +and has come to mean so much--has it not?--to both of us? I am not +a model person, Heaven knows!--very far from it. There are scores +of things in my life to be ashamed of. And please remember that +last year I had never seen you; if I had, much might have gone +differently.</p> +<p>"But how can I defend myself? I owe you so much. Ought not that, +of itself, to make you realize how great is your power to hurt me, +and how small are my powers of resistance? The humiliations you can +inflict upon me are infinite, and I have no rights, no weapons, +against you.</p> +<p>"I hardly know what I am saying. It is very late, and I am +writing this after a dinner at the club given me by two or three of +my brother officers. It was a dinner in my honor, to congratulate +me on my good fortune. They are good fellows, and it should have +been a merry time. But my half hour in your room had killed all +power of enjoyment for me. They found me a wretched companion, and +we broke up early. I came home through the empty streets, wishing +myself, with all my heart, away from England--facing the desert. +Let me just say this. It is not of good omen that now, when I want +all my faculties at their best, I should suddenly find myself +invaded by this distress and despondency. You have some +responsibility now in my life and career; if you would, you cannot +get rid of it. You have not increased the chances of your friend's +success in his great task.</p> +<p>"You see how I restrain myself. I could write as madly as I +feel--violently and madly. But of set purpose we pitched our +relation in a certain key and measure; and I try, at least, to keep +the measure, if the music and the charm must go. But why, in God's +name, should they go? Why have you turned against me? You have +listened to slanderers; you have secretly tried me by tests that +are not in the bargain, and you have judged and condemned me +without a hearing, without a word. I can tell you I am pretty +sore.</p> +<p>"I will come and see you no more in company for the present. You +gave me a footing with you, which has its own dignity. I'll guard +it; not even from you will I accept anything else. But--unless, +indeed, the grove is cut down and the bird flown forever--let me +come when you are alone. Then charge me with what you will. I am an +earthy creature, struggling through life as I best can, and, till I +saw you, struggling often, no doubt, in very earthy ways. I am not +a philosopher, nor an idealist, with expectations, like Delafield. +This rough-and-tumble world is all I know. It's good enough for +me--good enough to love a friend in, as--I vow to God, Julie!--I +have loved you.</p> +<p>"There, it's out, and you must put up with it. I couldn't help +it. I am too miserable.</p> +<p>"But--</p> +<p>"But I won't write any more. I shall stay in my rooms till +twelve o'clock. You owe me promptness." #/</p> +<hr style="width: 25%;"> +<p>Julie put down the letter.</p> +<p>She looked round her little study with a kind of despair--the +despair perhaps of the prisoner who had thought himself delivered, +only to find himself caught in fresh and stronger bonds. As for +ambition, as for literature--here, across their voices, broke this +voice of the senses, this desire of "the moth for the star." And +she was powerless to resist it. Ah, why had he not accepted his +dismissal--quarrelled with her at once and forever?</p> +<p>She understood the letter perfectly--what it offered, and what +it tacitly refused. An intimate and exciting friendship--for two +years. For two years he was ready to fill up such time as he could +spare from his clandestine correspondence with her cousin, with +this romantic, interesting, but unprofitable affection. And +then?</p> +<p>She fell again upon his letter. Ah, but there was a new note in +it--a hard, strained note, which gave her a kind of desperate joy. +It seemed to her that for months she had been covetously listening +for it in vain.</p> +<p>She was beginning to be necessary to him; he had +<i>suffered</i>--through her. Never before could she say that to +herself. Pleasure she had given him, but not pain; and it is pain +that is the test and consecration of--</p> +<p>Of what?... Well, now for her answer. It was short.</p> +<p>/# "I am very sorry you thought me rude. I was tired with +talking and unpacking, and with literary work--housework, too, if +the truth were known. I am no longer a fine lady, and must slave +for myself. The thought, also, of an interview with Lord Lackington +which faced me, which I went through as soon as you, Dr. Meredith, +and Mr. Delafield had gone, unnerved me. You were good to write to +me, and I am grateful indeed. As to your appointment, and your +career, you owe no one anything. Everything is in your own hands. I +rejoice in your good fortune, and I beg that you will let no false +ideas with regard to me trouble your mind.</p> +<p>"This afternoon at five, if you can forgive me, you will find +me. In the early afternoon I shall be in the British Museum, for my +work's sake." #/</p> +<p>She posted her letter, and went about her daily housework, +oppressed the while by a mental and moral nausea. As she washed and +tidied and dusted, a true housewife's love growing up in her for +the little house and its charming, old-world appointments--a sort +of mute relation between her and it, as though it accepted her for +mistress, and she on her side vowed it a delicate and prudent +care--she thought how she could have delighted in this life which +had opened upon her had it come to her a year ago. The tasks set +her by Meredith were congenial and within her power. Her +independence gave her the keenest pleasure. The effort and +conquests of the intellect--she had the mind to love them, to +desire them; and the way to them was unbarred.</p> +<p>What plucked her back?</p> +<p>A tear fell upon the old china cup that she was dusting. A sort +of maternal element had entered into her affection for Warkworth +during the winter. She had upheld him and fought for him. And now, +like a mother, she could not tear the unworthy object from her +heart, though all the folly of their pseudo-friendship and her +secret hopes lay bare before her.</p> +<hr style="width: 25%;"> +<p>Warkworth came at five.</p> +<p>He entered in the dusk; a little pale, with his graceful head +thrown back, and that half-startled, timid look in his wide, blue +eyes--that misleading look--which made him the boy still, when he +chose.</p> +<p>Julie was standing near the window as he came in. As she turned +and saw him there, a flood of tenderness and compunction swept over +her. He was going away. What if she never saw him again?</p> +<p>She shuddered and came forward rapidly, eagerly. He read the +meaning of her movement, her face; and, wringing her hands with a +violence that hurt her, he drew a long breath of relief.</p> +<p>"Why--why"--he said, under his breath--"have you made me so +unhappy?"</p> +<p>The blood leaped in her veins. These, indeed, were new words in +a new tone.</p> +<p>"Don't let us reproach each other," she said. "There is so much +to say. Sit down."</p> +<p>To-day there were no beguiling spring airs. The fire burned +merrily in the grate; the windows were closed.</p> +<p>A scent of narcissus--the Duchess had filled the tables with +flowers--floated in the room. Amid its old-fashioned and +distinguished bareness--tempered by flowers, and a litter of +foreign books--Julie seemed at last to have found her proper frame. +In her severe black dress, opening on a delicate vest of white, she +had a muselike grace; and the wreath made by her superb black hair +round the fine intelligence of her brow had never been more +striking. Her slender hands busied themselves with Cousin Mary +Leicester's tea-things; and every movement had in Warkworth's eyes +a charm to which he had never yet been sensible, in this manner, to +this degree.</p> +<p>"Am I really to say no more of yesterday?" he said, looking at +her nervously.</p> +<p>Her flush, her gesture, appealed to him.</p> +<p>"Do you know what I had before me--that day--when you came in?" +she said, softly.</p> +<p>"No. I cannot guess. Ah, you said something about Lord +Lackington?"</p> +<p>She hesitated. Then her color deepened.</p> +<p>"You don't know my story. You suppose, don't you, that I am a +Belgian with English connections, whom Lady Henry met by chance? +Isn't that how you explain me?"</p> +<p>Warkworth had pushed aside his cup.</p> +<p>"I thought--"</p> +<p>He paused in embarrassment, but there was a sparkle of +astonished expectancy in his eyes.</p> +<p>"My mother"--she looked away into the blaze of the fire, and her +voice choked a little--"my mother was Lord Lackington's +daughter."</p> +<p>"Lord Lackington's daughter?" echoed Warkworth, in stupefaction. +A rush of ideas and inferences sped through his mind. He thought of +Lady Blanche--things heard in India--and while he stared at her in +an agitated silence the truth leaped to light.</p> +<p>"Not--not Lady Rose Delaney?" he said, bending forward to +her.</p> +<p>She nodded.</p> +<p>"My father was Marriott Dalrymple. You will have heard of him. I +should be Julie Dalrymple, but--they could never marry--because of +Colonel Delaney."</p> +<p>Her face was still turned away.</p> +<p>All the details of that famous scandal began to come back to +him. His companion, her history, her relations to others, to +himself, began to appear to him in the most astonishing new lights. +So, instead of the mere humble outsider, she belonged all the time +to the best English blood? The society in which he had met her was +full of her kindred. No doubt the Duchess knew--and Montresor.... +He was meshed in a net of thoughts perplexing and confounding, of +which the total result was perhaps that she appeared to him as she +sat there, the slender outline so quiet and still, more attractive +and more desirable than ever. The mystery surrounding her in some +way glorified her, and he dimly perceived that so it must have been +for others.</p> +<p>"How did you ever bear the Bruton Street life?" he said, +presently, in a low voice of wonder. "Lady Henry knew?"</p> +<p>"Oh yes!"</p> +<p>"And the Duchess?"</p> +<p>"Yes. She is a connection of my mother's."</p> +<p>Warkworth's mind went back to the Moffatts. A flush spread +slowly over the face of the young officer. It was indeed an +extraordinary imbroglio in which he found himself.</p> +<p>"How did Lord Lackington take it?" he asked, after a pause.</p> +<p>"He was, of course, much startled, much moved. We had a long +talk. Everything is to remain just the same. He wishes to make me +an allowance, and, if he persists, I suppose I can't hurt him by +refusing. But for the present I have refused. It is more amusing to +earn one's own living." She turned to him with a sharp brightness +in her black eyes. "Besides, if Lord Lackington gives me money, he +will want to give me advice. And I would rather advise myself."</p> +<p>Warkworth sat silent a moment. Then he took a great resolve.</p> +<p>"I want to speak to you," he said, suddenly, putting out his +hand to hers, which lay on her knee.</p> +<p>She turned to him, startled.</p> +<p>"I want to have no secrets from you," he said, drawing his +breath quickly. "I told you lies one day, because I thought it was +my duty to tell lies. Another person was concerned. But now I +can't. Julie!--you'll let me call you so, won't you? The name is +already"--he hesitated; then the words rushed out--"part of my +life! Julie, it's quite true, there is a kind of understanding +between your little cousin Aileen and me. At Simla she attracted me +enormously. I lost my head one day in the woods, when she--whom we +were all courting--distinguished me above two or three other men +who were there. I proposed to her upon a sudden impulse, and she +accepted me. She is a charming, soft creature. Perhaps I wasn't +justified. Perhaps she ought to have had more chance of seeing the +world. Anyway, there was a great row. Her guardians insisted that I +had behaved badly. They could not know all the details of the +matter, and I was not going to tell them. Finally I promised to +withdraw for two years."</p> +<p>He paused, anxiously studying her face. It had grown very white, +and, he thought, very cold. But she quickly rose, and, looking down +upon him, said:</p> +<p>"Nothing of that is news to me. Did you think it was?"</p> +<p>And moving to the tea-table, she began to make provision for a +fresh supply of tea.</p> +<p>Both words and manner astounded him. He, too, rose and followed +her.</p> +<p>"How did you first guess?" he said, abruptly.</p> +<p>"Some gossip reached me." She looked up with a smile. "That's +what generally happens, isn't it?"</p> +<p>"There are no secrets nowadays," he said, sorely. "And then, +there was Miss Lawrence?"</p> +<p>"Yes, there was Miss Lawrence."</p> +<p>"Did you think badly of me?"</p> +<p>"Why should I? I understand Aileen is very pretty, and--"</p> +<p>"And will have a large fortune. You understand that?" he said, +trying to carry it off lightly.</p> +<p>"The fact is well known, isn't it?"</p> +<p>He sat down, twisting his hat between his hands. Then with an +exclamation he dashed it on the floor, and, rising, he bent over +Julie, his hands in his pockets.</p> +<p>"Julie," he said, in a voice that shook her, "don't, for God's +sake, give me up! I have behaved abominably, but don't take your +friendship from me. I shall soon be gone. Our lives will go +different ways. That was settled--alack!--before we met. I am +honorably bound to that poor child. She cares for me, and I can't +get loose. But these last months have been happy, haven't they? +There are just three weeks left. At present the strongest feeling +in my heart is--" He paused for his word, and he saw that she was +looking through the window to the trees of the garden, and that, +still as she was, her lip quivered.</p> +<p>"What shall I say?" he resumed, with emotion. "It seems to me +our case stands all by itself, alone in the world. We have three +weeks--give them to me. Don't let's play at cross purposes any +more. I want to be sincere--I want to hide nothing from you in +these days. Let us throw aside convention and trust each other, as +friends may, so that when I go we may say to each other, 'Well, it +was worth the pain. These have been days of gold--we shall get no +better if we live to be a hundred.'"</p> +<p>She turned her face to him in a tremulous amazement and there +were tears on her cheek. Never had his aspect been so winning. What +he proposed was, in truth, a mean thing; all the same, he proposed +it nobly.</p> +<p>It was in vain that something whispered in her ear: "This girl +to whom he describes himself as 'honorably bound' has a fortune of +half a million. He is determined to have both her money and my +heart." Another inward voice, tragically generous, dashed down the +thought, and, at the moment, rightly; for as he stood over her, +breathless and imperious, to his own joy, to his own exaltation, +Warkworth was conscious of a new sincerity flowing in a tempestuous +and stormy current through all the veins of being.</p> +<p>With a sombre passion which already marked an epoch in their +relation, and contained within itself the elements of new and +unforeseen developments, she gazed silently into his face. Then, +leaning back in her chair, she once more held out to him both her +hands.</p> +<p>He gave an exclamation of joy, kissed the hands tenderly, and +sat down beside her.</p> +<p>"Now, then, all your cares, all your thoughts, all your griefs +are to be mine--till fate call us. And I have a thousand things to +tell you, to bless you for, to consult you about. There is not a +thought in my mind that you shall not know--bad, good, and +indifferent--if you care to turn out the rag-bag. Shall I begin +with the morning--my experiences at the club, my little nieces at +the Zoo?" He laughed, but suddenly grew serious again. "No, your +story first; you owe it me. Let me know all that concerns you. Your +past, your sorrows, ambitions--everything."</p> +<p>He bent to her imperiously. With a faint, broken smile, her +hands still in his, she assented. It was difficult to begin, then +difficult to control the flood of memory; and it had long been dark +when Madame Bornier, coming in to light the lamp and make up the +fire, disturbed an intimate and searching conversation, which had +revealed the two natures to each other with an agitating +fulness.</p> +<hr style="width: 25%;"> +<p>Yet the results of this memorable evening upon Julie Le Breton +were ultimately such as few could have foreseen.</p> +<p>When Warkworth had left her, she went to her own room and sat +for a long while beside the window, gazing at the dark shrubberies +of the Cureton House garden, at the few twinkling, distant +lights.</p> +<p>The vague, golden hopes she had cherished through these past +months of effort and scheming were gone forever. Warkworth would +marry Aileen Moffatt, and use her money for an ambitious career. +After these weeks now lying before them--weeks of dangerous +intimacy, dangerous emotion--she and he would become as strangers +to each other. He would be absorbed by his profession and his rich +marriage. She would be left alone to live her life.</p> +<p>A sudden terror of her own weakness overcame her. No, she could +not be alone. She must place a barrier between herself and +this--this strange threatening of illimitable ruin that sometimes +rose upon her from the dark. "I have no prejudices," she had said +to Sir Wilfrid. There were many moments when she felt a fierce +pride in the element of lawlessness, of defiance, that seemed to be +her inheritance from her parents. But to-night she was afraid of +it.</p> +<p>Again, if love was to go, <i>power</i>, the satisfaction of +ambition, remained. She threw a quick glance into the future--the +future beyond these three weeks. What could she make of it? She +knew well that she was not the woman to resign herself to a mere +pining obscurity.</p> +<p>Jacob Delafield? Was it, after all, so impossible?</p> +<p>For a few minutes she set herself deliberately to think out what +it would mean to marry him; then suddenly broke down and wept, with +inarticulate cries and sobs, with occasional reminiscences of her +old convent's prayers, appeals half conscious, instinctive, to a +God only half believed.</p> +<br> +<br> +<hr style="width: 35%;"> +<br> +<br> +<h2><a name="XVI"></a>XVI</h2> +<br> +<p>Delafield was walking through the Park towards Victoria Gate. A +pair of beautiful roans pulled up suddenly beside him, and a little +figure with a waving hand bent to him from a carriage.</p> +<p>"Jacob, where are you off to? Let me give you a lift?"</p> +<p>The gentleman addressed took off his hat.</p> +<p>"Much obliged to you, but I want some exercise. I say, where did +Freddie get that pair?"</p> +<p>"I don't know, he doesn't tell me. Jacob, you must get in. I +want to speak to you."</p> +<p>Rather unwillingly, Delafield obeyed, and away they sped.</p> +<p>"J'ai un tas de choses à vous dire," she said, speaking +low, and in French, so as to protect herself from the servants in +front. "Jacob, I'm <i>very</i> unhappy about Julie."</p> +<p>Delafield frowned uncomfortably.</p> +<p>"Why? Hadn't you better leave her alone?"</p> +<p>"Oh, of course, I know you think me a chatterbox. I don't care. +You <i>must</i> let me tell you some fresh news about her. It +<i>isn't</i> gossip, and you and I are her best friends. Oh, +Freddie's so disagreeable about her. Jacob, you've got to help and +advise a little. Now, do listen. It's your duty--your downright +catechism duty."</p> +<p>And she poured into his reluctant ear the tale which Miss Emily +Lawrence nearly a fortnight before had confided to her.</p> +<p>"Of course," she wound up, "you'll say it's only what we knew or +guessed long ago. But you see, Jacob, we didn't <i>know</i>. It +might have been just gossip. And then, besides"--she frowned and +dropped her voice till it was only just audible--"this horrid man +hadn't made our Julie so--so conspicuous, and Lady Henry hadn't +turned out such a toad--and, altogether, Jacob, I'm dreadfully +worried."</p> +<p>"Don't be," said Jacob, dryly.</p> +<p>"And what a creature!" cried the Duchess, unheeding. "They say +that poor Moffatt child will soon have fretted herself ill, if the +guardians don't give way about the two years."</p> +<p>"What two years?"</p> +<p>"The two years that she must wait--till she is twenty-one. Oh, +Jacob, you know that!" exclaimed the Duchess, impatient with him. +"I've told you scores of times."</p> +<p>"I'm not in the least interested in Miss Moffatt's affairs."</p> +<p>"But you ought to be, for they concern Julie," cried the +Duchess. "Can't you imagine what kind of things people are saying? +Lady Henry has spread it about that it was all to see him she +bribed the Bruton Street servants to let her give the Wednesday +party as usual--that she had been flirting with him abominably for +months, and using Lady Henry's name in the most impertinent ways. +And now, suddenly, everybody seems to know <i>something</i> about +this Indian engagement. You may imagine it doesn't look very well +for our poor Julie. The other night at Chatton House I was furious. +I made Julie go. I wanted her to show herself, and keep up her +friends. Well, it was <i>horrid</i>! One or two old frights, who +used to be only too thankful to Julie for reminding Lady Henry to +invite them, put their noses in the air and behaved odiously. And +even some of the nicer ones seemed changed--I could see Julie felt +it."</p> +<p>"Nothing of all that will do her any real harm," said Jacob, +rather contemptuously.</p> +<p>"Well, no. I know, of course, that her real friends will never +forsake her--never, never! But, Jacob"--the Duchess hesitated, her +charming little face furrowed with thought--"if only so much of it +weren't true. She herself--"</p> +<p>"Please, Evelyn," said Delafield, with decision, "don't tell me +anything she may have said to you."</p> +<p>The Duchess flushed.</p> +<p>"I shouldn't have betrayed any confidence," she said, proudly. +"And I must consult with some one who cares about her. Dr. Meredith +lunched with me to-day, and he said a few words to me afterwards. +He's quite anxious, too--and unhappy. Captain Warkworth's always +there--always! Even I have been hardly able to see her the last few +days. Last Sunday they took the little lame child and went into the +country for the whole day--"</p> +<p>"Well, what is there to object to in that?" cried Jacob.</p> +<p>"I didn't say there was anything to object to," said the +Duchess, looking at him with eyes half angry, half perplexed. "Only +it's so unlike her. She had promised to be at home that afternoon +for several old friends, and they found her flown, without a word. +And think how sweet Julie is always about such things--what +delicious notes she writes, how she hates to put anybody out or +disappoint them! And now, not a word of excuse to anybody. And she +looks so <i>ill</i>--so white, so fixed--like a person in a dream +which she can't shake off. I'm just miserable about her. And I +hate, <i>hate</i> that man--engaged to her own cousin all the +time!" cried the little Duchess, under her breath, as she +passionately tore some violets at her waist to pieces and flung +them out of the carriage. Then she turned to Jacob.</p> +<p>"But, of course, if you don't care twopence about all this, +Jacob, it's no good talking to you!"</p> +<p>Her taunt fell quite unnoticed. Jacob turned to her with smiling +composure.</p> +<p>"You have forgotten, my dear Evelyn, all this time, that +Warkworth goes away--to mid-Africa--in little more than two +weeks."</p> +<p>"I wish it was two minutes," said the Duchess, fuming.</p> +<p>Delafield made no reply for a while. He seemed to be studying +the effect of a pale shaft of sunlight which had just come stealing +down through layers of thin gray cloud to dance upon the +Serpentine. Presently, as they left the Serpentine behind them, he +turned to his companion with more apparent sympathy.</p> +<p>"We can't do anything, Evelyn, and we've no right whatever to +talk of alarm, or anxiety--to <i>talk</i> of it, mind! It's--it's +disloyal. Forgive me," he added, hastily, "I know you don't gossip. +But it fills me with rage that other people should be doing +it."</p> +<p>The brusquerie of his manner disconcerted the little lady beside +him. She recovered herself, however, and said, with a touch of +sarcasm, tempered by a rather trembling lip:</p> +<p>"Your rage won't prevent their gossiping, Mr. Jacob, I thought, +perhaps, your <i>friendship</i> might have done something to stop +it--to--to influence Julie," she added, uncertainly.</p> +<p>"My friendship, as you call it, is of no use whatever," he said, +obstinately. "Warkworth will go away, and if you and others do +their best to protect Miss Le Breton, talk will soon die out. +Behave as if you had never heard the man's name before--stare the +people down. Why, good Heavens! you have a thousand arts! But, of +course, if the little flame is to be blown into a blaze by a score +of so-called friends--"</p> +<p>He shrugged his shoulders.</p> +<p>The Duchess did not take his rebukes kindly, not having, in +truth, deserved them.</p> +<p>"You are rude and unkind, Jacob," she said, almost with the +tears in her eyes. "And you don't understand--it is because I +myself am so anxious--"</p> +<p>"For that reason, play the part with all your might," he said, +unyieldingly. "Really, even you and I oughtn't to talk of it any +more. But there <i>is</i> one thing I want very much to know about +Miss Le Breton."</p> +<p>He bent towards her, smiling, though in truth he was disgusted +with himself, vexed with her, and out of tune with all the +world.</p> +<p>The Duchess made a little face.</p> +<p>"All very well, but after such a lecture as you have indulged +in, I think I prefer not to say any more about Julie."</p> +<p>"Do. I'm ashamed of myself--except that I don't retract one +word, not one. Be kind, all the same, and tell me--if you know--has +she spoken to Lord Lackington?"</p> +<p>The Duchess still frowned, but a few more apologetic expressions +on his part restored a temper that had always a natural tendency to +peace. Indeed, Jacob's <i>boutades</i> never went long unpardoned. +An only child herself, he, her first cousin, had played the part of +brother in her life, since the days when she first tottered in long +frocks, and he had never played it in any mincing fashion. His +words were often blunt. She smarted and forgave--much more quickly +than she forgave her husband. But then, with him, she was in +love.</p> +<p>So she presently vouchsafed to give Jacob the news that Lord +Lackington at last knew the secret--that he had behaved well--had +shown much feeling, in fact--so that poor Julie--</p> +<p>But Jacob again cut short the sentimentalisms, the little +touching phrases in which the woman delighted.</p> +<p>"What is he going to do for her?" he said, impatiently. "Will he +make any provision for her? Is there any way by which she can live +in his house--take care of him?"</p> +<p>The Duchess shook her head.</p> +<p>"At seventy-five one can't begin to explain a thing as big as +that. Julie perfectly understands, and doesn't wish it."</p> +<p>"But as to money?" persisted Jacob.</p> +<p>"Julie says nothing about money. How odd you are, Jacob! I +thought that was the last thing needful in your eyes."</p> +<p>Jacob did not reply. If he had, he would probably have said that +what was harmful or useless for men might be needful for women--for +the weakness of women. But he kept silence, while the vague +intensity of the eyes, the pursed and twisted mouth, showed that +his mind was full of thoughts.</p> +<p>Suddenly he perceived that the carriage was nearing Victoria +Gate. He called to the coachman to stop, and jumped out.</p> +<p>"Good-bye, Evelyn. Don't bear me malice. You're a good friend," +he said in her ear--"a real good friend. But don't let people talk +to you--not even elderly ladies with the best intentions. I tell +you it will be a fight, and one of the best weapons is"--he touched +his lips significantly, smiled at her, and was gone.</p> +<p>The Duchess passed out of the Park. Delafield turned as though +in the direction of the Marble Arch, but as soon as the carriage +was out of sight he paused and quickly retraced his steps towards +Kensington Gardens. Here, in this third week of March, some of the +thorns and lilacs were already in leaf. The grass was springing, +and the chatter of many sparrows filled the air. Faint patches of +sun flecked the ground between the trees, and blue hazes, already +redeemed from the dreariness of winter, filled the dim planes of +distance and mingled with the low, silvery clouds. He found a quiet +spot, remote from nursery-maids and children, and there he wandered +to and fro, indefinitely, his hands behind his back. All the +anxieties for which he had scolded his cousin possessed him, only +sharpened tenfold; he was in torture, and he was helpless.</p> +<p>However, when at last he emerged from his solitude, and took a +hansom to the Chudleigh estate office in Spring Gardens, he +resolutely shook off the thoughts which had been weighing upon him. +He took his usual interest in his work, and did it with his usual +capacity.</p> +<hr style="width: 25%;"> +<p>Towards five o'clock in the afternoon, Delafield found himself +in Cureton Street. As he turned down Heribert Street he saw a cab +in front of him. It stopped at Miss Le Breton's door, and Warkworth +jumped out. The door was quickly opened to him, and he went in +without having turned his eyes towards the man at the far corner of +the street.</p> +<p>Delafield paused irresolute. Finally he walked back to his club +in Piccadilly, where he dawdled over the newspapers till nearly +seven.</p> +<p>Then he once more betook himself to Heribert Street.</p> +<p>"Is Miss Le Breton at home?"</p> +<p>Thérèse looked at him with a sudden flickering of +her clear eyes.</p> +<p>"I think so, sir," she said, with soft hesitation, and she +slowly led him across the hall.</p> +<p>The drawing-room door opened. Major Warkworth emerged.</p> +<p>"Ah, how do you do?" he said, shortly, staring in a kind of +bewilderment as he saw Delafield. Then he hurriedly looked for his +hat, ran down the stairs, and was gone.</p> +<p>"Announce me, please," said Delafield, peremptorily, to the +little girl. "Tell Miss Le Breton that I am here." And he drew back +from the open door of the drawing-room. Thérèse +slipped in, and reappeared.</p> +<p>"Please to walk in, sir," she said, in her shy, low voice, and +Delafield entered. From the hall he had caught one involuntary +glimpse of Julie, standing stiff and straight in the middle of the +room, her hands clasped to her breast--a figure in pain. When he +went in, she was in her usual seat by the fire, with her embroidery +frame in front of her.</p> +<p>"May I come in? It is rather late."</p> +<p>"Oh, by all means! Do you bring me any news of Evelyn? I haven't +seen her for three days."</p> +<p>He seated himself beside her. It was hard, indeed, for him to +hide all signs of the tumult within. But he held a firm grip upon +himself.</p> +<p>"I saw Evelyn this afternoon. She complained that you had had no +time for her lately."</p> +<p>Julie bent over her work. He saw that her fingers were so +unsteady that she could hardly make them obey her.</p> +<p>"There has been a great deal to do, even in this little house. +Evelyn forgets; she has an army of servants; we have only our hands +and our time."</p> +<p>She looked up, smiling. He made no reply, and the smile died +from her face, suddenly, as though some one had blown out a light. +She returned to her work, or pretended to. But her aspect had left +him inwardly shaken. The eyes, disproportionately large and +brilliant, were of an emphasis almost ghastly, the usually clear +complexion was flecked and cloudy, the mouth dry-lipped. She looked +much older than she had done a fortnight before. And the fact was +the more noticeable because in her dress she had now wholly +discarded the touch of stateliness--almost old-maidishness--which +had once seemed appropriate to the position of Lady Henry's +companion. She was wearing a little gown of her youth, a blue +cotton, which two years before had been put aside as too slight and +juvenile. Never had the form within it seemed so girlish, so +appealing. But the face was heart-rending.</p> +<p>After a pause he moved a little closer to her.</p> +<p>"Do you know that you are looking quite ill?"</p> +<p>"Then my looks are misleading. I am very well."</p> +<p>"I am afraid I don't put much faith in that remark. When do you +mean to take a holiday?"</p> +<p>"Oh, very soon. Léonie, my little housekeeper, talks of +going to Bruges to wind up all her affairs there and bring back +some furniture that she has warehoused. I may go with her. I, too, +have some property stored there. I should go and see some old +friends--the <i>soeurs</i>, for instance, with whom I went to +school. In the old days I was a torment to them, and they were +tyrants to me. But they are quite nice to me now--they give me +<i>patisserie</i>, and stroke my hands and spoil me."</p> +<p>And she rattled on about the friends she might revisit, in a +hollow, perfunctory way, which set him on edge.</p> +<p>"I don't see that anything of that kind will do you any good. +You want rest of mind and body. I expect those last scenes with +Lady Henry cost you more than you knew. There are wounds one does +not notice at the time--"</p> +<p>"Which afterwards bleed inwardly?" She laughed. "No, no, I am +not bleeding for Lady Henry. By-the-way, what news of her?"</p> +<p>"Sir Wilfrid told me to-day that he had had a letter. She is at +Torquay, and she thinks there are too many curates at Torquay. She +is not at all in a good temper."</p> +<p>Julie looked up.</p> +<p>"You know that she is trying to punish me. A great many people +seem to have been written to."</p> +<p>"That will blow over."</p> +<p>"I don't know. How confident I was at one time that, if there +was a breach, it would be Lady Henry that would suffer! It makes me +hot to remember some things I said--to Sir Wilfrid, in particular. +I see now that I shall not be troubled with society in this little +house."</p> +<p>"It is too early for you to guess anything of that kind."</p> +<p>"Not at all! London is pretty full. The affair has made a noise. +Those who meant to stand by me would have called, don't you +think?"</p> +<p>The quivering bitterness of her face was most pitiful in Jacob's +eyes.</p> +<p>"Oh, people take their time," he said, trying to speak +lightly.</p> +<p>She shook her head.</p> +<p>"It's ridiculous that I should care. One's self-love, I +suppose--<i>that</i> bleeds! Evelyn has made me send out cards for +a little house-warming. She said I must. She made me go to that +smart party at Chatton House the other night. It was a great +mistake. People turned their backs on me. And this, too, will be a +mistake--and a failure."</p> +<p>"You were kind enough to send me a card."</p> +<p>"Yes--and you must come?"</p> +<p>She looked at him with a sudden nervous appeal, which made +another tug on his self-control.</p> +<p>"Of course I shall come."</p> +<p>"Do you remember your own saying--that awful evening--that I had +devoted friends? Well, we shall soon see."</p> +<p>"That depends only on yourself," he replied, with gentle +deliberation.</p> +<p>She started--threw him a doubtful look.</p> +<p>"If you mean that I must take a great deal of trouble, I am +afraid I can't. I am too tired."</p> +<p>And she sank back in her chair.</p> +<p>The sigh that accompanied the words seemed to him involuntary, +unconscious.</p> +<p>"I didn't mean that--altogether," he said, after a moment.</p> +<p>She moved restlessly.</p> +<p>"Then, really, I don't know what you meant. I suppose all +friendship depends on one's self."</p> +<p>She drew her embroidery frame towards her again, and he was left +to wonder at his own audacity. "Do you know," she said, presently, +her eyes apparently busy with her silks, "that I have told Lord +Lackington?"</p> +<p>"Yes. Evelyn gave me that news. How has the old man +behaved?"</p> +<p>"Oh, very well--most kindly. He has already formed a habit, +almost, of 'dropping in' upon me at all hours. I have had to +appoint him times and seasons, or there would be no work done. He +sits here and raves about young Mrs. Delaray--you know he is +painting her portrait, for the famous series?--and draws her +profile on the backs of my letters. He recites his speeches to me; +he asks my advice as to his fights with his tenants or his miners. +In short, I'm adopted--I'm almost the real thing."</p> +<p>She smiled, and then again, as she turned over her silks, he +heard her sigh--a long breath of weariness. It was strange and +terrible in his ear--the contrast between this unconscious sound, +drawn as it were from the oppressed heart of pain, and her +languidly, smiling words.</p> +<p>"Has he spoken to you of the Moffatts?" he asked her, presently, +not looking at her.</p> +<p>A sharp crimson color rushed over her face.</p> +<p>"Not much. He and Lady Blanche are not great friends. And I have +made him promise to keep my secret from her till I give him leave +to tell it."</p> +<p>"It will have to be known to her some time, will it not?"</p> +<p>"Perhaps," she said, impatiently. "Perhaps, when I can make up +my mind."</p> +<p>Then she pushed aside her frame and would talk no more about +Lord Lackington. She gave him, somehow, the impression of a person +suffocating, struggling for breath and air. And yet her hand was +icy, and she presently went to the fire, complaining of the east +wind; and as he put on the coal he saw her shiver.</p> +<p>"Shall I force her to tell me everything?" he thought to +himself.</p> +<p>Did she divine the obscure struggle in his mind? At any rate she +seemed anxious to cut short their +<i>tête-à-tête</i>. She asked him to come and +look at some engravings which the Duchess had sent round for the +embellishment of the dining-room. Then she summoned Madame Bornier, +and asked him a number of questions on Léonie's behalf, with +reference to some little investment of the ex-governess's savings, +which had been dropping in value. Meanwhile, as she kept him +talking, she leaned herself against the lintel of the door, +forgetting every now and then that any one else was there, and +letting the true self appear, like some drowned thing floating into +sight. Delafield disposed of Madame Bornier's affairs, hardly +knowing what he said, but showing in truth his usual conscience and +kindness. Then when Léonie was contented, Julie saw the +little cripple crossing the hall, and called to her.</p> +<p>"Ah, ma chérie! How is the poor little foot?"</p> +<p>And turning to Delafield, she explained volubly that +Thérèse had given herself a slight twist on the +stairs that morning, pressing the child to her side the while with +a tender gesture. The child nestled against her.</p> +<p>"Shall maman keep back supper?" Thérèse half +whispered, looking at Delafield.</p> +<p>"No, no, I must go!" cried Delafield, rousing himself and +looking for his hat.</p> +<p>"I would ask you to stay," said Julie, smiling, "just to show +off Léonie's cooking; but there wouldn't be enough for a +great big man. And you're probably dining with dukes."</p> +<p>Delafield disclaimed any such intention, and they went back to +the drawing-room to look for his hat and stick. Julie still had her +arm round Thérèse and would not let the child go. She +clearly avoided being left alone with him; and yet it seemed, even +to his modesty, that she was loath to see him depart. She talked +first of her little <i>ménage</i>, as though proud of their +daily economies and contrivances; then of her literary work and its +prospects; then of her debt to Meredith. Never before had she thus +admitted him to her domestic and private life. It was as though she +leaned upon his sympathy, his advice, his mere neighborhood. And +her pale, changed face had never seemed to him so beautiful--never, +in fact, truly beautiful till now. The dying down of the brilliance +and energy of the strongly marked character, which had made her the +life of the Bruton Street salon, into this mildness, this +despondency, this hidden weariness, had left her infinitely more +lovely in his eyes. But how to restrain himself much longer from +taking the sad, gracious woman in his arms and coercing her into +sanity and happiness!</p> +<p>At last he tore himself away.</p> +<p>"You won't forget Wednesday?" she said to him, as she followed +him into the hall.</p> +<p>"No. Is there anything else that you wish--that I could do?"</p> +<p>"No, nothing. But if there is I will ask."</p> +<p>Then, looking up, she shrank from something in his +face--something accusing, passionate, profound.</p> +<p>He wrung her hand.</p> +<p>"Promise that you will ask."</p> +<p>She murmured something, and he turned away.</p> +<hr style="width: 25%;"> +<p>She came back alone into the drawing-room.</p> +<p>"Oh, what a good man!" she said, sighing. "What a good man!"</p> +<p>And then, all in a moment, she was thankful that he was +gone--that she was alone with and mistress of her pain.</p> +<p>The passion and misery which his visit had interrupted swept +back upon her in a rushing swirl, blinding and choking every sense. +Ah, what a scene, to which his coming had put an end--scene of +bitterness, of recrimination, not restrained even by this impending +anguish of parting!</p> +<p>It came as a close to a week during which she and Warkworth had +been playing the game which they had chosen to play, according to +its appointed rules--the delicacies and restraints of friendship +masking, and at the same time inflaming, a most unhappy, poisonous, +and growing love. And, finally, there had risen upon them a +storm-wave of feeling--tyrannous, tempestuous--bursting in reproach +and agitation, leaving behind it, bare and menacing, the old, ugly +facts, unaltered and unalterable.</p> +<p>Warkworth was little less miserable than herself. That she knew. +He loved her, as it were, to his own anger and surprise. And he +suffered in deserting her, more than he had ever suffered yet +through any human affection.</p> +<p>But his purpose through it all remained stubbornly fixed; that, +also, she knew. For nearly a year Aileen Moffatt's fortune and +Aileen Moffatt's family connections had entered into all his +calculations of the future. Only a few more years in the army, then +retirement with ample means, a charming wife, and a seat in +Parliament. To jeopardize a plan so manifestly desirable, so easy +to carry out, so far-reaching in its favorable effects upon his +life, for the sake of those hard and doubtful alternatives in which +a marriage with Julie would involve him, never seriously entered +his mind. When he suffered he merely said to himself, steadily, +that time would heal the smart for both of them.</p> +<p>"Only one thing would be absolutely fatal for all of us--that I +should break with Aileen."</p> +<p>Julie read these obscure processes in Warkworth's mind with +perfect clearness. She was powerless to change them; but that +afternoon she had, at any rate, beaten her wings against the bars, +and the exhaustion and anguish of her revolt, her reproaches, were +still upon her.</p> +<p>The spring night had fallen. The room was hot, and she threw a +window open. Some thorns in the garden beneath had thickened into +leaf. They rose in a dark mass beneath the window. Overhead, beyond +the haze of the great city, a few stars twinkled, and the dim roar +of London life beat from all sides upon this quiet corner which +still held Lady Mary's old house.</p> +<p>Julie's eyes strained into the darkness; her head swam with +weakness and weariness. Suddenly she gave a cry--she pressed her +hands to her heart. Upon the darkness outside there rose a face, so +sharply drawn, so life-like, that it printed itself forever upon +the quivering tissues of the brain. It was Warkworth's face, not as +she had seen it last, but in some strange extremity of physical +ill--drawn, haggard, in a cold sweat--the eyes glazed, the hair +matted, the parched lips open as though they cried for help. She +stood gazing. Then the eyes turned, and the agony in them looked +out upon her.</p> +<p>Her whole sense was absorbed by the phantom; her being hung upon +it. Then, as it faded on the quiet trees, she tottered to a chair +and hid her face. Common sense told her that she was the victim of +her own tired nerves and tortured fancy. But the memory of Cousin +Mary Leicester's second sight, of her "visions" in this very room, +crept upon her and gripped her heart. A ghostly horror seized her +of the room, the house, and her own tempestuous nature. She groped +her way out, in blind and hurrying panic--glad of the lamp in the +hall, glad of the sounds in the house, glad, above all, of +Thérèse's thin hands as they once more stole lovingly +round her own.</p> +<br> +<br> +<hr style="width: 35%;"> +<br> +<br> +<h2><a name="XVII"></a>XVII</h2> +<br> +<p>The Duchess and Julie were in the large room of Burlington +House. They had paused before a magnificent Turner of the middle +period, hitherto unseen by the public, and the Duchess was reading +from the catalogue in Julie's ear.</p> +<p>She had found Julie alone in Heribert Street, surrounded by +books and proofs, endeavoring, as she reported, to finish a piece +of work for Dr. Meredith. Distressed by her friend's pale cheeks, +the Duchess had insisted on dragging her from the prison-house and +changing the current of her thoughts. Julie, laughing, hesitating, +indignant, had at last yielded--probably in order to avoid another +<i>tête-à-tête</i> and another scene with the +little, impetuous lady, and now the Duchess had her safe and was +endeavoring to amuse her.</p> +<p>But it was not easy. Julie, generally so instructed and +sympathetic, so well skilled in the difficult art of seeing +pictures with a friend, might, to-day, never have turned a phrase +upon a Constable or a Romney before. She tried, indeed, to turn +them as usual; but the Duchess, sharply critical and attentive +where her beloved Julie was concerned, perceived the difference +acutely! Alack, what languor, what fatigue! Evelyn became more and +more conscious of an inward consternation.</p> +<p>"But, thank goodness, he goes to-morrow--the villain! And when +that's over, it will be all right."</p> +<p>Julie, meanwhile, knew that she was observed, divined, and +pitied. Her pride revolted, but it could wring from her nothing +better than a passive resistance. She could prevent Evelyn from +expressing her thoughts; she could not so command her own bodily +frame that the Duchess should not think. Days of moral and mental +struggle, nights of waking, combined with the serious and sustained +effort of a new profession, had left their mark. There are, +moreover, certain wounds to self-love and self-respect which poison +the whole being.</p> +<p>"Julie! you <i>must</i> have a holiday!" cried the Duchess, +presently, as they sat down to rest.</p> +<p>Julie replied that she, Madame Bornier, and the child were going +to Bruges for a week.</p> +<p>"Oh, but that won't be comfortable enough! I'm sure I could +arrange something. Think of all our tiresome houses--eating their +heads off!"</p> +<p>Julie firmly refused. She was going to renew old friendships at +Bruges; she would be made much of; and the prospect was as pleasant +as any one need wish.</p> +<p>"Well, of course, if you have made up your mind. When do you +go?"</p> +<p>"In three or four days--just before the Easter rush. And +you?"</p> +<p>"Oh, we go to Scotland to fish. We must, of course, be killing +something. How long, darling, will you be away?"</p> +<p>"About ten days." Julie pressed the Duchess's little hand in +acknowledgment of the caressing word and look.</p> +<p>"By-the-way, didn't Lord Lackington invite you? Ah, there he +is!"</p> +<p>And suddenly, Lord Lackington, examining with fury a picture of +his own which some rascally critic had that morning pronounced to +be "Venetian school" and not the divine Giorgione himself, lifted +an angry countenance to find the Duchess and Julie beside him.</p> +<p>The start which passed through him betrayed itself. He could not +yet see Julie with composure. But when he had pressed her hand and +inquired after her health, he went back to his grievance, being +indeed rejoiced to have secured a pair of listeners.</p> +<p>"Really, the insolence of these fellows in the press! I shall +let the Academy know what I think of it. Not a rag of mine shall +they ever see here again. Ears and little fingers, indeed! Idiots +and owls!"</p> +<p>Julie smiled. But it had to be explained to the Duchess that a +wise man, half Italian, half German, had lately arisen who proposed +to judge the authenticity of a picture by its ears, assisted by any +peculiarities of treatment in the little fingers.</p> +<p>"What nonsense!" said the Duchess, with a yawn. "If I were an +artist, I should always draw them different ways."</p> +<p>"Well, not exactly," said Lord Lackington, who, as an artist +himself, was unfortunately debarred from statements of this +simplicity. "But the <i>ludicrous</i> way in which these fools +overdo their little discoveries!"</p> +<p>And he walked on, fuming, till the open and unmeasured +admiration of the two ladies for his great Rembrandt, the gem of +his collection, now occupying the place of honor in the large room +of the Academy, restored him to himself.</p> +<p>"Ah, even the biggest ass among them holds his tongue about +that!" he said, exultantly. "But, hallo! What does that call +itself?" He looked at a picture in front of him, then at the +catalogue, then at the Duchess.</p> +<p>"That picture is ours," said the Duchess. "Isn't it a dear? It's +a Leonardo da Vinci."</p> +<p>"Leonardo fiddlesticks!" cried Lord Lackington. "Leonardo, +indeed! What absurdity! Really, Duchess, you should tell +Crowborough to be more careful about his things. We mustn't give +handles to these fellows."</p> +<p>"What do you mean?" said the Duchess, offended. "If it isn't a +Leonardo, pray what is it?"</p> +<p>"Why, a bad school copy, of course!" said Lord Lackington, +hotly. "Look at the eyes"--he took out a pencil and pointed--"look +at the neck, look at the fingers!"</p> +<p>The Duchess pouted.</p> +<p>"Oh!" she said. "Then there is something in fingers!"</p> +<p>Lord Lackington's face suddenly relaxed. He broke into a shout +of laughter, <i>bon enfant</i> that he was; and the Duchess +laughed, too; but under cover of their merriment she, mindful of +quite other things, drew him a little farther away from Julie.</p> +<p>"I thought you had asked her to Nonpareil for Easter?" she said, +in his ear, with a motion of her pretty head towards Julie in the +distance.</p> +<p>"Yes, but, my dear lady, Blanche won't come home! She and Aileen +put it off, and put it off. Now she says they mean to spend May in +Switzerland--may perhaps be away the whole summer! I had counted on +them for Easter. I am dependent on Blanche for hostess. It is +really too bad of her. Everything has broken down, and William and +I (he named his youngest son) are going to the Uredales' for a +fortnight."</p> +<p>Lord Uredale, his eldest son, a sportsman and farmer, troubled +by none of his father's originalities, reigned over the second +family "place," in Herefordshire, beside the Wye.</p> +<p>"Has Aileen any love affairs yet?" said the Duchess, abruptly, +raising her face to his.</p> +<p>Lord Lackington looked surprised.</p> +<p>"Not that I know of. However, I dare say they wouldn't tell me. +I'm a sieve, I know. Have you heard of any? Tell me." He stooped to +her with roguish eagerness. "I like to steal a march on +Blanche."</p> +<p>So he knew nothing--while half their world was talking! It was +very characteristic, however. Except for his own hobbies, artistic, +medical, or military, Lord Lackington had walked through life as a +Johnny Head-in-Air, from his youth till now. His children had not +trusted him with their secrets, and he had never discovered them +for himself.</p> +<p>"Is there any likeness between Julie and Aileen?" whispered the +Duchess.</p> +<p>Lord Lackington started. Both turned their eyes towards Julie, +as she stood some ten yards away from them, in front of a refined +and mysterious profile of the cinque-cento--some lady, perhaps, of +the d'Este or Sforza families, attributed to Ambrogio da Predis. In +her soft, black dress, delicately folded and draped to hide her +excessive thinness, her small toque fitting closely over her wealth +of hair, her only ornaments a long and slender chain set with uncut +jewels which Lord Lackington had brought her the day before, and a +bunch of violets which the Duchess had just slipped into her belt, +she was as rare and delicate as the picture. But she turned her +face towards them, and Lord Lackington made a sudden +exclamation.</p> +<p>"No! Good Heavens, no! Aileen was a dancing-sprite when I saw +her last, and this poor girl!--Duchess, why does she look like +that? So sad, so bloodless!"</p> +<p>He turned upon her impetuously, his face frowning and +disturbed.</p> +<p>The Duchess sighed.</p> +<p>"You and I have just got to do all we can for her," she said, +relieved to see that Julie had wandered farther away, as though it +pleased her to be left to herself.</p> +<p>"But I would do anything--everything!" cried Lord Lackington. +"Of course, none of us can undo the past. But I offered yesterday +to make full provision for her. She has refused. She has the most +Quixotic notions, poor child!"</p> +<p>"No, let her earn her own living yet awhile. It will do her +good. But--shall I tell you secrets?" The Duchess looked at him, +knitting her small brows.</p> +<p>"Tell me what I ought to know--no more," he said, gravely, with +a dignity contrasting oddly with his school-boy curiosity in the +matter of little Aileen's lover.</p> +<p>The Duchess hesitated. Just in front of her was a picture of the +Venetian school representing St. George, Princess Saba, and the +dragon. The princess, a long and slender victim, with bowed head +and fettered hands, reminded her of Julie. The dragon--perfidious, +encroaching wretch!--he was easy enough of interpretation. But from +the blue distance, thank Heaven! spurs the champion. Oh, ye +heavenly powers, give him wings and strength! "St. George--St. +George to the rescue!"</p> +<p>"Well," she said, slowly, "I can tell you of some one who is +very devoted to Julie--some one worthy of her. Come with me."</p> +<p>And she took him away into the next room, still talking in his +ear.</p> +<hr style="width: 25%;"> +<p>When they returned, Lord Lackington was radiant. With a new +eagerness he looked for Julie's distant figure amid the groups +scattered about the central room. The Duchess had sworn him to +secrecy, indeed; and he meant to be discretion itself. But--Jacob +Delafield! Yes, that, indeed, would be a solution. His pride was +acutely pleased; his affection--of which he already began to feel +no small store for this charming woman of his own blood, this poor +granddaughter <i>de la main gauche</i>--was strengthened and +stimulated. She was sad now and out of spirits, poor thing, +because, no doubt, of this horrid business with Lady Henry, to +whom, by-the-way, he had written his mind. But time would see to +that--time--gently and discreetly assisted by himself and the +Duchess. It was impossible that she should finally hold out against +such a good fellow--impossible, and most unreasonable. No. Rose's +daughter would be brought back safely to her mother's world and +class, and poor Rose's tragedy would at last work itself out for +good. How strange, romantic, and providential!</p> +<p>In such a mood did he now devote himself to Julie. He chattered +about the pictures; he gossiped about their owners; he excused +himself for the absence of "that gad-about Blanche"; he made her +promise him a Whitsuntide visit instead, and whispered in her ear, +"You shall have <i>her</i> room"; he paid her the most handsome and +gallant attentions, natural to the man of fashion <i>par +excellence</i>, mingled with something intimate, brusque, +capricious, which marked her his own, and of the family. +Seventy-five!--with that step, that carriage of the shoulders, that +vivacity! Ridiculous!</p> +<p>And Julie could not but respond.</p> +<p>Something stole into her heart that had never yet lodged there. +She must love the old man--she did. When he left her for the +Duchess her eyes followed him--her dark-rimmed, wistful eyes.</p> +<p>"I must be off," said Lord Lackington, presently, buttoning up +his coat. "This, ladies, has been dalliance. I now go to my duties. +Read me in the <i>Times</i> to-morrow. I shall make a rattling +speech. You see, I shall rub it in."</p> +<p>"Montresor?" said the Duchess.</p> +<p>Lord Lackington nodded. That afternoon he proposed to strew the +floor of the House of Lords with the <i>débris</i> of +Montresor's farcical reforms.</p> +<p>Suddenly he pulled himself up.</p> +<p>"Duchess, look round you, at those two in the doorway. Isn't +it--by George, it is!--Chudleigh and his boy!"</p> +<p>"Yes--yes, it is," said the Duchess, in some excitement. "Don't +recognize them. Don't speak to him. Jacob implored me not."</p> +<p>And she hurried her companions along till they were well out of +the track of the new-comers; then on the threshold of another room +she paused, and, touching Julie on the arm, said, in a whisper:</p> +<p>"Now look back. That's Jacob's Duke, and his poor, poor +boy!"</p> +<p>Julie threw a hurried glance towards the two figures; but that +glance impressed forever upon her memory a most tragic sight.</p> +<p>A man of middle height, sallow, and careworn, with jet-black +hair and beard, supported a sickly lad, apparently about seventeen, +who clung to his arm and coughed at intervals. The father moved as +though in a dream. He looked at the pictures with unseeing, +lustreless eyes, except when the boy asked him a question. Then he +would smile, stoop his head and answer, only to resume again +immediately his melancholy passivity. The boy, meanwhile, his lips +gently parted over his white teeth, his blue eyes wide open and +intent upon the pictures, his emaciated cheeks deeply flushed, wore +an aspect of patient suffering, of docile dependence, peculiarly +touching.</p> +<p>It was evident the father and son thought of none but each +other. From time to time the man would make the boy rest on one of +the seats in the middle of the room, and the boy would look up and +chatter to his companion standing before him. Then again they would +resume their walk, the boy leaning on his father. Clearly the poor +lad was marked for death; clearly, also, he was the desire of his +father's heart.</p> +<p>"The possessor, and the heir, of perhaps the finest houses and +the most magnificent estates in England," said Lord Lackington, +with a shrug of pity. "And Chudleigh would gladly give them all to +keep that boy alive."</p> +<p>Julie turned away. Strange thoughts had been passing and +repassing through her brain.</p> +<p>Then, with angry loathing, she flung her thoughts from her. What +did the Chudleigh inheritance matter to her? That night she said +good-bye to the man she loved. These three miserable, burning weeks +were done. Her heart, her life, would go with Warkworth to Africa +and the desert. If at the beginning of this period of passion--so +short in prospect, and, to look back upon, an eternity--she had +ever supposed that power or wealth could make her amends for the +loss of her lover, she was in no mood to calculate such +compensations to-day. Parting was too near, the anguish in her +veins too sharp.</p> +<p>"Jacob takes them to Paris to-morrow," said the Duchess to Lord +Lackington. "The Duke has heard of some new doctor."</p> +<hr style="width: 25%;"> +<p>An hour or two later, Sir Wilfrid Bury, in the smoking-room of +his club, took out a letter which he had that morning received from +Lady Henry Delafield and gave it a second reading.</p> +<p>/# "So I hear that mademoiselle's social prospects are not, +after all, so triumphant as both she and I imagined. I gave the +world credit for more fools than it seems actually to possess; and +she--well, I own I am a little puzzled. Has she taken leave of her +senses? I am told that she is constantly seen with this man; that +in spite of all denials there can be no doubt of his engagement to +the Moffatt girl; and that <i>en somme</i> she has done herself no +good by the whole affair. But, after all, poor soul, she is +disinterested. She stands to gain nothing, as I understand; and she +risks a good deal. From this comfortable distance, I really find +something touching in her behavior.</p> +<p>"She gives her first 'Wednesday,' I understand, to-morrow. +'Mademoiselle Le Breton at home!' I confess I am curious. By all +means go, and send me a full report. Mr. Montresor and his wife +will certainly be there. He and I have been corresponding, of +course. He wishes to persuade me that he feels himself in some way +responsible for mademoiselle's position, and for my dismissal of +her; that I ought to allow him in consequence full freedom of +action. I cannot see matters in the same light. But, as I tell him, +the change will be all to his advantage. He exchanges a fractious +old woman, always ready to tell him unpleasant truths, for one who +has made flattery her <i>métier</i>. If he wants quantity +she will give it him. Quality he can dispense with--as I have seen +for some time past.</p> +<p>"Lord Lackington has written me an impertinent letter. It seems +she has revealed herself, and <i>il s'en prend à moi</i>, +because I kept the secret from him, and because I have now dared to +dismiss his granddaughter. I am in the midst of a reply which +amuses me. He is to cast off his belongings as he pleases; but when +a lady of the Chantrey blood--no matter how she came by +it--condescends to enter a paid employment, legitimate or +illegitimate, she must be treated <i>en reine</i>, or Lord L. will +know the reason why. 'Here is one hundred pounds a year, and let me +hear no more of you,' he says to her at sixteen. Thirteen years +later I take her in, respect his wishes, and keep the secret. She +misbehaves herself, and I dismiss her. Where is the grievance? He +himself made her a <i>lectrice</i>, and now complains that she is +expected to do her duty in that line of life. He himself banished +her from the family, and now grumbles that I did not at once foist +her upon him. He would like to escape the odium of his former +action by blaming me; but I am not meek, and I shall make him +regret his letter.</p> +<p>"As for Jacob Delafield, don't trouble yourself to write me any +further news of him. He has insulted me lately in a way I shall not +soon forgive--nothing to do, however, with the lady who says she +refused him. Whether her report be veracious or no matters nothing +to me, any more than his chances of succeeding to the Captain's +place. He is one of the ingenious fools who despise the old ways of +ruining themselves, and in the end achieve it as well as the +commoner sort. He owes me a good deal, and at one time it pleased +me to imagine that he was capable both of affection and gratitude. +That is the worst of being a woman; we pass from one illusion to +another; love is only the beginning; there are a dozen to come +after.</p> +<p>"You will scold me for a bitter tongue. Well, my dear Wilfrid, I +am not gay here. There are too many women, too many church +services, and I see too much of my doctor. I pine for London, and I +don't see why I should have been driven out of it by an +<i>intrigante</i>.</p> +<p>"Write to me, my dear Wilfrid. I am not quite so bad as I paint +myself; say to yourself she has arthritis, she is sixty-five, and +her new companion reads aloud with a twang; then you will only +wonder at my moderation." #/</p> +<p>Sir Wilfrid returned the letter to his pocket. That day, at +luncheon with Lady Hubert, he had had the curiosity to question +Susan Delafield, Jacob's fair-haired sister, as to the reasons for +her brother's quarrel with Lady Henry.</p> +<p>It appeared that being now in receipt of what seemed to himself, +at any rate, a large salary as his cousin's agent, he had thought +it his duty to save up and repay the sums which Lady Henry had +formerly spent upon his education.</p> +<p>His letter enclosing the money had reached that lady during the +first week of her stay at Torquay. It was, no doubt, couched in +terms less cordial or more formal than would have been the case +before Miss Le Breton's expulsion. "Not that he defends her +altogether," said Susan Delafield, who was herself inclined to side +with Lady Henry; "but as Lady Henry has refused to see him since, +it was not much good being friendly, was it?"</p> +<p>Anyway, the letter and its enclosure had completed a breach +already begun. Lady Henry had taken furious offence; the check had +been insultingly returned, and had now gone to swell the finances +of a London hospital.</p> +<p>Sir Wilfrid was just reflecting that Jacob's honesty had better +have waited for a more propitious season, when, looking up, he saw +the War Minister beside him, in the act of searching for a +newspaper.</p> +<p>"Released?" said Bury, with a smile.</p> +<p>"Yes, thank Heaven. Lackington is, I believe, still pounding at +me in the House of Lords. But that amuses him and doesn't hurt +me."</p> +<p>"You'll carry your resolutions?"</p> +<p>"Oh, dear, yes, with no trouble at all," said the Minister, +almost with sulkiness, as he threw himself into a chair and looked +with distaste at the newspaper he had taken up.</p> +<p>Sir Wilfrid surveyed him.</p> +<p>"We meet to-night?" he said, presently.</p> +<p>"You mean in Heribert Street? I suppose so," said Montresor, +without cordiality.</p> +<p>"I have just got a letter from her ladyship."</p> +<p>"Well, I hope it is more agreeable than those she writes to me. +A more unreasonable old woman--"</p> +<p>The tired Minister took up <i>Punch</i>, looked at a page, and +flung it down again. Then he said:</p> +<p>"Are you going?"</p> +<p>"I don't know. Lady Henry gives me leave, which makes me feel +myself a kind of spy."</p> +<p>"Oh, never mind. Come along. Mademoiselle Julie will want all +our support. I don't hear her as kindly spoken of just now as I +should wish."</p> +<p>"No. Lady Henry has more personal hold than we thought."</p> +<p>"And Mademoiselle Julie less tact. Why, in the name of goodness, +does she go and get herself talked about with the particular man +who is engaged to her little cousin? You know, by-the-way, that the +story of her parentage is leaking out fast? Most people seem to +know something about it."</p> +<p>"Well, that was bound to come. Will it do her good or harm?"</p> +<p>"Harm, for the present. A few people are straitlaced, and a good +many feel they have been taken in. But, anyway, this flirtation is +a mistake."</p> +<p>"Nobody really knows whether the man is engaged to the Moffatt +girl or no. The guardians have forbidden it."</p> +<p>"At any rate, everybody is kind enough to say so. It's a blunder +on Mademoiselle Julie's part. As to the man himself, of course, +there is nothing to say. He is a very clever fellow." Montresor +looked at his companion with a sudden stiffness, as though defying +contradiction. "He will do this piece of work that we have given +him to do extremely well."</p> +<p>"The Mokembe mission?"</p> +<p>Montresor nodded.</p> +<p>"He had very considerable claims, and was appointed entirely on +his military record. All the tales as to Mademoiselle's +influence--with me, for instance--that Lady Henry has been putting +into circulation are either absurd fiction or have only the very +smallest foundation in fact."</p> +<p>Sir Wilfrid smiled amicably and diverted the conversation.</p> +<p>"Warkworth starts at once?"</p> +<p>"He goes to Paris to-morrow. I recommended him to see Pattison, +the Military Secretary there, who was in the expedition of five +years back."</p> +<hr style="width: 25%;"> +<p>"This hasn't gone as well as it ought," said Dr. Meredith, in +the ear of the Duchess.</p> +<p>They were standing inside the door of Julie's little +drawing-room. The Duchess, in a dazzling frock of white and silver, +which placed Clarisse among the divinities of her craft, looked +round her with a look of worry.</p> +<p>"What's the matter with the tiresome creatures? Why is everybody +going so early? And there are not half the people here who ought to +be here."</p> +<p>Meredith shrugged his shoulders.</p> +<p>"I saw you at Chatton House the other night," he said, in the +same tone.</p> +<p>"Well?" said the Duchess, sharply.</p> +<p>"It seemed to me there was something of a demonstration."</p> +<p>"Against Julie? Let them try it!" said the little lady, with +evasive defiance. "We shall be too strong for them."</p> +<p>"Lady Henry is putting her back into it. I confess I never +thought she would be either so venomous or so successful."</p> +<p>"Julie will come out all right."</p> +<p>"She would--triumphantly--if--"</p> +<p>The Duchess glanced at him uneasily.</p> +<p>"I believe you are overworking her. She looks skin and +bone."</p> +<p>Dr. Meredith shook his head.</p> +<p>"On the contrary, I have been holding her back. But it seems she +wants to earn a good deal of money."</p> +<p>"That's so absurd," cried the Duchess, "when there are people +only pining to give her some of theirs."</p> +<p>"No, no," said the journalist, brusquely. "She is quite right +there. Oh, it would be all right if she were herself. She would +make short work of Lady Henry. But, Mademoiselle Julie"--for she +glided past them, and he raised his voice--"sit down and rest +yourself. Don't take so much trouble."</p> +<p>She flung them a smile.</p> +<p>"Lord Lackington is going," and she hurried on.</p> +<p>Lord Lackington was standing in a group which contained Sir +Wilfrid Bury and Mr. Montresor.</p> +<p>"Well, good-bye, good-bye," he said, as she came up to him. "I +must go. I'm nearly asleep."</p> +<p>"Tired with abusing me?" said Montresor, nonchalantly, turning +round upon him.</p> +<p>"No, only with trying to make head or tail of you," said +Lackington, gayly. Then he stooped over Julie.</p> +<p>"Take care of yourself. Come back rosier--and +<i>fatter</i>."</p> +<p>"I'm perfectly well. Let me come with you."</p> +<p>"No, don't trouble yourself." For she had followed him into the +hall and found his coat for him. All the arrangements for her +little "evening" had been of the simplest. That had been a point of +pride with her. Madame Bornier and Thérèse dispensing +tea and coffee in the dining-room, one hired parlor-maid, and she +herself active and busy everywhere. Certain French models were in +her head, and memories of her mother's bare little salon in Bruges, +with its good talk, and its thinnest of thin refreshments--a few +cups of weak tea, or glasses of <i>eau sucrée</i>, with a +plate of <i>patisserie</i>.</p> +<p>The hired parlor-maid was whistling for a cab in the service of +some other departing guest; so Julie herself put Lord Lackington +into his coat, much to his discomfort.</p> +<p>"I don't think you ought to have come," she said to him, with +soft reproach. "Why did you have that fainting fit before +dinner?"</p> +<p>"I say! Who's been telling tales?"</p> +<p>"Sir Wilfrid Bury met your son, Mr. Chantrey, at dinner."</p> +<p>"Bill can never hold his tongue. Oh, it was nothing; not with +the proper treatment, mind you. Of course, if the allopaths were to +get their knives into me--but, thank God! I'm out of that +<i>galère</i>. Well, in a fortnight, isn't it? We shall both +be in town again. I don't like saying good-bye."</p> +<p>And he took both her hands in his.</p> +<p>"It all seems so strange to me still--so strange!" he +murmured.</p> +<p>"Next week I shall see mamma's grave," said Julie, under her +breath. "Shall I put some flowers there for you?"</p> +<p>The fine blue eyes above her wavered. He bent to her.</p> +<p>"Yes. And write to me. Come back soon. Oh, you'll see. Things +will all come right, perfectly right, in spite of Lady Henry."</p> +<p>Confidence, encouragement, a charming raillery, an enthusiastic +tenderness--all these beamed upon her from the old man's tone and +gesture. She was puzzled. But with another pressure of the hand he +was gone. She stood looking after him. And as the carriage drove +away, the sound of the wheels hurt her. It was the withdrawal of +something protecting--something more her own, when all was said, +than anything else which remained to her.</p> +<p>As she returned to the drawing-room, Dr. Meredith intercepted +her.</p> +<p>"You want me to send you some work to take abroad?" he said, in +a low voice. "I shall do nothing of the kind."</p> +<p>"Why?"</p> +<p>"Because you ought to have a complete holiday."</p> +<p>"Very well. Then I sha'n't be able to pay my way," she said, +with a tired smile.</p> +<p>"Remember the doctor's bills if you fall ill."</p> +<p>"Ill! I am never ill," she said, with scorn. Then she looked +round the room deliberately, and her gaze returned to her +companion. "I am not likely to be fatigued with society, am I?" she +added, in a voice that did not attempt to disguise the bitterness +within.</p> +<p>"My dear lady, you are hardly installed."</p> +<p>"I have been here a month--the critical month. Now was the +moment to stand by me, or throw me over--n'est-ce pas? This is my +first party, my house-warming. I gave a fortnight's notice; I asked +about sixty people, whom I knew <i>well</i>. Some did not answer at +all. Of the rest, half declined--rather curtly, in many instances. +And of those who accepted, not all are here. And, oh, how it +dragged!"</p> +<p>Meredith looked at her rather guiltily, not knowing what to say. +It was true the evening had dragged. In both their minds there rose +the memory of Lady Henry's "Wednesdays," the beautiful rooms, the +varied and brilliant company, the power and consideration which had +attended Lady Henry's companion.</p> +<p>"I suppose," said Julie, shrugging her shoulders, "I had been +thinking of the French <i>maîtresses de salon</i>, like a +fool; of Mademoiselle de l'Espinasse--or Madame Mohl--imagining +that people would come to <i>me</i> for a cup of tea and an +agreeable hour. But in England, it seems, people must be paid to +talk. Talk is a business affair--you give it for a +consideration."</p> +<p>"No, no! You'll build it up," said Meredith. In his heart of +hearts he said to himself that she had not been herself that night. +Her wonderful social instincts, her memory, her adroitness, had +somehow failed her. And from a hostess strained, conscious, and +only artificially gay, the little gathering had taken its note.</p> +<p>"You have the old guard, anyway," added the journalist, with a +smile, as he looked round the room. The Duchess, Delafield, +Montresor and his wife, General McGill, and three or four other old +<i>habitués</i> of the Bruton Street evenings were scattered +about the little drawing-room. General Fergus, too, was there--had +arrived early, and was staying late. His frank soldier's face, the +accent, cheerful, homely, careless, with which he threw off talk +full of marrow, talk only possible--for all its simplicity--to a +man whose life had been already closely mingled with the fortunes +of his country, had done something to bind Julie's poor little +party together. Her eye rested on him with gratitude. Then she +replied to Meredith.</p> +<p>"Mr. Montresor will scarcely come again."</p> +<p>"What do you mean? Ungrateful lady! Montresor! who has already +sacrificed Lady Henry and the habits of thirty years to your +<i>beaux yeux</i>!"</p> +<p>"That is what he will never forgive me," said Julie, sadly. "He +has satisfied his pride, and I--have lost a friend."</p> +<p>"Pessimist! Mrs. Montresor seemed to me most friendly."</p> +<p>Julie laughed.</p> +<p>"<i>She</i>, of course, is enchanted. Her husband has never been +her own till now. She married him, subject to Lady Henry's rights. +But all that she will soon forget--and my existence with it."</p> +<p>"I won't argue. It only makes you more stubborn," said Meredith. +"Ah, still they come!"</p> +<p>For the door opened to admit the tall figure of Major +Warkworth.</p> +<p>"Am I very late?" he said, with a surprised look as he glanced +at the thinly scattered room. Julie greeted him, and he excused +himself on the ground of a dinner which had begun just an hour +late, owing to the tardiness of a cabinet minister.</p> +<p>Meredith observed the young man with some attention, from the +dark corner in which Julie had left him. The gossip of the moment +had reached him also, but he had not paid much heed to it. It +seemed to him that no one knew anything first-hand of the Moffatt +affair. And for himself, he found it difficult to believe that +Julie Le Breton was any man's dupe.</p> +<p>She must marry, poor thing! Of course she must marry. Since it +had been plain to him that she would never listen to his own suit, +this great-hearted and clear-brained man had done his best to +stifle in himself all small or grasping impulses. But this +fellow--with his inferior temper and morale--alack! why are the +clever women such fools?</p> +<p>If only she had confided in him--her old and tried friend--he +thought he could have put things before her, so as to influence +without offending her. But he suffered--had always suffered--from +the jealous reserve which underlay her charm, her inborn tendency +to secretiveness and intrigue.</p> +<p>Now, as he watched her few words with Warkworth, it seemed to +him that he saw the signs of some hidden relation. How flushed she +was suddenly, and her eyes so bright!</p> +<p>He was not allowed much time or scope, however, for observation. +Warkworth took a turn round the room, chatted a little with this +person and that, then, on the plea that he was off to Paris early +on the following morning, approached his hostess again to take his +leave.</p> +<p>"Ah, yes, you start to-morrow," said Montresor, rising. "Well, +good luck to you--good luck to you."</p> +<p>General Fergus, too, advanced. The whole room, indeed, awoke to +the situation, and all the remaining guests grouped themselves +round the young soldier. Even the Duchess was thawed a little by +this actual moment of departure. After all, the man was going on +his country's service.</p> +<p>"No child's play, this mission, I can assure you," General +McGill had said to her. "Warkworth will want all the powers he +has--of mind or body."</p> +<p>The slim, young fellow, so boyishly elegant in his well-cut +evening-dress, received the ovation offered to him with an evident +pleasure which tried to hide itself in the usual English ways. He +had been very pale when he came in. But his cheek reddened as +Montresor grasped him by the hand, as the two generals bade him a +cordial godspeed, as Sir Wilfrid gave him a jesting message for the +British representative in Egypt, and as the ladies present accorded +him those flattering and admiring looks that woman keeps for +valor.</p> +<p>Julie counted for little in these farewells. She stood +<i>apart</i> and rather silent. "<i>They</i> have had their +good-bye," thought the Duchess, with a thrill she could not +help.</p> +<p>"Three days in Paris?" said Sir Wilfrid. "A fortnight to +Denga--and then how long before you start for the interior?"</p> +<p>"Oh, three weeks for collecting porters and supplies. They're +drilling the escort already. We should be off by the middle of +May."</p> +<p>"A bad month," said General Fergus, shrugging his shoulders.</p> +<p>"Unfortunately, affairs won't wait. But I am already stiff with +quinine," laughed Warkworth--"or I shall be by the time I get to +Denga. Good-bye--good-bye."</p> +<p>And in another moment he was gone. Miss Le Breton had given him +her hand and wished him "Bon voyage," like everybody else.</p> +<p>The party broke up. The Duchess kissed her Julie with peculiar +tenderness; Delafield pressed her hand, and his deep, kind eyes +gave her a lingering look, of which, however, she was quite +unconscious; Meredith renewed his half-irritable, half-affectionate +counsels of rest and recreation; Mrs. Montresor was conventionally +effusive; Montresor alone bade the mistress of the house a somewhat +cold and perfunctory farewell. Even Sir Wilfrid was a little +touched, he knew not why; he vowed to himself that his report to +Lady Henry on the morrow should contain no food for malice, and +inwardly he forgave Mademoiselle Julie the old romancings.</p> +<br> +<br> +<hr style="width: 35%;"> +<br> +<br> +<h2><a name="XVIII"></a>XVIII</h2> +<br> +<p>It was twenty minutes since the last carriage had driven away. +Julie was still waiting in the little hall, pacing its squares of +black-and-white marble, slowly, backward and forward.</p> +<p>There was a low knock on the door.</p> +<p>She opened it. Warkworth appeared on the threshold, and the high +moon behind him threw a bright ray into the dim hall, where all but +one faint light had been extinguished. She pointed to the +drawing-room.</p> +<p>"I will come directly. Let me just go and ask Léonie to +sit up."</p> +<p>Warkworth went into the drawing-room. Julie opened the +dining-room door. Madame Bornier was engaged in washing and putting +away the china and glass which had been used for Julie's modest +refreshments.</p> +<p>"Léonie, you won't go to bed? Major Warkworth is +here."</p> +<p>Madame Bornier did not raise her head.</p> +<p>"How long will he be?"</p> +<p>"Perhaps half an hour."</p> +<p>"It is already past midnight."</p> +<p>"Léonie, he goes to-morrow."</p> +<p>"Très bien. Mais--sais-tu, ma chère, ce n'est pas +convenable, ce que tu fais là!"</p> +<p>And the older woman, straightening herself, looked her +foster-sister full in the face. A kind of watch-dog anxiety, a +sulky, protesting affection breathed from her rugged features.</p> +<p>Julie went up to her, not angrily, but rather with a pleading +humility.</p> +<p>The two women held a rapid colloquy in low tones--Madame Bornier +remonstrating, Julie softly getting her way.</p> +<p>Then Madame Bornier returned to her work, and Julie went to the +drawing-room.</p> +<p>Warkworth sprang up as she entered. Both paused and wavered. +Then he went up to her, and roughly, irresistibly, drew her into +his arms. She held back a moment, but finally yielded, and clasping +her hands round his neck she buried her face on his breast.</p> +<p>They stood so for some minutes, absolutely silent, save for her +hurried breathing, his head bowed upon hers.</p> +<p>"Julie, how can we say good-bye?" he whispered, at last.</p> +<p>She disengaged herself, and, seeing his face, she tried for +composure.</p> +<p>"Come and sit down."</p> +<p>She led him to the window, which he had thrown open as he +entered the room, and they sat beside it, hand in hand. A mild +April night shone outside. Gusts of moist air floated in upon them. +There were dim lights and shadows in the garden and on the +shuttered facade of the great house.</p> +<p>"Is it forever?" said Julie, in a low, stifled voice. +"Good-bye--forever?"</p> +<p>She felt his hand tremble, but she did not look at him. She +seemed to be reciting words long since spoken in the mind.</p> +<p>"You will be away--perhaps a year? Then you go back to India, +and then--"</p> +<p>She paused.</p> +<p>Warkworth was physically conscious, as it were, of a letter he +carried in his coat-pocket--a letter from Lady Blanche Moffatt +which had reached him that morning, the letter of a <i>grande +dame</i>, reduced to undignified remonstrance by sheer maternal +terror--terror for the health and life of a child as fragile and +ethereal as a wild rose in May. Reports had reached her; but +no--they could not be true! She bade him be thankful that not a +breath of suspicion had yet touched Aileen. As for herself, let him +write and reassure her at once. Otherwise--</p> +<p>And the latter part of the letter conveyed a veiled menace that +Warkworth perfectly understood.</p> +<p>No--in that direction, no escape; his own past actions closed +him in. And henceforth, it was clear, he must walk more warily.</p> +<p>But how blame himself for these feelings of which he was now +conscious towards Julie Le Breton--the strongest, probably, that a +man not built for passion would ever know. His relation towards her +had grown upon him unawares, and now their own hands were about to +cut it at the root. What blame to either of them? Fate had been at +work; and he felt himself glorified by a situation so tragically +sincere, and by emotions of which a month before he would have +secretly held himself incapable.</p> +<p>Resolutely, in this last meeting with Julie, he gave these +emotions play. He possessed himself of her cold hands as she put +her desolate question--"And then?"--and kissed them fervently.</p> +<p>"Julie, if you and I had met a year ago, what happened in India +would never have happened. You know that!"</p> +<p>"Do I? But it only hurts me to <i>think it away</i> like that. +There it is--it has happened."</p> +<p>She turned upon him suddenly.</p> +<p>"Have you any picture of her?"</p> +<p>He hesitated.</p> +<p>"Yes," he said, at last.</p> +<p>"Have you got it here?"</p> +<p>"Why do you ask, dear one? This one evening is <i>ours</i>."</p> +<p>And again he tried to draw her to him. But she persisted.</p> +<p>"I feel sure you have it. Show it me."</p> +<p>"Julie, you and you only are in my thoughts!"</p> +<p>"Then do what I ask." She bent to him with a wild, entreating +air; her lips almost touched his cheek. Unwillingly he drew out a +letter-case from his breast-pocket, and took from it a little +photograph which he handed to her.</p> +<p>She looked at it with eager eyes. A face framed, as it were, out +of snow and fire lay in her hand, a thing most delicate, most +frail, yet steeped in feeling and significance--a child's face with +its soft curls of brown hair, and the upper lip raised above the +white, small teeth, as though in a young wonder; yet behind its +sweetness, what suggestions of a poetic or tragic sensibility! The +slender neck carried the little head with girlish dignity; the +clear, timid eyes seemed at once to shrink from and trust the +spectator.</p> +<p>Julie returned the little picture, and hid her face with her +hands. Warkworth watched her uncomfortably, and at last drew her +hands away.</p> +<p>"What are you thinking of?" he said, almost with violence. +"Don't shut me out!"</p> +<p>"I am not jealous now," she said, looking at him piteously. "I +don't hate her. And if she knew all--she couldn't--hate me."</p> +<p>"No one could hate her. She is an angel. But she is not my +Julie!" he said, vehemently, and he thrust the little picture into +his pocket again.</p> +<p>"Tell me," she said, after a pause, laying her hand on his knee, +"when did you begin to think of me--differently? All the winter, +when we used to meet, you never--you never loved me then?"</p> +<p>"How, placed as I was, could I let myself think of love? I only +knew that I wanted to see you, to talk to you, to write to +you--that the day when we did not meet was a lost day. Don't be so +proud!" He tried to laugh at her. "You didn't think of me in any +special way, either. You were much too busy making bishops, or +judges, or academicians. Oh, Julie, I was so afraid of you in those +early days!"</p> +<p>"The first night we met," she said, passionately, "I found a +carnation you had worn in your button-hole. I put it under my +pillow, and felt for it in the dark like a talisman. You had stood +between me and Lady Henry twice. You had smiled at me and pressed +my hand--not as others did, but as though you understood <i>me</i>, +myself--as though, at least, you wished to understand. Then came +the joy of joys, that I could help you--that I could do something +for you. Ah, how it altered life for me! I never turned the corner +of a street that I did not count on the chance of seeing you +beyond--suddenly--on my path. I never heard your voice that it did +not thrill me from head to foot. I never made a new friend or +acquaintance that I did not ask myself first how I could thereby +serve you. I never saw you come into the room that my heart did not +leap. I never slept but you were in my dreams. I loathed London +when you were out of it. It was paradise when you were there."</p> +<p>Straining back from him as he still held her hands, her whole +face and form shook with the energy of her confession. Her +wonderful hair, loosened from the thin gold bands in which it had +been confined during the evening, fell in a glossy confusion about +her brow and slender neck; its black masses, the melting brilliance +of the eyes, the tragic freedom of the attitude gave both to form +and face a wild and poignant beauty.</p> +<p>Warkworth, beside her, was conscious first of amazement, then of +a kind of repulsion--a kind of fear--till all else was lost in a +hurry of joy and gratitude.</p> +<p>The tears stood on his cheek. "Julie, you shame me--you trample +me into the earth!"</p> +<p>He tried to gather her in his arms, but she resisted, Caresses +were not what those eyes demanded--eyes feverishly bright with the +memory of her own past dreams, Presently, indeed, she withdrew +herself from him. She rose and closed the window; she put the lamp +in another place; she brought her rebellious hair into order.</p> +<p>"We must not be so mad," she said, with a quivering smile, as +she again seated herself, but at some distance from him. "You see, +for me the great question is "--her voice became low and +rapid--"What am I going to do with the future? For you it is all +plain. We part to-night. You have your career, your marriage. I +withdraw from your life--absolutely. But for me--"</p> +<p>She paused. It was the manner of one trying to see her way in +the dark.</p> +<p>"Your social gifts," said Warkworth, in agitation, "your +friends, Julie--these will occupy your mind. Then, of course, you +will, you must marry! Oh, you'll soon forget me, Julie! I pray you +may!"</p> +<p>"My social gifts?" she repeated, disregarding the rest of his +speech. "I have told you already they have broken down. Society +sides with Lady Henry. I am to be made to know my place--I do know +it!"</p> +<p>"The Duchess will fight for you."</p> +<p>She laughed.</p> +<p>"The Duke won't let her--nor shall I."</p> +<p>"You'll marry," he repeated, with emotion. "You'll find some one +worthy of you--some one who will give you the great position for +which you were born."</p> +<p>"I could have it at any moment," she said, looking him quietly +in the eyes.</p> +<p>Warkworth drew back, conscious of a disagreeable shock. He had +been talking in generalities, giving away the future with that +fluent prodigality, that easy prophecy which costs so little. What +did she mean?</p> +<p>"<i>Delafield?"</i> he cried.</p> +<p>And he waited for her reply--which lingered--in a tense and +growing eagerness. The notion had crossed his mind once or twice +during the winter, only to be dismissed as ridiculous. Then, on the +occasion of their first quarrel, when Julie had snubbed him in +Delafield's presence and to Delafield's advantage, he had been +conscious of a momentary alarm. But Julie, who on that one and only +occasion had paraded her intimacy with Delafield, thenceforward +said not a word of him, and Warkworth's jealousy had died for lack +of fuel. In relation to Julie, Delafield had been surely the mere +shadow and agent of his little cousin the Duchess--a friendly, +knight-errant sort of person, with a liking for the distressed. +What! the heir-presumptive of Chudleigh Abbey, and one of the most +famous of English dukedoms, when even he, the struggling, penurious +officer, would never have dreamed of such a match?</p> +<p>Julie, meanwhile, heard only jealousy in his exclamation, and it +caressed her ear, her heart. She was tempted once more, woman-like, +to dwell upon the other lover, and again something compelling and +delicate in her feeling towards Delafield forbade.</p> +<p>"No, you mustn't make me tell you any more," she said, putting +the name aside with a proud gesture. "It would be poor and mean. +But it's true. I have only to put out my hand for what you call 'a +great position,' I have refused to put it out. Sometimes, of +course, it has dazzled me. To-night it seems to me--dust and ashes. +No; when we two have said good-bye, I shall begin life again. And +this time I shall live it in my own way, for my own ends. I'm very +tired. Henceforth 'I'll walk where my own nature would be +leading--it vexes me to choose another guide.'"</p> +<p>And as she spoke the words of one of the chainless souls of +history, in a voice passionately full and rich, she sprang to her +feet, and, drawing her slender form to its full height, she locked +her hands behind her, and began to pace the room with a wild, free +step.</p> +<p>Every nerve in Warkworth's frame was tingling. He was carried +out of himself, first by the rebellion of her look and manner, then +by this fact, so new, so astounding, which her very evasion had +confirmed. During her whole contest with Lady Henry, and now, in +her present ambiguous position, she had Delafield, and through +Delafield the English great world, in the hollow of her hand? This +nameless woman--no longer in her first youth. And she had refused? +He watched her in a speechless wonder and incredulity.</p> +<p>The thought leaped. "And this sublime folly--this madness--was +for <i>me</i>?"</p> +<p>It stirred and intoxicated him. Yet she was not thereby raised +in his eyes. Nay, the contrary. With the passion which was rapidly +mounting in his veins there mingled--poor Julie!--a curious +diminution of respect.</p> +<p>"Julie!" He held out his hand to her peremptorily. "Come to me +again. You are so wonderful to-night, in that white dress--like a +wild muse. I shall always see you so. Come!"</p> +<p>She obeyed, and gave him her hands, standing beside his chair. +But her face was still absorbed.</p> +<p>"To be free," she said, under her breath--"free, like my +parents, from all these petty struggles and conventions!"</p> +<p>Then she felt his kisses on her hands, and her expression +changed.</p> +<p>"How we cheat ourselves with words!" she whispered, trembling, +and, withdrawing one hand, she smoothed back the light-brown curls +from his brow with that protecting tenderness which had always +entered into her love for him. "To-night we are +here--together--this one last night! And to-morrow, at this time, +you'll be in Paris; perhaps you'll be looking out at the +lights--and the crowds on the Boulevard--and the chestnut-trees. +They'll just be in their first leaf--I know so well!--and the +little thin leaves will be shining so green under the lamps--and I +shall be here--and it will be all over and done with--forever. What +will it matter whether I am free or not free? I shall be +<i>alone</i>! That's all a woman knows."</p> +<p>Her voice died away. Warkworth rose. He put his arms round her, +and she did not resist.</p> +<p>"Julie," he said in her ear, "why should you be alone?"</p> +<p>A silence fell between them.</p> +<p>"I--I don't understand," she said, at last.</p> +<p>"Julie, listen! I shall be three days in Paris, but my business +can be perfectly done in one. What if you met me there after +to-morrow? What harm would it be? We are not babes, we two. We +understand life. And who would have any right to blame or to +meddle? Julie, I know a little inn in the valley of the +Bièvre, quite near Paris, but all wood and field. No English +tourists ever go there. Sometimes an artist or two--but this is not +the time of year. Julie, why shouldn't we spend our last two days +there--together--away from all the world, before we say good-bye? +You've been afraid here of prying people--of the Duchess even--of +Madame Bornier--how she scowls at me sometimes! Why shouldn't we +sweep all that away--and be happy! Nobody should ever--nobody +<i>could</i> ever know." His voice dropped, became still more +hurried and soft. "We might go as brother and sister--that would be +quite simple. You are practically French. I speak French well. Who +is to have an idea, a suspicion of our identity? The spring there +is mild and warm. The Bois de Verrières close by is full of +flowers. When my father was alive, and I was a child, we went once, +to economize, for a year, to a village a mile or two away. But I +knew this place quite well. A lovely, green, quiet spot! With your +poetical ideas, Julie, you would delight in it. Two days--wandering +in the woods--together! Then I put you into the train for Brussels, +and I go my way. But to all eternity, Julie, those days will have +been ours!"</p> +<p>At the first words, almost, Julie had disengaged herself. +Pushing him from her with both hands, she listened to him in a dumb +amazement. The color first deserted her face, then returned in a +flood.</p> +<p>"So you despise me?" she said, catching her breath.</p> +<p>"No. I adore you."</p> +<p>She fell upon a chair and hid her eyes. He first knelt beside +her, arguing and soothing; then he paced up and down before her, +talking very fast and low, defending and developing the scheme, +till it stood before them complete and tempting in all its +details.</p> +<p>Julie did not look up, nor did she speak. At last, Warkworth, +full of tears, and stifled with his own emotions, threw open the +window again in a craving for air and coolness. A scent of fresh +leaves and moistened earth floated up from the shrubbery beneath +the window. The scent, the branching trees, the wide, mild spaces +of air brought relief. He leaned out, bathing his brow in the +night. A tumult of voices seemed to be echoing through his mind, +dominated by one which held the rest defiantly in check.</p> +<p>"Is she a mere girl, to be 'led astray'? A moment of +happiness--what harm?--for either of us?"</p> +<p>Then he returned to Julie.</p> +<p>"Julie!" He touched her shoulder, trembling. Had she banished +him forever? It seemed to him that in these minutes he had passed +through an infinity of experience. Was he not the nobler, the more +truly man? Let the moralists talk.</p> +<p>"Julie!" he repeated, in an anguish.</p> +<p>She raised her head, and he saw that she had been crying. But +there was in her face a light, a wildness, a yearning that +reassured him. She put her arm round him and pressed her cheek to +his. He divined that she, too, had lived and felt a thousand hours +in one. With a glow of ecstatic joy he began to talk to her again, +her head resting on his shoulder, her slender hands crushed in +his.</p> +<p>And Julie, meanwhile, was saying to herself, "Either I go to +him, as he asks, or in a few minutes I must send him +away--forever."</p> +<p>And then as she clung to him, so warm and near, her strength +failed her. Nothing in the world mattered to her at that moment but +this handsome, curly head bowed upon her own, this voice that +called her all the names of love, this transformation of the man's +earlier prudence, or ambition, or duplicity, into this eager +tenderness, this anguish in separation....</p> +<p>"Listen, dear!" He whispered to her. "All my business can be got +through the day before you come. I have two men to see. A day will +be ample. I dine at the Embassy to-morrow night--that is arranged; +the day after I lunch with the Military Secretary; then--a thousand +regrets, but I must hurry on to meet some friends in Italy. So I +turn my back on Paris, and for two days I belong to Julie--and she +to me. Say yes, Julie--my Julie!"</p> +<p>He bent over her, his hands framing her face.</p> +<p>"Say yes," he urged, "and put off for both of us that +word--<i>alone</i>!"</p> +<p>His low voice sank into her heart. He waited, till his strained +sense caught the murmured words which conveyed to him the madness +and the astonishment of victory.</p> +<hr style="width: 25%;"> +<p>Léonie had shut up the house, in a grim silence, and had +taken her way up-stairs to bed.</p> +<p>Julie, too, was in her room. She sat on the edge of her bed, her +head drooped, her hands clasped before her absently, like Hope +still listening for the last sounds of the harp of life. The candle +beside her showed her, in the big mirror opposite, her grace, the +white confusion of her dress.</p> +<p>She had expected reaction, but it did not come. She was still +borne on a warm tide of will and energy. All that she was about to +do seemed to her still perfectly natural and right. Petty scruples, +conventional hesitations, the refusal of life's great +moments--these are what are wrong, these are what disgrace!</p> +<p>Romance beckoned to her, and many a secret tendency towards the +lawless paths of conduct, infused into her by the associations and +affections of her childhood. The <i>horror naturalis</i> which +protects the great majority of women from the wilder ways of +passion was in her weakened or dormant. She was the illegitimate +child of a mother who had defied law for love, and of that fact she +had been conscious all her life.</p> +<p>A sharp contempt, indeed, arose within her for the +interpretation that the common mind would be sure to place upon her +action.</p> +<p>"What matter! I am my own mistress--responsible to no one. I +choose for myself--I dare for myself!"</p> +<p>And when at last she rose, first loosening and then twisting the +black masses of her hair, it seemed to her that the form in the +glass was that of another woman, treading another earth. She +trampled cowardice under foot; she freed herself from--"was uns +alle bändigt, das Gemeine!"</p> +<p>Then as she stood before the oval mirror in a classical frame, +which adorned the mantel-piece of what had once been Lady Mary +Leicester's room, her eye was vaguely caught by the little family +pictures and texts which hung on either side of it. Lady Mary and +her sister as children, their plain faces emerging timidly from +their white, high-waisted frocks; Lady 'Mary's mother, an old lady +in a white coif and kerchief, wearing a look austerely kind; on the +other side a clergyman, perhaps the brother of the old lady, with a +similar type of face, though gentler--a face nourished on the +<i>Christian Year</i>; and above and below them two or three +card-board texts, carefully illuminated by Lady Mary Leicester +herself:</p> +<p>"Thou, Lord, knowest my down-sitting and my uprising."</p> +<p>"Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow."</p> +<p>"Fear not, little flock. It is your Father's good pleasure to +give you the kingdom."</p> +<hr style="width: 25%;"> +<p>Julie observed these fragments, absently at first, then with +repulsion. This Anglican pietism, so well fed, so narrowly +sheltered, which measured the universe with its foot-rule, seemed +to her quasi-Catholic eye merely fatuous and hypocritical. It is +not by such forces, she thought, that the true world of men and +women is governed.</p> +<p>As she turned away she noticed two little Catholic pictures, +such as she had been accustomed in her convent days to carry in her +books of devotion, carefully propped up beneath the texts.</p> +<p>"Ah, Thérèse!" she said to herself, with a sudden +feeling of pain. "Is the child asleep?"</p> +<p>She listened. A little cough sounded from the neighboring room. +Julie crossed the landing.</p> +<p>"Thérèse! tu ne dors pas encore?"</p> +<p>A voice said, softly, in the darkness, "Je t'attendais, +mademoiselle."</p> +<p>Julie went to the child's bed, put down her candle, and stooped +to kiss her.</p> +<p>The child's thin hand caressed her cheek.</p> +<p>"Ah, it will be good--to be in Bruges--with mademoiselle."</p> +<p>Julie drew herself away.</p> +<p>"I sha'n't be there to-morrow, dear."</p> +<p>"Not there! Oh, mademoiselle!"</p> +<p>The child's voice was pitiful.</p> +<p>"I shall join you there. But I find I must go to Paris first. +I--I have some business there."</p> +<p>"But maman said--"</p> +<p>"Yes, I have only just made up my mind. I shall tell maman +to-morrow morning,"</p> +<p>"You go alone, mademoiselle?"</p> +<p>"Why not, dear goose?"</p> +<p>"Vous êtes fatiguée. I would like to come with you, +and carry your cloak and the umbrellas."</p> +<p>"You, indeed!" said Julie. "It would end, wouldn't it, in my +carrying you--besides the cloak and the umbrellas?"</p> +<p>Then she knelt down beside the child and took her in her +arms.</p> +<p>"Do you love me, Thérèse?"</p> +<p>The child drew a long breath. With her little, twisted hands she +stroked the beautiful hair so close to her.</p> +<p>"Do you, Thérèse?"</p> +<p>A kiss fell on Julie's cheek.</p> +<p>"Ce soir, j'ai beaucoup prié la Sainte Vierge pour vous!" +she said, in a timid and hurried whisper.</p> +<p>Julie made no immediate reply. She rose from her knees, her hand +still clasped in that of the crippled girl.</p> +<p>"Did you put those pictures on my mantel-piece, +Thérèse?"</p> +<p>"Yes."</p> +<p>"Why?"</p> +<p>The child hesitated.</p> +<p>"It does one good to look at them--n'est-ce pas?--when one is +sad?"</p> +<p>"Why do you suppose I am sad?"</p> +<p>Thérèse was silent a moment; then she flung her +little skeleton arms round Julie, and Julie felt her crying.</p> +<p>"Well, I won't be sad any more," said Julie, comforting her. +"When we're all in Bruges together, you'll see."</p> +<p>And smiling at the child, she tucked her into her white bed and +left her.</p> +<p>Then from this exquisite and innocent affection she passed back +into the tumult of her own thoughts and plans. Through the restless +night her parents were often in her mind. She was the child of +revolt, and as she thought of the meeting before her she seemed to +be but entering upon a heritage inevitable from the beginning. A +sense of enfranchisement, of passionate enlargement, upheld her, as +of a life coming to its fruit.</p> +<hr style="width: 25%;"> +<p>"Creil!"</p> +<p>A flashing vision of a station and its lights, and the Paris +train rushed on through cold showers of sleet and driving wind, a +return of winter in the heart of spring.</p> +<p>On they sped through the half-hour which still divided them from +the Gare du Nord. Julie, in her thick veil, sat motionless in her +corner. She was not conscious of any particular agitation. Her mind +was strained not to forget any of Warkworth's directions. She was +to drive across immediately to the Gare de Sceaux, in the Place +Denfert-Rochereau, where he would meet her. They were to dine at an +obscure inn near the station, and go down by the last train to the +little town in the wooded valley of the Bièvre, where they +were to stay.</p> +<p>She had her luggage with her in the carriage. There would be no +custom-house delays.</p> +<p>Ah, the lights of Paris beginning! She peered into the rain, +conscious of a sort of home-coming joy. She loved the French world +and the French sights and sounds--these tall, dingy houses of the +<i>banlieue</i>, the dregs of a great architecture; the +advertisements; the look of the streets.</p> +<p>The train slackened into the Nord Station. The blue-frocked +porters crowded into the carriages.</p> +<p>"C'est tout, madame? Vous n'avez pas de grands bagages?"</p> +<p>"No, nothing. Find me a cab at once."</p> +<p>There was a great crowd outside. She hurried on as quickly as +she could, revolving what was to be said if any acquaintance were +to accost her. By great good luck, and by travelling second class +both in the train and on the boat, she had avoided meeting anybody +she knew. But the Nord Station was crowded with English people, and +she pushed her way through in a nervous terror.</p> +<p>"Miss Le Breton!"</p> +<p>She turned abruptly. In the white glare of the electric lights +she did not at first recognize the man who had spoken to her. Then +she drew back. Her heart beat wildly. For she had distinguished the +face of Jacob Delafield.</p> +<p>He came forward to meet her as she passed the barrier at the end +of the platform, his aspect full of what seemed to her an +extraordinary animation, significance, as though she were +expected.</p> +<p>"Miss Le Breton! What an astonishing, what a fortunate meeting! +I have a message for you from Evelyn."</p> +<p>"From Evelyn?" She echoed the words mechanically as she shook +hands.</p> +<p>"Wait a moment," he said, leading her aside towards the +waiting-room, while the crowd that was going to the <i>douane</i> +passed them by. Then he turned to Julie's porter.</p> +<p>"Attendez un instant."</p> +<p>The man sulkily shook his head, dropped Julie's bag at their +feet, and hurried off in search of a more lucrative job.</p> +<p>"I am going back to-night," added Delafield, hurriedly. "How +strange that I should have met you, for I have very sad news for +you! Lord Lackington had an attack this morning, from which he +cannot recover. The doctors give him perhaps forty-eight hours. He +has asked for you--urgently. The Duchess tells me so in a long +telegram I had from her to-day. But she supposed you to be in +Bruges. She has wired there. You will go back, will you not?"</p> +<p>"Go back?" said Julie, staring at him helplessly. "Go back +to-night?"</p> +<p>"The evening train starts in little more than an hour. You would +be just in time, I think, to see the old man alive."</p> +<p>She still looked at him in bewilderment, at the blue eyes under +the heavily moulded brows, and the mouth with its imperative, and +yet eager--or tremulous?--expression. She perceived that he hung +upon her answer.</p> +<p>She drew her hand piteously across her eyes as though to shut +out the crowds, the station, and the urgency of this personality +beside her. Despair was in her heart. How to consent? How to +refuse?</p> +<p>"But my friends," she stammered--"the friends with whom I was +going to stay--they will be alarmed."</p> +<p>"Could you not telegraph to them? They would understand, surely. +The office is close by."</p> +<p>She let herself be hurried along, not knowing what to do. +Delafield walked beside her. If she had been able to observe him, +she must have been struck afresh by the pale intensity, the +controlled agitation of his face.</p> +<p>"Is it really so serious?" she asked, pausing a moment, as +though in resistance.</p> +<p>"It is the end. Of that there can be no question. You have +touched his heart very deeply. He longs to see her, Evelyn says. +And his daughter and granddaughter are still abroad--Miss Moffatt, +indeed, is ill at Florence with a touch of diphtheria. He is alone +with his two sons. You will go?"</p> +<p>Even in her confusion, the strangeness of it all was borne in +upon her--his insistence, the extraordinary chance of their +meeting, his grave, commanding manner.</p> +<p>"How could you know I was here?" she said, in bewilderment.</p> +<p>"I didn't know," he said, slowly. "But, thank God, I have met +you. I dread to think of your fatigue, but you will be glad just to +see him again--just to give him his last wish--won't you?" he said, +pleadingly. "Here is the telegraph-office. Shall I do it for +you?"</p> +<p>"No, thank you. I--I must think how to word it. Please +wait."</p> +<p>She went in alone. As she took the pencil into her hands a low +groan burst from her lips. The man writing in the next compartment +turned round in astonishment. She controlled herself and began to +write. There was no escape. She must submit; and all was over.</p> +<p>She telegraphed to Warkworth, care of the Chef de Gare, at the +Sceaux Station, and also to the country inn.</p> +<p>"Have met Mr. Delafield by chance at Nord Station. Lord +Lackington dying. Must return to-night. Where shall I write? +Good-bye."</p> +<p>When it was done she could hardly totter out of the office. +Delafield made her take his arm.</p> +<p>"You must have some food. Then I will go and get a sleeping-car +for you to Calais. There will be no crowd to-night. At Calais I +will look after you if you will allow me."</p> +<p>"You are crossing to-night?" she said, vaguely. Her lips framed +the words with difficulty.</p> +<p>"Yes. I came over with my cousins yesterday."</p> +<p>She asked nothing more. It did not occur to her to notice that +he had no luggage, no bag, no rug, none of the paraphernalia of +travel. In her despairing fatigue and misery she let him guide her +as he would.</p> +<p>He made her take some soup, then some coffee, all that she could +make herself swallow. There was a dismal period of waiting, during +which she was hardly conscious of where she was or of what was +going on round her.</p> +<p>Then she found herself in the sleeping-car, in a reserved +compartment, alone. Once more the train moved through the night. +The miles flew by--the miles that forever parted her from +Warkworth.</p> +<br> +<br> +<hr style="width: 35%;"> +<br> +<br> +<h2><a name="XIX"></a>XIX</h2> +<br> +<p>The train was speeding through the forest country of Chantilly. +A pale moon had risen, and beneath its light the straight forest +roads, interminably long, stretched into the distance; the vaporous +masses of young and budding trees hurried past the eye of the +traveller; so, also, the white hamlets, already dark and silent; +the stations with their lights and figures; the great wood-piles +beside the line.</p> +<p>Delafield, in his second-class carriage, sat sleepless and +erect. The night was bitterly cold. He wore the light overcoat in +which he had left the Hôtel du Rhin that afternoon for a +stroll before dinner, and had no other wrap or covering. But he +felt nothing, was conscious of nothing but the rushing current of +his own thoughts.</p> +<p>The events of the two preceding days, the meaning of them, the +significance of his own action and its consequences--it was with +these materials that his mind dealt perpetually, combining, +interpreting, deducing, now in one way, now in another. His mood +contained both excitement and dread. But with a main temper of +calmness, courage, invincible determination, these elements did not +at all interfere.</p> +<p>The day before, he had left London with his cousins, the Duke of +Chudleigh, and young Lord Elmira, the invalid boy. They were bound +to Paris to consult a new doctor, and Jacob had offered to convey +them there. In spite of all the apparatus of servants and couriers +with which they were surrounded, they always seemed to him, on +their journeys, a singularly lonely and hapless pair, and he knew +that they leaned upon him and prized his company.</p> +<p>On the way to Paris, at the Calais buffet, he had noticed Henry +Warkworth, and had given him a passing nod. It had been understood +the night before in Heribert Street that they would both be +crossing on the morrow.</p> +<p>On the following day--the day of Julie's journey--Delafield, who +was anxiously awaiting the return of his two companions from their +interview with the great physician they were consulting, was +strolling up the Rue de la Paix, just before luncheon, when, +outside the Hôtel Mirabeau, he ran into a man whom he +immediately perceived to be Warkworth.</p> +<p>Politeness involved the exchange of a few sentences, although a +secret antagonism between the two men had revealed itself from the +first day of their meeting in Lady Henry's drawing-room. Each word +of their short conversation rang clearly through Delafield's +memory.</p> +<p>"You are at the 'Rhin'?" said Warkworth.</p> +<p>"Yes, for a couple more days. Shall we meet at the Embassy +to-morrow?"</p> +<p>"No. I dined there last night. My business here is done. I start +for Rome to-night."</p> +<p>"Lucky man. They have put on a new fast train, haven't +they?"</p> +<p>"Yes. You leave the Gare de Lyon at 7.15, and you are at Rome +the second morning, in good time."</p> +<p>"Magnificent! Why don't we all rush south? Well, good-bye again, +and good luck."</p> +<p>They touched hands perfunctorily and parted.</p> +<p>This happened about mid-day. While Delafield and his cousins +were lunching, a telegram from the Duchess of Crowborough was +handed to Jacob. He had wired to her early in the morning to ask +for the address in Paris of an old friend of his, who was also a +cousin of hers. The telegram contained:</p> +<p>/# "Thirty-six Avenue Friedland. Lord Lackington heart-attack +this morning. Dying. Has asked urgently for Julie. Blanche Moffatt +detained Florence by daughter's illness. All circumstances most +sad. Woman Heribert Street gave me Bruges address. Have wired Julie +there." #/</p> +<p>The message set vibrating in Delafield's mind the tender memory +which already existed there of his last talk with Julie, of her +strange dependence and gentleness, her haunting and pleading +personality. He hoped with all his heart she might reach the old +man in time, that his two sons, Uredale and William, would treat +her kindly, and that it would be found when the end came that he +had made due provision for her as his granddaughter.</p> +<p>But he had small leisure to give to thoughts of this kind. The +physician's report in the morning had not been encouraging, and his +two travelling companions demanded all the sympathy and support he +could give them. He went out with them in the afternoon to the +Hôtel de la Terrasse at St. Germain. The Duke, a nervous +hypochondriac, could not sleep in the noise of Paris, and was +accustomed to a certain apartment in this well-known hotel, which +was often reserved for him. Jacob left them about six o'clock to +return to Paris. He was to meet one of the Embassy +attachés--an old Oxford friend--at the Café Gaillard +for dinner. He dressed at the "Rhin," put on an overcoat, and set +out to walk to the Rue Gaillard about half-past seven. As he +approached the "Mirabeau," he saw a cab with luggage standing at +the door. A man came out with the hotel <i>concierge</i>. To his +astonishment, Delafield recognized Warkworth.</p> +<p>The young officer seemed in a hurry and out of temper. At any +rate, he jumped into the cab without taking any notice of the two +<i>sommeliers</i> and the <i>concierge</i> who stood round +expectant of francs, and when the <i>concierge</i> in his stiffest +manner asked where the man was to drive, Warkworth put his head out +of the window and said, hastily, to the <i>cocher</i>:</p> +<p>"D'abord, à la Gare de Sceaux! Puis, je vous dirai. Mais +dépêchez-vous!"</p> +<p>The cab rolled away, and Delafield walked on.</p> +<p>Half-past seven, striking from all the Paris towers! And +Warkworth's intention in the morning was to leave the Gare de Lyon +at 7.15. But it seemed he was now bound, at 7.30, for the Gare de +Sceaux, from which point of departure it was clear that no +reasonable man would think of starting for the Eternal City.</p> +<p>"<i>D'abord,</i> à la Gare de Sceaux!"</p> +<p>Then he was not catching a train?--at any rate, immediately. He +had some other business first, and was perhaps going to the station +to deposit his luggage?</p> +<p>Suddenly a thought, a suspicion, flashed through Delafield's +mind, which set his heart thumping in his breast. In after days he +was often puzzled to account for its origin, still more for the +extraordinary force with which it at once took possession of all +his energies. In his more mystical moments of later life he rose to +the secret belief that God had spoken to him.</p> +<p>At any rate, he at once hailed a cab, and, thinking no more of +his dinner engagement, he drove post-haste to the Nord Station. In +those days the Calais train arrived at eight. He reached the +station a few minutes before it appeared. When at last it drew up, +amid the crowd on the platform it took him only a few seconds to +distinguish the dark and elegant head of Julie Le Breton.</p> +<p>A pang shot through him that pierced to the very centre of life. +He was conscious of a prayer for help and a clear mind. But on his +way to the station he had rapidly thought out a plan on which to +act should this mad notion in his brain turn out to have any +support in reality.</p> +<p>It had so much support that Julie Le Breton was there--in +Paris--and not at Bruges, as she had led the Duchess to suppose. +And when she turned her startled face upon him, his wild fancy +became, for himself, a certainty.</p> +<hr style="width: 25%;"> +<p>"Amiens! Cinq minutes d'arrêt."</p> +<p>Delafield got out and walked up and down the platform. He passed +the closed and darkened windows of the sleeping-car; and it seemed +to his abnormally quickened sense that he was beside her, bending +over her, and that he said to her:</p> +<p>"Courage! You are saved! Let us thank God!"</p> +<p>A boy from the refreshment-room came along, wheeling a barrow on +which were tea and coffee.</p> +<p>Delafield eagerly drank a cup of tea and put his hand into his +pocket to pay for it. He found there three francs and his ticket. +After paying for the tea he examined his purse. That contained an +English half-crown.</p> +<p>So he had had with him just enough to get his own second-class +ticket, her first-class, and a sleeping-car. That was good fortune, +seeing that the bulk of his money, with his return ticket, was +reposing in his dressing-case at the Hôtel du Rhin.</p> +<p>"En voiture! En voiture, s'il vous plaît!"</p> +<p>He settled himself once more in his corner, and the train rushed +on. This time it was the strange hour at the Gare du Nord which he +lived through again, her white face opposite to him in the +refreshment-room, the bewilderment and misery she had been so +little able to conceal, her spasmodic attempts at conversation, a +few vague words about Lord Lackington or the Duchess, and then +pauses, when her great eyes, haggard and weary, stared into +vacancy, and he knew well enough that her thoughts were with +Warkworth, and that she was in fierce rebellion against his +presence there, and this action into which he had forced her.</p> +<p>As for him, he perfectly understood the dilemma in which she +stood. Either she must accept the duty of returning to the +death-bed of the old man, her mother's father, or she must confess +her appointment with Warkworth.</p> +<p>Yet--suppose he had been mistaken? Well, the telegram from the +Duchess covered his whole action. Lord Lackington <i>was</i> dying; +and apart from all question of feeling, Julie Le Breton's friends +must naturally desire that he should see her, acknowledge her +before his two sons, and, with their consent, provide for her +before his death.</p> +<p>But, ah, he had not been mistaken! He remembered her hurried +refusal when he had asked her if he should telegraph for her to her +Paris "friends"--how, in a sudden shame, he had turned away that he +might not see the beloved false face as she spoke, might not seem +to watch or suspect her.</p> +<p>He had just had time to send off a messenger, first to his +friend at the Café Gaillard, and then to the Hôtel du +Rhin, before escorting her to the sleeping-car.</p> +<p>Ah, how piteous had been that dull bewilderment with which she +had turned to him!</p> +<p>"But--my ticket?"</p> +<p>"Here they are. Oh, never mind--we will settle in town. Try to +sleep. You must be very tired."</p> +<p>And then it seemed to him that her lips trembled, like those of +a miserable child; and surely, surely, she must hear that mad +beating of his pulse!</p> +<p>Boulogne was gone in a flash. Here was the Somme, stretched in a +pale silver flood beneath the moon--a land of dunes and stunted +pines, of wide sea-marshes, over which came the roar of the +Channel. Then again the sea was left behind, and the rich Picard +country rolled away to right and left. Lights here and there, in +cottage or villa--the lights, perhaps, of birth or +death--companions of hope or despair.</p> +<p>Calais!</p> +<p>The train moved slowly up to the boat-side. Delafield jumped +out. The sleeping-car was yielding up its passengers. He soon made +out the small black hat and veil, the slender form in the dark +travelling-dress.</p> +<p>Was she fainting? For she seemed to him to waver as he +approached her, and the porter who had taken her rugs and bag was +looking at her in astonishment. In an instant he had drawn her arm +within his, and was supporting her as he best could,</p> +<p>"The car was very hot, and I am so tired. I only want some +air."</p> +<p>They reached the deck.</p> +<p>"You will go down-stairs?"</p> +<p>"No, no--some air!" she murmured, and he saw that she could +hardly keep her feet.</p> +<p>But in a few moments they had reached the shelter on the upper +deck usually so well filled with chairs and passengers on a day +crossing. Now it was entirely deserted. The boat was not full, the +night was cold and stormy, and the stream of passengers had poured +down into the shelter of the lower deck.</p> +<p>Julie sank into a chair. Delafield hurriedly loosened the shawl +she carried with her from its attendant bag and umbrella, and +wrapped it round her.</p> +<p>"It will be a rough crossing," he said, in her ear. "Can you +stand it on deck?"</p> +<p>"I am a good sailor. Let me stay here."</p> +<p>Her eyes closed. He stooped over her in an anguish. One of the +boat officials approached him.</p> +<p>"Madame ferait mieux de descendre, monsieur. La traversée +ne sera pas bonne."</p> +<p>Delafield explained that the lady must have air, and was a good +sailor. Then he pressed into the man's hand his three francs, and +sent him for brandy and an extra covering of some kind. The man +went unwillingly.</p> +<p>During the whole bustle of departure, Delafield saw nothing but +Julie's helpless and motionless form; he heard nothing but the +faint words by which, once or twice, she tried to convey to him +that she was not unconscious.</p> +<p>The brandy came. The man who brought it again objected to +Julie's presence on deck. Delafield took no heed. He was absorbed +in making Julie swallow some of the brandy.</p> +<p>At last they were off. The vessel glided slowly out of the old +harbor, and they were immediately in rough water.</p> +<p>Delafield was roused by a peremptory voice at his elbow.</p> +<p>"This lady ought not to stay here, sir. There is plenty of room +in the ladies' cabin."</p> +<p>Delafield looked up and recognized the captain of the boat, the +same man who, thirty-six hours before, had shown special civilities +to the Duke of Chudleigh and his party.</p> +<p>"Ah, you are Captain Whittaker," he said.</p> +<p>The shrewd, stout man who had accosted him raised his eyebrows +in astonishment.</p> +<p>Delafield drew him aside a moment. After a short conversation +the captain lifted his cap and departed, with a few words to the +subordinate officer who had drawn his attention to the matter. +Henceforward they were unmolested, and presently the officer +brought a pillow and striped blanket, saying they might be useful +to the lady. Julie was soon comfortably placed, lying down on the +seat under the wooden shelter. Delicacy seemed to suggest that her +companion should leave her to herself.</p> +<p>Jacob walked up and down briskly, trying to shake off the cold +which benumbed him. Every now and then he paused to look at the +lights on the receding French coast, at its gray phantom line +sweeping southward under the stormy moon, or disappearing to the +north in clouds of rain. There was a roar of waves and a dashing of +spray. The boat, not a large one, was pitching heavily, and the few +male passengers who had at first haunted the deck soon +disappeared.</p> +<p>Delafield hung over the surging water in a strange exaltation, +half physical, half moral. The wild salt strength and savor of the +sea breathed something akin to that passionate force of will which +had impelled him to the enterprise in which he stood. No mere man +of the world could have dared it; most men of the world, as he was +well aware, would have condemned or ridiculed it. But for one who +saw life and conduct <i>sub specie æternitatis</i> it had +seemed natural enough.</p> +<p>The wind blew fierce and cold. He made his way back to Julie's +side. To his surprise, she had raised herself and was sitting +propped up against the corner of the seat, her veil thrown +back.</p> +<p>"You are better?" he said, stooping to her, so as to be heard +against the boom of the waves. "This rough weather does not affect +you?"</p> +<p>She made a negative sign. He drew his camp-stool beside her. +Suddenly she asked him what time it was. The haggard nobleness of +her pale face amid the folds of black veil, the absent passion of +the eye, thrilled to his heart. Where were her thoughts?</p> +<p>"Nearly four o'clock." He drew out his watch. "You see it is +beginning to lighten,"</p> +<p>And he pointed to the sky, in which that indefinable lifting of +the darkness which precedes the dawn was taking place, and to the +far distances of sea, where a sort of livid clarity was beginning +to absorb and vanquish that stormy play of alternate dark and +moonlight which had prevailed when they left the French shore.</p> +<p>He had hardly spoken, when he felt that her eyes were fixed upon +him.</p> +<p>To look at his watch, he had thrown open his long Newmarket +coat, forgetting that in so doing he disclosed the evening-dress in +which he had robed himself at the Hôtel du Rhin for his +friend's dinner at the Café Gaillard.</p> +<p>He hastily rebuttoned his coat, and turned his face seaward once +more. But he heard her voice, and was obliged to come close to her +that he might catch the words.</p> +<p>"You have given me your wraps," she said, with difficulty. "You +will suffer."</p> +<p>"Not at all. You have your own rug, and one that the captain +provided. I keep myself quite warm with moving about."</p> +<p>There was a pause. His mind began to fill with alarm. He was not +of the men who act a part with ease; but, having got through so +far, he had calculated on preserving his secret.</p> +<p>Flight was best, and he was just turning away when a gesture of +hers arrested him. Again he stooped till their faces were near +enough to let her voice reach him.</p> +<p>"Why are you in evening-dress?"</p> +<p>"I had intended to dine with a friend. There was not time to +change."</p> +<p>"Then you did not mean to cross to-night?"</p> +<p>He delayed a moment, trying to collect his thoughts.</p> +<p>"Not when I dressed for dinner, but some sudden news decided +me."</p> +<p>Her head fell back wearily against the support behind it. The +eyes closed, and he, thinking she would perhaps sleep, was about to +rise from his seat, when the pressure of her hand upon his arm +detained him. He sat still and the hand was withdrawn.</p> +<p>There was a lessening of the roar in their ears. Under the lee +of the English shore the wind was milder, the "terror-music" of the +sea less triumphant. And over everything was stealing the first +discriminating touch of the coming light. Her face was clear now; +and Delafield, at last venturing to look at her, saw that her eyes +were open again, and trembled at their expression. There was in +them a wild suspicion. Secretly, steadily, he nerved himself to +meet the blow that he foresaw.</p> +<p>"Mr. Delafield, have you told me all the truth?"</p> +<p>She sat up as she spoke, deadly pale but rigid. With an +impatient hand she threw off the wraps which had covered her. Her +face commanded an answer.</p> +<p>"Certainly I have told you the truth."</p> +<p>"Was it the whole truth? It seems--it seems to me that you were +not prepared yourself for this journey--that there is some +mystery--which I do not understand--which I resent!"</p> +<p>"But what mystery? When I saw you, I of course thought of +Evelyn's telegram."</p> +<p>"I should like to see that telegram."</p> +<p>He hesitated. If he had been more skilled in the little +falsehoods of every day he would simply have said that he had left +it at the hotel. But he lost his chance. Nor at the moment did he +clearly perceive what harm it would do to show it to her. The +telegram was in his pocket, and he handed it to her.</p> +<p>There was a dim oil-lamp in the shelter. With difficulty she +held the fluttering paper up and just divined the words. Then the +wind carried it away and blew it overboard. He rose and leaned +against the edge of the shelter, looking down upon her. There was +in his mind a sense of something solemn approaching, round which +this sudden lull of blast and wave seemed to draw a "wind-warm +space," closing them in.</p> +<p>"Why did you come with me?" she persisted, in an agitation she +could now scarcely control. "It is evident you had not meant to +travel. You have no luggage, and you are in evening-dress. And I +remember now--you sent two letters from the station!"</p> +<p>"I wished to be your escort."</p> +<p>Her gesture was almost one of scorn at the evasion.</p> +<p>"Why were you at the station at all? Evelyn had told you I was +at Bruges. And--you were dining out. I--I can't understand!"</p> +<p>She spoke with a frowning intensity, a strange queenliness, in +which was neither guilt nor confusion.</p> +<p>A voice spoke in Delafield's heart. "Tell her!" it said.</p> +<p>He bent nearer to her.</p> +<p>"Miss Le Breton, with what friends were you going to stay in +Paris?"</p> +<p>She breathed quick.</p> +<p>"I am not a school-girl, I think, that I should be asked +questions of that kind."</p> +<p>"But on your answer depends mine."</p> +<p>She looked at him in amazement. His gentle kindness had +disappeared. She saw, instead, that Jacob Delafield whom her +instinct had divined from the beginning behind the modest and +courteous outer man, the Jacob Delafield of whom she had told the +Duchess she was afraid.</p> +<p>But her passion swept every other thought out of its way. With +dim agony and rage she began to perceive that she had been +duped.</p> +<p>"Mr. Delafield"--she tried for calm--"I don't understand your +attitude, but, so far as I do understand it, I find it intolerable. +If you have deceived me--"</p> +<p>"I have not deceived you. Lord Lackington is dying."</p> +<p>"But that is not why you were at the station," she repeated, +passionately. "Why did you meet the English train?"</p> +<p>Her eyes, clear now in the cold light, shone upon him +imperiously.</p> +<p>Again the inner voice said: "Speak--get away from +conventionalities. Speak--soul to soul!"</p> +<p>He sat down once more beside her. His gaze sought the ground. +Then, with sharp suddenness, he looked her in the face.</p> +<p>"Miss Le Breton, you were going to Paris to meet Major +Warkworth?"</p> +<p>She drew back.</p> +<p>"And if I was?" she said, with a wild defiance.</p> +<p>"I had to prevent it, that was all."</p> +<p>His tone was calm and resolution itself.</p> +<p>"Who--who gave you authority over me?"</p> +<p>"One may save--even by violence. You were too precious to be +allowed to destroy yourself."</p> +<p>His look, so sad and strong, the look of a deep compassion, +fastened itself upon her. He felt himself, indeed, possessed by a +force not his own, that same force which in its supreme degree made +of St. Francis "the great tamer of souls."</p> +<p>"Who asked you to be our judge? Neither I nor Major Warkworth +owe you anything."</p> +<p>"No. But I owed you help--as a man--as your friend. The truth +was somehow borne in upon me. You were risking your honor--I threw +myself in the way."</p> +<p>Every word seemed to madden her.</p> +<p>"What--what could you know of the circumstances?" cried her +choked, laboring voice. "It is unpardonable--an outrage! You know +nothing either of him or of me."</p> +<p>She clasped her hands to her breast in a piteous, magnificent +gesture, as though she were defending her lover and her love.</p> +<p>"I know that you have suffered much," he said, dropping his eyes +before her, "but you would suffer infinitely more if--"</p> +<p>"If you had not interfered." Her veil had fallen over her face +again. She flung it back in impatient despair. "Mr. Delafield, I +can do without your anxieties."</p> +<p>"But not"--he spoke slowly--"without your own self-respect."</p> +<p>Julie's face trembled. She hid it in her hands.</p> +<p>"Go!" she said. "Go!"</p> +<p>He went to the farther end of the ship and stood there +motionless, looking towards the land but seeing nothing. On all +sides the darkness was lifting, and in the distance there gleamed +already the whiteness that was Dover. His whole being was shaken +with that experience which comes so rarely to cumbered and +superficial men--the intimate wrestle of one personality with +another. It seemed to him he was not worthy of it.</p> +<p>After some little time, when only a quarter of an hour lay +between the ship and Dover pier, he went back to Julie.</p> +<p>She was sitting perfectly still, her hands clasped in front of +her, her veil drawn down.</p> +<p>"May I say one word to you?" he said, gently.</p> +<p>She did not speak.</p> +<p>"It is this. What I have confessed to you to-night is, of +course, buried between us. It is as though it had never been said. +I have given you pain. I ask your pardon from the bottom of my +heart, and, at the same time"--his voice trembled--"I thank God +that I had the courage to do it!"</p> +<p>She threw him a glance that showed her a quivering lip and the +pallor of intense emotion.</p> +<p>"I know you think you were right," she said, in a voice dull and +strained, "but henceforth we can only be enemies. You have +tyrannized over me in the name of standards that you revere and I +reject. I can only beg you to let my life alone for the +future."</p> +<p>He said nothing. She rose, dizzily, to her feet. They were +rapidly approaching the pier.</p> +<br> +<a name="illus-356.jpg"></a> +<p class="ctr"><a href="images/illus-356.jpg"><img src= +"images/illus-356.jpg" width="50%" alt=""></a><br> +<b>"HER HANDS CLASPED IN FRONT OF HER"</b></p> +<br> +<p>With the cold aloofness of one who feels it more dignified to +submit than to struggle, she allowed him to assist her in landing. +He put her into the Victoria train, travelling himself in another +carriage.</p> +<p>As he walked beside her down the platform of Victoria Station, +she said to him:</p> +<p>"I shall be obliged if you will tell Evelyn that I have +returned."</p> +<p>"I go to her at once."</p> +<p>She suddenly paused, and he saw that she was looking helplessly +at one of the newspaper placards of the night before. First among +its items appeared: "Critical state of Lord Lackington."</p> +<p>He hardly knew how far she would allow him to have any further +communication with her, but her pale exhaustion made it impossible +not to offer to serve her.</p> +<p>"It would be early to go for news now," he said, gently. "It +would disturb the house. But in a couple of hours from now"--the +station clock pointed to 6.15--"if you will allow me, I will leave +the morning bulletin at your door."</p> +<p>She hesitated.</p> +<p>"You must rest, or you will have no strength for nursing," he +continued, in the same studiously guarded tone. "But if you would +prefer another messenger--"</p> +<p>"I have none," and she raised her hand to her brow in mute, +unconscious confession of an utter weakness and bewilderment.</p> +<p>"Then let me go," he said, softly.</p> +<p>It seemed to him that she was so physically weary as to be +incapable either of assent or resistance. He put her into her cab, +and gave the driver his directions. She looked at him uncertainly. +But he did not offer his hand. From those blue eyes of his there +shot out upon her one piercing glance--manly, entreating, sad. He +lifted his hat and was gone.</p> +<br> +<br> +<hr style="width: 35%;"> +<br> +<br> +<h2><a name="XX"></a>XX</h2> +<br> +<p>"Jacob, what brings you back so soon?" The Duchess ran into the +room, a trim little figure in her morning dress of blue-and-white +cloth, with her small spitz leaping beside her.</p> +<p>Delafield advanced.</p> +<p>"I came to tell you that I got your telegram yesterday, and that +in the evening, by an extraordinary and fortunate chance, I met +Miss Le Breton in Paris--"</p> +<p>"You met Julie in Paris?" echoed the Duchess, in +astonishment.</p> +<p>"She had come to spend a couple of days with some friends there +before going on to Bruges. I gave her the news of Lord Lackington's +illness, and she at once turned back. She was much fatigued and +distressed, and the night was stormy. I put her into the +sleeping-car, and came back myself to see if I could be any +assistance to her. And at Calais I was of some use. The crossing +was very rough."</p> +<p>"Julie was in Paris?" repeated the Duchess, as though she had +heard nothing else of what he had been saying.</p> +<p>Her eyes, so blue and large in her small, irregular face, sought +those of her cousin and endeavored to read them.</p> +<p>"It seems to have been a rapid change of plan. And it was a +great stroke of luck my meeting her."</p> +<p>"But how--and where?"</p> +<p>"Oh, there is no time for going into that," said Delafield, +impatiently. "But I knew you would like to know that she was +here--after your message yesterday. We arrived a little after six +this morning. About nine I went for news to St. James's Square. +There is a slight rally."</p> +<p>"Did you see Lord Uredale? Did you say anything about Julie?" +asked the Duchess, eagerly.</p> +<p>"I merely asked at the door, and took the bulletin to Miss Le +Breton. Will you see Uredale and arrange it? I gather you saw him +yesterday."</p> +<p>"By all means," said the Duchess, musing. "Oh, it was so curious +yesterday. Lord Lackington had just told them. You should have seen +those two men."</p> +<p>"The sons?"</p> +<p>The Duchess nodded.</p> +<p>"They don't like it. They were as stiff as pokers. But they will +do absolutely the right thing. They see at once that she must be +provided for. And when he asked for her they told me to telegraph, +if I could find out where she was. Well, of all the extraordinary +chances."</p> +<p>She looked at him again, oddly, a spot of red on either small +cheek. Delafield took no notice. He was pacing up and down, +apparently in thought.</p> +<p>"Suppose you take her there?" he said, pausing abruptly before +her.</p> +<p>"To St. James's Square? What did you tell her?"</p> +<p>"That he was a trifle better, and that you would come to +her."</p> +<p>"Yes, it would be hard for her to go alone," said the Duchess, +reflectively. She looked at her watch. "Only a little after eleven. +Ring, please, Jacob."</p> +<p>The carriage was ordered. Meanwhile the little lady inquired +eagerly after her Julie. Had she been exhausted by the double +journey? Was she alone in Paris, or was Madame Bornier with +her?</p> +<p>Jacob had understood that Madame Bornier and the little girl had +gone straight to Bruges.</p> +<p>The Duchess looked down and then looked up.</p> +<p>"Did--did you come across Major Warkworth?"</p> +<p>"Yes, I saw him for a moment in the Rue de la Paix, He was +starting for Rome."</p> +<p>The Duchess turned away as though ashamed of her question, and +gave her orders for the carriage. Then her attention was suddenly +drawn to her cousin. "How pale you look, Jacob," she said, +approaching him. "Won't you have something--some wine?"</p> +<p>Delafield refused, declaring that all he wanted was an hour or +two's sleep.</p> +<p>"I go back to Paris to-morrow," he said, as he prepared to take +his leave. "Will you be here to-night if I look in?"</p> +<p>"Alack! we go to Scotland to-night! It was just a piece of luck +that you found me this morning. Freddie is fuming to get away."</p> +<p>Delafield paused a moment. Then he abruptly shook hands and +went.</p> +<p>"He wants news of what happens at St. James's Square," thought +the Duchess, suddenly, and she ran after him to the top of the +stairs. "Jacob! If you don't mind a horrid mess to-night, Freddie +and I shall be dining alone--of course we must have something to +eat. Somewhere about eight. Do look in. There'll be a cutlet--on a +trunk--anyway."</p> +<p>Delafield laughed, hesitated, and finally accepted.</p> +<p>The Duchess went back to the drawing-room, not a little puzzled +and excited.</p> +<p>"It's very, <i>very</i> odd," she said to herself. "And what +<i>is</i> the matter with Jacob?"</p> +<hr style="width: 25%;"> +<p>Half an hour later she drove to the splendid house in St. +James's Square where Lord Lackington lay dying.</p> +<p>She asked for Lord Uredale, the eldest son, and waited in the +library till he came.</p> +<p>He was a tall, squarely built man, with fair hair already gray, +and somewhat absent and impassive manners.</p> +<p>At sight of him the Duchess's eyes filled with tears. She +hurried to him, her soft nature dissolved in sympathy.</p> +<p>"How is your father?"</p> +<p>"A trifle easier, though the doctors say there is no real +improvement. But he is quite conscious--knows us all. I have just +been reading him the debate."</p> +<p>"You told me yesterday he had asked for Miss Le Breton," said +the Duchess, raising herself on tiptoe as though to bring her low +tones closer to his ear. "She's here--in town, I mean. She came +back from Paris last night."</p> +<p>Lord Uredale showed no emotion of any kind. Emotion was not in +his line.</p> +<p>"Then my father would like to see her," he said, in a dry, +ordinary voice, which jarred upon the sentimental Duchess.</p> +<p>"When shall I bring her?"</p> +<p>"He is now comfortable and resting. If you are free--"</p> +<p>The Duchess replied that she would go to Heribert Street at +once. As Lord Uredale took her to her carriage a young man ran down +the steps hastily, raised his hat, and disappeared.</p> +<p>Lord Uredale explained that he was the husband of the famous +young beauty, Mrs. Delaray, whose portrait Lord Lackington had been +engaged upon at the time of his seizure. Having been all his life a +skilful artist, a man of fashion, and a harmless haunter of lovely +women, Lord Lackington, as the Duchess knew, had all but completed +a gallery of a hundred portraits, representing the beauty of the +reign. Mrs. Delaray's would have been the hundredth in a series of +which Mrs. Norton was the first.</p> +<p>"He has been making arrangements with the husband to get it +finished," said Lord Uredale; "it has been on his mind."</p> +<p>The Duchess shivered a little.</p> +<p>"He knows he won't finish it?"</p> +<p>"Quite well."</p> +<p>"And he still thinks of those things?"</p> +<p>"Yes--or politics," said Lord Uredale, smiling faintly. "I have +written to Mr. Montresor. There are two or three points my father +wants to discuss with him."</p> +<p>"And he is not depressed, or troubled about himself?"</p> +<p>"Not in the least. He will be grateful if you will bring him +Miss Le Breton."</p> +<hr style="width: 25%;"> +<p>"Julie, my darling, are you fit to come with me?"</p> +<p>The Duchess held her friend in her arms, soothing and caressing +her. How forlorn was the little house, under its dust-sheets, on +this rainy, spring morning! And Julie, amid the dismantled +drawing-room, stood spectrally white and still, listening, with +scarcely a word in reply, to the affection, or the pity, or the +news which the Duchess poured out upon her.</p> +<p>"Shall we go now? I am quite ready."</p> +<p>And she withdrew herself from the loving grasp which held her, +and put on her hat and gloves.</p> +<p>"You ought to be in bed," said the Duchess. "Those night +journeys are too abominable. Even Jacob looks a wreck. But what an +extraordinary chance, Julie, that Jacob should have found you! How +did you come across each other?"</p> +<p>"At the Nord Station," said Julie, as she pinned her veil before +the glass over the mantel-piece.</p> +<p>Some instinct silenced the Duchess. She asked no more questions, +and they started for St. James's Square.</p> +<p>"You won't mind if I don't talk?" said Julie, leaning back and +closing her eyes. "I seem still to have the sea in my ears."</p> +<p>The Duchess looked at her tenderly, clasping her hand close, and +the carriage rolled along. But just before they reached St. James's +Square, Julie hastily raised the fingers which held her own and +kissed them.</p> +<p>"Oh, Julie," said the Duchess, reproachfully, "I don't like you +to do that!"</p> +<p>She flushed and frowned. It was she who ought to pay such acts +of homage, not Julie.</p> +<hr style="width: 25%;"> +<p>"Father, Miss Le Breton is here."</p> +<p>"Let her come in, Jack--and the Duchess, too."</p> +<p>Lord Uredale went back to the door. Two figures came noiselessly +into the room, the Duchess in front, with Julie's hand in hers.</p> +<p>Lord Lackington was propped up in bed, and breathing fast. But +he smiled as they approached him.</p> +<p>"This is good-bye, dear Duchess," he said, in a whisper, as she +bent over him. Then, with a spark of his old gayety in the eyes, "I +should be a cur to grumble. Life has been very agreeable. Ah, +Julie!"</p> +<p>Julie dropped gently on her knees beside him and laid her cheek +against his arm. At the mention of her name the old man's face had +clouded as though the thoughts she called up had suddenly rebuked +his words to the Duchess. He feebly moved his hands towards hers, +and there was silence in the room for a few moments.</p> +<p>"Uredale!"</p> +<p>"Yes, father."</p> +<p>"This is Rose's daughter."</p> +<p>His eyes lifted themselves to those of his son.</p> +<p>"I know, father. If Miss Le Breton will allow us, we will do +what we can to be of service to her."</p> +<p>Bill Chantrey, the younger brother, gravely nodded assent. They +were both men of middle age, the younger over forty. They did not +resemble their father, nor was there any trace in either of them of +his wayward fascination. They were a pair of well-set-up, well-bred +Englishmen, surprised at nothing, and quite incapable of showing +any emotion in public; yet just and kindly men. As Julie entered +the house they had both solemnly shaken hands with her, in a manner +which showed at once their determination, as far as they were +concerned, to avoid anything sentimental or in the nature of a +scene, and their readiness to do what could be rightly demanded of +them.</p> +<p>Julie hardly listened to Lord Uredale's little speech. She had +eyes and ears only for her grandfather. As she knelt beside him, +her face bowed upon his hand, the ice within her was breaking up, +that dumb and straitening anguish in which she had lived since that +moment at the Nord Station in which she had grasped the meaning and +the implications of Delafield's hurried words. Was everything to be +swept away from her at once--her lover, and now this dear old man, +to whom her heart, crushed and bleeding as it was, yearned with all +its strength?</p> +<p>Lord Lackington supposed that she was weeping.</p> +<p>"Don't grieve, my dear," he murmured. "It must come to an end +some time--'<i>cette charmante promenade à travers la +réalité</i>!'"</p> +<p>And he smiled at her, agreeably vain to the last of that French +accent and that French memory which--so his look implied--they two +could appreciate, each in the other. Then he turned to the +Duchess.</p> +<p>"Duchess, you knew this secret before me. But I forgive +<i>you</i>, and thank you. You have been very good to Rose's child. +Julie has told me--and--I have observed--"</p> +<p>"Oh, dear Lord Lackington!" Evelyn bent over him. "Trust her to +me," she said, with a lovely yearning to comfort and cheer him +breathing from her little face.</p> +<p>He smiled.</p> +<p>"To you--and--"</p> +<p>He did not finish the sentence.</p> +<p>After a pause he made a little gesture of farewell which the +Duchess understood. She kissed his hand and turned away +weeping.</p> +<p>"Nurse--where is nurse?" said Lord Lackington.</p> +<p>Both the nurse and the doctor, who had withdrawn a little +distance from the family group, came forward.</p> +<p>"Doctor, give me some strength," said the laboring voice, not +without its old wilfulness of accent.</p> +<p>He moved his arm towards the young homoeopath, who injected +strychnine. Then he looked at the nurse.</p> +<p>"Brandy--and--lift me."</p> +<p>All was done as he desired.</p> +<p>"Now go, please," he said to his sons. "I wish to be left with +Julie."</p> +<hr style="width: 25%;"> +<p>For some moments, that seemed interminable to Julie, Lord +Lackington lay silent. A feverish flush, a revival of life in the +black eyes had followed on the administration of the two +stimulants. He seemed to be gathering all his forces.</p> +<p>At last he laid his hand on her arm. "You shouldn't be alone," +he said, abruptly.</p> +<p>His expression had grown anxious, even imperious. She felt a +vague pang of dread as she tried to assure him that she had kind +friends, and that her work would be her resource.</p> +<p>Lord Lackington frowned.</p> +<p>"That won't do," he said, almost vehemently. "You have great +talents, but you are weak--you are a woman--you must marry."</p> +<p>Julie stared at him, whiter even than when she had entered his +room--helpless to avert what she began to foresee.</p> +<p>"Jacob Delafield is devoted to you. You should marry him, +dear--you should marry him."</p> +<p>The room seemed to swim around her. But his face was still +plain--the purpled lips and cheeks, the urgency in the eyes, as of +one pursued by an overtaking force, the magnificent brow, the crown +of white hair.</p> +<p>She summoned all her powers and told him hurriedly that he was +mistaken--entirely mistaken. Mr. Delafield had, indeed, proposed to +her, but, apart from her own unwillingness, she had reason to know +that his feelings towards her were now entirely changed. He neither +loved her nor thought well of her.</p> +<p>Lord Lackington lay there, obstinate, patient, incredulous. At +last he interrupted her.</p> +<p>"You make yourself believe these things. But they are not true. +Delafield is attached to you. I know it."</p> +<p>He nodded to her with his masterful, affectionate look. And +before she could find words again he had resumed.</p> +<p>"He could give you a great position. Don't despise it. We +English big-wigs have a good time."</p> +<p>A ghostly, humorous ray shot out upon her; then he felt for her +hand.</p> +<p>"Dear Julie, why won't you?"</p> +<p>"If you were to ask him," she cried, in despair, "he would tell +you as I do."</p> +<p>And across her miserable thoughts there flashed two mingled +images--Warkworth waiting, waiting for her at the Sceaux Station, +and that look of agonized reproach in Delafield's haggard face as +he had parted from her in the dawn of this strange, this incredible +day.</p> +<p>And here beside her, with the tyranny of the dying, this dear +babbler wandered on in broken words, with painful breath, pleading, +scolding, counselling. She felt that he was exhausting himself. She +begged him to let her recall nurse and doctor. He shook his head, +and when he could no longer speak, he clung to her hand, his gaze +solemnly, insistently, fixed upon her.</p> +<p>Her spirit writhed and rebelled. But she was helpless in the +presence of this mortal weakness, this affection, half earthly, +half beautiful, on its knees before her.</p> +<p>A thought struck her. Why not content him? Whatever pledges she +gave would die with him. What did it matter? It was cruelty to deny +him the words--the mere empty words--he asked of her.</p> +<p>"I--I would do anything to please you!" she said, with a sudden +burst of uncontrollable tears, as she laid her head down beside him +on the pillow. "If he <i>were</i> to ask me again, of course, for +your sake, I would consider it once more. Dear, dear friend, won't +that satisfy you?"</p> +<p>Lord Lackington was silent a few moments, then he smiled.</p> +<p>"That's a promise?"</p> +<p>She raised herself and looked at him, conscious of a sick +movement of terror. What was there in his mind, still so quick, +fertile, ingenious, under the very shadow of death?</p> +<p>He waited for her answer, feebly pressing her hand.</p> +<p>"Yes," she said, faintly, and once more hid her face beside +him.</p> +<p>Then, for some little time, the dying man neither stirred nor +spoke. At last Julie heard:</p> +<p>"I used to be afraid of death--that was in middle life. Every +night it was a torment. But now, for many years, I have not been +afraid at all.... Byron--Lord Byron--said to me, once, he would not +change anything in his life; but he would have preferred not to +have lived at all. I could not say that. I have enjoyed it +all--being an Englishman, and an English peer--pictures, politics, +society--everything. Perhaps it wasn't fair. There are so many poor +devils."</p> +<p>Julie pressed his hand to her lips. But in her thoughts there +rose the sudden, sharp memory of her mother's death--of that bitter +stoicism and abandonment in which the younger life had closed, in +comparison with this peace, this complacency.</p> +<p>Yet it was a complacency rich in sweetness. His next words were +to assure her tenderly that he had made provision for her. "Uredale +and Bill--will see to it. They're good fellows. Often--they've +thought me--a pretty fool. But they've been kind to +me--always."</p> +<p>Then, after another interval, he lifted himself in bed, with +more strength than she had supposed he could exert, looked at her +earnestly, and asked her, in the same painful whisper, whether she +believed in another life.</p> +<p>"Yes," said Julie. But her shrinking, perfunctory manner +evidently distressed him. He resumed, with a furrowed brow:</p> +<p>"You ought. It is good for us to believe it."</p> +<p>"I must hope, at any rate, that I shall see you again--and +mamma," she said, smiling on him through her tears.</p> +<p>"I wonder what it will be like," he replied, after a pause. His +tone and look implied a freakish, a whimsical curiosity, yet full +of charm. Then, motioning to her to come nearer, and speaking into +her ear:</p> +<p>"Your poor mother, Julie, was never happy--never! There must be +laws, you see--and churches--and religious customs. It's +because--we're made of such wretched stuff. My wife, when she +died--made me promise to continue going to church--and praying. +And--without it--I should have been a bad man. Though I've had +plenty of sceptical thoughts--plenty. Your poor parents +rebelled--against all that. They suffered--they suffered. But +you'll make up--you're a noble woman--you'll make up."</p> +<p>He laid his hand on her head. She offered no reply; but through +the inner mind there rushed the incidents, passions, revolts of the +preceding days.</p> +<p>But for that strange chance of Delafield's appearance in her +path--a chance no more intelligible to her now, after the pondering +of several feverish hours, than it had been at the moment of her +first suspicion--where and what would she be now? A dishonored +woman, perhaps, with a life-secret to keep; cut off, as her mother +had been, from the straight-living, law-abiding world.</p> +<p>The touch of the old man's hand upon her hair roused in her a +first recoil, a first shattering doubt of the impulse which had +carried her to Paris. Since Delafield left her in the early dawn +she had been pouring out a broken, passionate heart in a letter to +Warkworth. No misgivings while she was writing it as to the +all-sufficing legitimacy of love!</p> +<p>But here, in this cold neighborhood of the grave--brought back +to gaze in spirit; on her mother's tragedy--she shrank, she +trembled. Her proud intelligence denied the stain, and bade her +hate and despise her rescuer. And, meanwhile, things also inherited +and inborn, the fruit of a remoter ancestry, rising from the +dimmest and deepest caverns of personality, silenced the clamor of +the naturalist mind. One moment she felt herself seized with terror +lest anything should break down the veil between her real self and +this unsuspecting tenderness of the dying man; the next she rose in +revolt against her own fear. Was she to find herself, after all, a +mere weak penitent--meanly grateful to Jacob Delafield? Her heart +cried out to Warkworth in a protesting anguish.</p> +<p>So absorbed in thought was she that she did not notice how long +the silence had lasted.</p> +<p>"He seems to be sleeping," said a low voice beside her.</p> +<p>She looked up to see the doctor, with Lord Uredale. Gently +releasing herself, she kissed Lord Lackington's forehead, and rose +to her feet.</p> +<p>Suddenly the patient opened his eyes, and as he seemed to become +aware of the figures beside him, he again lifted himself in bed, +and a gleam most animated, most vivacious, passed over his +features.</p> +<p>"Brougham's not asked," he said, with a little chuckle of +amusement. "Isn't it a joke?"</p> +<p>The two men beside him looked at each other. Lord Uredale +approached the bed.</p> +<p>"Not asked to what, father?" he said, gently.</p> +<p>"Why, to the Queen's fancy ball, of course," said Lord +Lackington, still smiling. "Such a to-do! All the elderly sticks +practising minuets for their lives!"</p> +<p>A voluble flow of talk followed--hardly intelligible. The words +"Melbourne" and "Lady Holland" emerged--the fragment, apparently, +of a dispute with the latter, in which "Allen" intervened--the +names of "Palmerston" and "that dear chap, Villiers."</p> +<p>Lord Uredale sighed. The young doctor looked at him +interrogatively.</p> +<p>"He is thinking of his old friends," said the son. "That was the +Queen's ball, I imagine, of '42. I have often heard him describe my +mother's dress."</p> +<p>But while he was speaking the fitful energy died away. The old +man ceased to talk; his eyelids fell. But the smile still lingered +about his mouth, and as he settled himself on his pillows, like one +who rests, the spectators were struck by the urbane and +distinguished beauty of his aspect. The purple flush had died again +into mortal pallor. Illness had masked or refined the weakness of +mouth and chin; the beautiful head and countenance, with their +characteristic notes of youth, impetuosity, a kind of gay +detachment, had never been more beautiful.</p> +<p>The young doctor looked stealthily from the recumbent figure to +the tall and slender woman standing absorbed and grief-stricken +beside the bed. The likeness was as evident to him as it had been, +in the winter, to Sir Wilfrid Bury.</p> +<hr style="width: 25%;"> +<p>As he was escorting her down-stairs, Lord Uredale said to his +companion, "Foster thinks he may still live twenty-four hours."</p> +<p>"If he asks for me again," said Julie, now shrouded once more +behind a thick, black veil, "you will send?"</p> +<p>He gravely assented.</p> +<p>"It is a great pity," he said, with a certain stiffness--did it +unconsciously mark the difference between her and his legitimate +kindred?--"that my sister Lady Blanche and her daughter cannot be +with us."</p> +<p>"They are in Italy?"</p> +<p>"At Florence. My niece has had an attack of diphtheria. She +could neither travel nor could her mother leave her."</p> +<p>Then pausing in the hall, he added in a low voice, and with some +embarrassment:</p> +<p>"My father has told you, I believe, of the addition he has made +to his will?"</p> +<p>Julie drew back.</p> +<p>"I neither asked for it nor desired it," she said, in her +coldest and clearest voice.</p> +<p>"That I quite understand," said Lord Uredale. "But--you cannot +hurt him by refusing."</p> +<p>She hesitated.</p> +<p>"No. But afterwards--I must be free to follow my own +judgment."</p> +<p>"We cannot take what does not belong to us," he said, with some +sharpness. "My brother and I are named as your trustees. Believe +me, we will do our best."</p> +<p>Meanwhile the younger brother had come out of the library to bid +her farewell. She felt that she was under critical observation, +though both pairs of gray eyes refrained from any appearance of +scrutiny. Her pride came to her aid, and she did not shrink from +the short conversation which the two brothers evidently desired. +When it was over, and the brothers returned to the hall after +putting her into the Duchess's carriage, the younger said to the +elder:</p> +<p>"She can behave herself, Johnnie."</p> +<p>They looked at each other, with their hands in their pockets. A +little nod passed between them--an augur-like acceptance of this +new and irregular member of the family.</p> +<p>"Yes, she has excellent manners," said Uredale. "And really, +after the tales Lady Henry has been spreading--that's +something!"</p> +<p>"Oh, I always thought Lady Henry an old cat," said Bill, +tranquilly. "That don't matter."</p> +<p>The Chantrey brothers had not been among Lady Henry's +<i>habitués</i>. In her eyes, they were the dull sons of an +agreeable father. They were humorously aware of it, and bore her +little malice.</p> +<p>"No," said Uredale, raising his eyebrows; "but the 'affaire +Warkworth'? If there's any truth in what one hears, that's deuced +unpleasant."</p> +<p>Bill Chantrey whistled.</p> +<p>"It's hard luck on that poor child Aileen that it should be her +own cousin interfering with her preserves. By-the-way"--he stooped +to look at the letters on the hall table--"do you see there's a +letter for father from Blanche? And in a letter I got from her by +the same post, she says that she has told him the whole story. +According to her, Aileen's too ill to be thwarted, and she wants +the governor to see the guardians. I say, Johnnie"--he looked at +his brother--"we'll not trouble the father with it now?"</p> +<p>"Certainly not," said Uredale, with a sigh. "I saw one of the +trustees--Jack Underwood--yesterday. He told me Blanche and the +child were more infatuated than ever. Very likely what one hears is +a pack of lies. If not, I hope this woman will have the good taste +to drop it. Father has charged me to write to Blanche and tell her +the whole story of poor Rose, and of this girl's revealing herself. +Blanche, it appears, is just as much in the dark as we were."</p> +<p>"If this gossip has got round to her, her feelings will be +mixed. Oh, well, I've great faith in the money," said Bill +Chantrey, carelessly, as they began to mount the stairs again. "It +sounds disgusting; but if the child wants him I suppose she must +have him. And, anyway, the man's off to Africa for a twelvemonth at +least. Miss Le Breton will have time to forget him. One can't say +that either he or she has behaved with delicacy--unless, indeed, +she knew nothing of Aileen, which is quite probable."</p> +<p>"Well, don't ask me to tackle her," said Uredale. "She has the +ways of an empress."</p> +<p>Bill Chantrey shrugged his shoulders. "And, by George! she looks +as if she could fall in love," he said, slowly. "Magnificent eyes, +Johnnie. I propose to make a study of our new niece."</p> +<p>"Lord Uredale!" said a voice on the stairs.</p> +<p>The young doctor descended rapidly to meet them.</p> +<p>"His lordship is asking for some one," he said. "He seems +excited. But I cannot catch the name."</p> +<p>Lord Uredale ran up-stairs.</p> +<hr style="width: 25%;"> +<p>Later in the day a man emerged from Lackington House and walked +rapidly towards the Mall. It was Jacob Delafield.</p> +<p>He passed across the Mall and into St. James's Park. There he +threw himself on the first seat he saw, in an absorption so deep +that it excited the wondering notice of more than one +passer-by.</p> +<p>After about half an hour he roused himself, and walked, still in +the same brown study, to his lodgings in Jermyn Street. There he +found a letter which he eagerly opened.</p> +<hr style="width: 25%;"> +<p>"DEAR JACOB,--Julie came back this morning about one o'clock. I +waited for her--and at first she seemed quite calm and composed. +But suddenly, as I was sitting beside her, talking, she fainted +away in her chair, and I was terribly alarmed. We sent for a doctor +at once. He shakes his head over her, and says there are all the +signs of a severe strain of body and mind. No wonder, indeed--our +poor Julie! Oh, how I <i>loathe</i> some people! Well, there she is +in bed, Madame Bornier away, and everybody. I simply <i>can't</i> +go to Scotland. But Freddie is just mad. Do, Jacob, there's a dear, +go and dine with him to-night and cheer him up. He vows he won't go +north without me. <i>Perhaps</i> I'll come to-morrow. I could no +more leave Julie to-night than fly.</p> +<p>"She'll be ill for weeks. What I ought to do is to take her +abroad. She's <i>very</i> dear and good; but, oh, Jacob, as she +lies there I <i>feel</i> her heart's broken. And it's not Lord +Lackington. Oh no! though I'm sure she loved him. <i>Do</i> go to +Freddie, there's a dear."</p> +<hr style="width: 25%;"> +<p>"No, that I won't!" said Delafield, with a laugh that choked +him, as he threw the letter down.</p> +<p>He tried to write an answer, but could not achieve even the +simplest note. Then he began a pacing of his room, which lasted +till he dropped into his chair, worn out with the sheer physical +exhaustion of the night and day. When his servant came in he found +his master in a heavy sleep. And, at Crowborough House, the Duke +dined and fumed alone.</p> +<br> +<br> +<hr style="width: 35%;"> +<br> +<br> +<h2><a name="XXI"></a>XXI</h2> +<br> +<p>"Why does any one stay in England who <i>can</i> make the trip +to Paradise?" said the Duchess, as she leaned lazily back in the +corner of the boat and trailed her fingers in the waters of +Como.</p> +<p>It was a balmy April afternoon, and she and Julie were floating +through a scene enchanted, incomparable. When spring descends upon +the shores of the Lago di Como, she brings with her all the graces, +all the beauties, all the fine, delicate, and temperate delights of +which earth and sky are capable, and she pours them forth upon a +land of perfect loveliness. Around the shores of other +lakes--Maggiore, Lugano, Garda--blue mountains rise, and the +vineyards spread their green and dazzling terraces to the sun. Only +Como can show in unmatched union a main composition, incomparably +grand and harmonious, combined with every jewelled, or glowing, or +exquisite detail. Nowhere do the mountains lean towards each other +in such an ordered splendor as that which bends round the northern +shores of Como. Nowhere do buttressed masses rise behind each +other, to right and left of a blue water-way, in lines statelier or +more noble than those kept by the mountains of the Lecco Lake, as +they marshal themselves on either hand, along the approaches to +Lombardy and Venetia; bearing aloft, as though on the purple +pillars of some majestic gateway, the great curtain of dazzling +cloud which, on a sunny day, hangs over the Brescian plain--a +glorious drop-scene, interposed between the dwellers on the Como +Mountains, and those marble towns, Brescia, Verona, Padua, which +thread the way to Venice.</p> +<p>And within this divine frame-work, between the glistening snows +which still, in April, crown and glorify the heights, and those +reflections of them which lie encalmed in the deep bosom of the +lake, there's not a foot of pasture, not a shelf of vineyard, not a +slope of forest where the spring is not at work, dyeing the turf +with gentians, starring it with narcissuses, or drawing across it +the first golden net-work of the chestnut leaves; where the mere +emerald of the grass is not in itself a thing to refresh the very +springs of being; where the peach-blossom and the wild-cherry and +the olive are not perpetually weaving patterns on the blue, which +ravish the very heart out of your breast. And already the roses are +beginning to pour over the walls; the wistaria is climbing up the +cypresses; a pomp of camellias and azaleas is in all the gardens; +while in the grassy bays that run up into the hills the primrose +banks still keep their sweet austerity, and the triumph of spring +over the just banished winter is still sharp and new.</p> +<p>And in the heart and sense of Julie Le Breton, as she sat beside +the Duchess, listening absently to the talk of the old boatman, +who, with his oars resting idly in his hands, was chattering to the +ladies, a renewing force akin to that of the spring was also at its +healing and life-giving work. She had still the delicate, tremulous +look of one recovering from a sore wrestle with physical ill; but +in her aspect there were suggestions more intimate, more moving +than this. Those who have lain down and risen up with pain; those +who have been face to face with passion and folly and +self-judgment; those who have been forced to seek with eagerness +for some answer to those questions which the majority of us never +ask, "Whither is my life leading me--and what is it worth to me or +to any other living soul?"--these are the men and women who now and +then touch or startle us with the eyes and the voice of Julie, if, +at least, we have the capacity that responds. Sir Wilfrid Bury, for +instance, prince of self-governed and reasonable men, was not to be +touched by Julie. For him, in spite of her keen intelligence, she +was the <i>type passionné</i>, from which he instinctively +recoiled--the Duke of Crowborough the same. Such men feel towards +such women as Julie Le Breton hostility or satire; for what they +ask, above all, of the women of their world is a kind of +simplicity, a kind of lightness which makes life easier for +men.</p> +<p>But for natures like Evelyn Crowborough--or Meredith--or Jacob +Delafield--the Julie-type has perennial attractions. For these are +all <i>children of feeling</i>, allied in this, however different +in intelligence or philosophy. They are attracted by the +storm-tossed temperament in itself; by mere sensibility; by that +which, in the technical language of Catholicism, suggests or +possesses "the gift of tears." At any rate, pity and love for her +poor Julie--however foolish, however faulty--lay warm in Evelyn +Crowborough's breast; they had brought her to Como; they kept her +now battling on the one hand with her husband's angry letters and +on the other with the melancholy of her most perplexing, most +appealing friend.</p> +<p>"I had often heard" [wrote the sore-tried Duke] "of the ravages +wrought in family life by these absurd and unreasonable female +friendships, but I never thought that it would be you, Evelyn, who +would bring them home to me. I won't repeat the arguments I have +used a hundred times in vain. But once again I implore and demand +that you should find some kind, responsible person to look after +Miss Le Breton--I don't care what you pay--and that you yourself +should come home to me and the children and the thousand and one +duties you are neglecting.</p> +<p>"As for the spring month in Scotland, which I generally enjoy so +much, that has been already entirely ruined. And now the season is +apparently to be ruined also. On the Shropshire property there is +an important election coming on, as I am sure you know; and the +Premier said to me only yesterday that he hoped you were already up +and doing. The Grand Duke of C---- will be in London within the +next fortnight. I particularly want to show him some civility. But +what can I do without you--and how on earth am I to explain your +absence?</p> +<p>"Once more, Evelyn, I beg and I demand that you should come +home."</p> +<p>To which the Duchess had rushed off a reply without a post's +delay.</p> +<p>"Oh, Freddie, you are such a wooden-headed darling! As if I +hadn't explained till I'm black in the face. I'm glad, anyway, you +didn't say command; that would really have made difficulties.</p> +<p>"As for the election, I'm sure if I was at home I should think +it very good fun. Out here I am extremely doubtful whether we ought +to do such things as you and Lord M---- suggest. A duke shouldn't +interfere in elections. Anyway, I'm sure it's good for my character +to consider it a little--though I quite admit you may lose the +election.</p> +<p>"The Grand Duke is a horrid wretch, and if he wasn't a grand +duke you'd be the first to cut him. I had to spend a whole +dinner-time last year in teaching him his proper place. It was very +humiliating, and not at all amusing. You can have a men's dinner +for him. That's all he's fit for.</p> +<p>"And as for the babies, Mrs. Robson sends me a telegram every +morning. I can't make out that they have had a finger-ache since I +went away, and I am sure mothers are entirely superfluous. All the +same, I think about them a great deal, especially at night. Last +night I tried to think about their education--if only I wasn't such +a sleepy creature! But, at any rate, I never in my life tried to +think about it at home. So that's so much to the good.</p> +<p>"Indeed, I'll come back to you soon, you poor, forsaken, old +thing! But Julie has no one in the world, and I feel like a +Newfoundland dog who has pulled some one out of the water. The +water was deep; and the life's only just coming back; and the dog's +not much good. But he sits there, for company, till the doctor +comes, and that's just what I'm doing.</p> +<p>"I know you don't approve of the notions I have in my head now. +But that's because you don't understand. Why don't you come out and +join us? Then you'd like Julie as much as I do; everything would be +quite simple; and I shouldn't be in the least jealous.</p> +<p>"Dr. Meredith is coming here, probably to-night, and Jacob +should arrive to-morrow on his way to Venice, where poor Chudleigh +and his boy are."</p> +<hr style="width: 25%;"> +<p>The <i>breva</i>, or fair-weather wind, from the north was +blowing freshly yet softly down the lake. The afternoon sun was +burning on Bellaggio, on the long terrace of the Melzi villa, on +the white mist of fruit-blossom that lay lightly on the green +slopes above San Giovanni.</p> +<p>Suddenly the Duchess and the boatman left the common topics of +every day by which the Duchess was trying to improve her +Italian--such as the proposed enlargement of the Bellevue Hotel, +the new villas that were springing up, the gardens of the Villa +Carlotta, and so forth. Evelyn had carelessly asked the old man +whether he had been in any of the fighting of '59, and in an +instant, under her eyes, he became another being. Out rolled a +torrent of speech; the oars lay idly on the water; and through the +man's gnarled and wrinkled face there blazed a high and illumining +passion. Novara and its beaten king, in '49; the ten years of +waiting, when a whole people bode its time, in a gay, grim silence; +the grudging victory of Magenta; the fivefold struggle that +wrenched the hills of San Martino from the Austrians; the +humiliations and the rage of Villafranca--of all these had this +wasted graybeard made a part. And he talked of them with the Latin +eloquence and facility, as no veteran of the north could have +talked; he was in a moment the equal of these great affairs in +which he had mingled; so that one felt in him the son of a race +which had been rolled and polished--a pebble, as it were, from +rocks which had made the primeval frame-work of the world--in the +main course and stream of history.</p> +<p>Then from the campaign of '59 he fell back on the Five Days of +Milan in '48--the immortal days, when a populace drove out an army, +and what began almost in jest ended in a delirium, a stupefaction +of victory. His language was hot, broken, confused, like the street +fighting it chronicled. Afterwards--a further sharpening and +blanching of the old face--and he had carried them deep into the +black years of Italy's patience and Austria's revenge. Throwing out +a thin arm, he pointed towards town after town on the lake shores, +now in the brilliance of sunset, now in the shadow of the northern +slope--Gravedona, Varenna, Argegno--towns which had each of them +given their sons to the Austrian bullet and the Austrian lash for +the ransom of Italy.</p> +<p>He ran through the sacred names--Stazzonelli, Riccini, +Crescieri, Ronchetti, Ceresa, Previtali--young men, almost all of +them, shot for the possession of a gun or a knife, for helping +their comrades in the Austrian army to desert, for "insulting +conduct" towards an Austrian soldier or officer.</p> +<p>Of one of these executions, which he had himself witnessed at +Varese--the shooting of a young fellow of six-and-twenty, his own +friend and kinsman--he gave an account which blanched the Duchess's +cheeks and brought the big tears into her eyes. Then, when he saw +the effect he had produced, the old man trembled.</p> +<p>"Ah, eccellenza," he cried, "but it had to be! The Italians had +to show they knew how to die; then God let them live. Ecco, +eccellenza!"</p> +<p>And he drew from his breast-pocket, with shaking hands, an old +envelope tied round with string. When he had untied it, a piece of +paper emerged, brown with age and worn with much reading. It was a +rudely printed broadsheet containing an account of the last words +and sufferings of the martyrs of Mantua--those conspirators of +1852--from whose graves and dungeons sprang, tenfold renewed, the +regenerating and liberating forces which, but a few years later, +drove out the Austrian with the Bourbon, together.</p> +<p>"See here, eccellenza," he said, as he tenderly spread out its +tattered folds and gave it into the Duchess's hand. "Have the +goodness to look where is that black mark. There you will find the +last words of Don Enrico Tazzoli, the half-brother of my father. He +was a priest, eccellenza. Ah, it was not then as it is now! The +priests were then for Italy. They hanged three of them at Mantua +alone. As for Don Enrico, first they stripped him of his +priesthood, and then they hanged him. And those were his last +words, and the last words of Scarsellini also, who suffered with +him. <i>Veda eccellenza</i>! As for me, I know them from a +boy."</p> +<p>And while the Duchess read, the old man repeated tags and +fragments under his breath, as he once more resumed the oars and +drove the boat gently towards Menaggio.</p> +<p>"<i>The multitude of victims has not robbed us of courage in the +past, nor will it so rob us in the future--till victory dawns. The +cause of the people is like the cause of religion--it triumphs only +through its martyrs.... You--who survive--will conquer, and in your +victory we, the dead, shall live</i>....</p> +<p>"<i>Take no thought for us; the blood of the forerunners is like +the seed which the wise husbandman scatters on the fertile +ground</i>.... <i>Teach our young men how to adore and how to +suffer for a great idea. Work incessantly at that; so shall our +country come to birth; and grieve not for us!... Yes, Italy shall +be one! To that all things point.</i> WORK! <i>There is no obstacle +that cannot be overcome, no opposition that cannot be destroyed. +The</i> HOW <i>and the</i> WHEN <i>only remain to be solved. You, +more fortunate than we, will find the clew to the riddle, when all +things are accomplished, and the times are ripe.... Hope!--my +parents, and my brothers--hope always!--waste no time in +weeping</i>."</p> +<p>The Duchess read aloud the Italian, and Julie stooped over her +shoulder to follow the words.</p> +<p>"Marvellous!" said Julie, in a low voice, as she sank back into +her place. "A youth of twenty-seven, with the rope round his neck, +and he comforts himself with 'Italy.' What's 'Italy' to him, or he +to 'Italy'?" Not even an immediate paradise. "Is there anybody +capable of it now?"</p> +<p>Her face and attitude had lost their languor. As the Duchess +returned his treasure to the old man she looked at Julie with joy. +Not since her illness had there been any such sign of warmth and +energy.</p> +<p>And, indeed, as they floated on, past the glow of Bellaggio, +towards the broad gold and azure of the farther lake, the +world-defying passion that breathed from these words of dead and +murdered Italians played as a bracing and renewing power on Julie's +still feeble being. It was akin to the high snows on those far Alps +that closed in the lake--to the pure wind that blew from them--to +the "gleam, the shadow, and the peace supreme," amid which their +little boat pressed on towards the shore.</p> +<p>"What matter," cried the intelligence, but as though through +sobs--"what matter the individual struggle and misery? These can be +lived down. The heart can be silenced--nerves steadied--strength +restored. Will and idea remain--the eternal spectacle of the world, +and the eternal thirst of man to see, to know, to feel, to realize +himself, if not in one passion, then in another. If not in love, +then in patriotism--art--thought."</p> +<hr style="width: 25%;"> +<p>The Duchess and Julie landed presently beneath the villa of +which they were the passing tenants. The Duchess mounted the double +staircase where the banksia already hung in a golden curtain over +the marble balustrade. Her face was thoughtful. She had to write +her daily letter to the absent and reproachful Duke.</p> +<p>Julie parted from her with a caress, and paused awhile to watch +the small figure till it mounted out of sight. Her friend had +become very dear to her. A new humility, a new gratitude filled her +heart. Evelyn should not sacrifice herself much longer. When she +had insisted on carrying her patient abroad, Julie had neither mind +nor will wherewith to resist. But now--the Duke should soon come to +his own again.</p> +<p>She herself turned inland for that short walk by which each day +she tested her returning strength. She climbed the winding road to +Criante, the lovely village above Cadenabbia; then, turning to the +left, she mounted a path that led to the woods which overhang the +famous gardens of the Villa Carlotta.</p> +<p>Such a path! To the left hand, and, as it seemed, steeply +beneath her feet, all earth and heaven--the wide lake, the purple +mountains, the glories of a flaming sky. On the calm spaces of +water lay a shimmer of crimson and gold, repeating the noble +splendor of the clouds; the midgelike boats crept from shore to +shore; and, midway between Bellaggio and Cadenabbia, the +steam-boat, a white speck, drew a silver furrow. To her right a +green hill-side--each blade of grass, each flower, each tuft of +heath, enskied, transfigured, by the broad light that poured across +it from the hidden west. And on the very hill-top a few scattered +olives, peaches, and wild cherries scrawled upon the blue, their +bare, leaning stems, their pearly whites, their golden pinks and +feathery grays all in a glory of sunset that made of them things +enchanted, aerial, fantastical, like a dance of Botticelli angels +on the height.</p> +<p>And presently a sheltered bank in a green hollow, where Julie +sat down to rest. But nature, in this tranquil spot, had still new +pageants, new sorceries wherewith to play upon the nerves of +wonder. Across the hollow a great crag clothed in still leafless +chestnut-trees reared itself against the lake. The innumerable +lines of stem and branch, warm brown or steely gray, were drawn +sharp on silver air, while at the very summit of the rock one +superb tree with branching limbs, touched with intense black, +sprang high above the rest, the proud plume or ensign of the wood. +Through the trunks the blaze of distant snow and the purples of +craggy mountains; in front the glistening spray of peach or cherry +blossom, breaking the still wintry beauty of that majestic grove. +And in all the air, dropping from the heaven, spread on the hills, +or shimmering on the lake, a diffusion of purest rose and deepest +blue, lake and cloud and mountain each melting into the other, as +though heaven and earth conspired merely to give value and relief +to the year's new birth, to this near sparkle of young leaf and +blossom which shone like points of fire on the deep breast of the +distance.</p> +<p>On the green ledge which ran round the hollow were children +tugging at a goat. Opposite was a <i>contadino's</i> house of gray +stone. A water-wheel turned beside it, and a stream, brought down +from the hills, ran chattering past, a white and dancing thread of +water. Everything was very still and soft. The children and the +river made their voices heard; and there were nightingales singing +in the woods below. Otherwise all was quiet. With a tranquil and +stealthy joy the spring was taking possession. Nay--the Angelus! It +swung over the lake and rolled from village to village....</p> +<p>The tears were in Julie's eyes. Such beauty as this was apt now +to crush and break her. All her being was still sore, and this +appeal of nature was sometimes more than she could bear.</p> +<p>Only a few short weeks since Warkworth had gone out of her +life--since Delafield at a stroke had saved her from ruin--since +Lord Lackington had passed away.</p> +<p>One letter had reached her from Warkworth, a wild and incoherent +letter, written at night in a little room of a squalid hotel near +the Gare de Sceaux. Her telegram had reached him, and for him, as +for her, all was over.</p> +<p>But the letter was by no means a mere cry of baffled passion. +There was in it a new note of moral anguish, as fresh and startling +in her ear, coming from him, as the cry of passion itself. In the +language of religion, it was the utterance of a man "convicted of +sin."</p> +<p>/# "How long is it since that man gave me your telegram? I was +pacing up and down the departure platform, working myself into an +agony of nervousness and anxiety as the time went by, wondering +what on earth had happened to you, when the <i>chef de gare</i> +came up: 'Monsieur attend une dépêche?' There were +some stupid formalities--at last I got it. It seemed to me I had +already guessed what it contained.</p> +<p>"So it was <i>Delafield</i> who met you--Delafield who turned +you back?</p> +<p>"I saw him outside the hotel yesterday, and we exchanged a few +words. I have always disliked his long, pale face and his high and +mighty ways--at any rate, towards plain fellows, who don't belong +to the classes, like me. Yesterday I was more than usually anxious +to get rid of him.</p> +<p>"So he guessed?</p> +<p>"It can't have been chance. In some way he guessed. And you have +been torn from me. My God! If I could only reach him--if I could +fling his contempt in his face! And yet--</p> +<p>"I have been walking up and down this room all night. The +longing for you has been the sharpest suffering I suppose that I +have ever known. For I am not one of the many people who enjoy +pain. I have kept as free of it as I could. This time it caught and +gripped me. Yet that isn't all. There has been something else.</p> +<p>"What strange, patched creatures we are! Do you know, Julie, +that by the time the dawn came I was on my knees--thanking God that +we were parted--that you were on your way home--safe--out of my +reach? Was I mad, or what? I can't explain it. I only know that one +moment I hated Delafield as a mortal enemy--whether he was +conscious of what he had done or no--and the next I found myself +blessing him!</p> +<p>"I understand now what people mean when they talk of conversion. +It seems to me that in the hours I have just passed through things +have come to light in me that I myself never suspected. I came of +an Evangelical stock--I was brought up in a religious household. I +suppose that one can't, after all, get away from the blood and the +life that one inherits. My poor, old father--I was a bad son, and I +know I hastened his death--was a sort of Puritan saint, with very +stern ideas. I seem to have been talking with him this night, and +shrinking under his condemnation. I could see his old face, as he +put before me the thoughts I had dared to entertain, the risks I +had been ready to take towards the woman I loved--the woman to whom +I owed a deep debt of eternal gratitude.</p> +<p>"Julie, it is strange how this appointment affects me. Last +night I saw several people at the Embassy--good fellows--who seemed +anxious to do all they could for me. Such men never took so much +notice of me before. It is plain to me that this task will make or +mar me. I may fail. I may die. But if I succeed England will owe me +something, and these men at the top of the tree--</p> +<p>"Good God! how can I go on writing this to you? It's because I +came back to the hotel and tossed about half the night brooding +over the difference between what these men--these honorable, +distinguished fellows--were prepared to think of me, and the +blackguard I knew myself to be. What, take everything from a +woman's hand, and then turn and try and drag her in the +mire--propose to her what one would shoot a man for proposing to +one's sister! Thief and cur.</p> +<p>"Julie--kind, beloved Julie--forget it all! For God's sake, +let's cast it all behind us! As long as I live, your name, your +memory will live in my heart. We shall not meet, probably, for many +years. You'll marry and be happy yet. Just now I know you're +suffering. I seem to see you in the train--on the steamer--your +pale face that has lighted up life for me--your dear, slender hands +that folded so easily into one of mine. You are in pain, my +darling. Your nature is wrenched from its natural supports. And you +gave me all your fine, clear mind, and all your heart. I ought to +be damned to the deepest hell!</p> +<p>"Then, again, I say to myself, if only she were here! If only I +had her <i>here</i>, with her arms round my neck, surely I might +have found the courage and the mere manliness to extricate both +herself and me from these entanglements. Aileen might have released +and forgiven one.</p> +<p>"No, no! It's all over! I'll go and do my task. You set it me. +You sha'n't be ashamed of me there.</p> +<p>"Good-bye, Julie, my love--good-bye--forever!" #/</p> +<p>These were portions of that strange document composed through +the intervals of a long night, which showed in Warkworth's mind the +survival of a moral code, inherited from generations of scrupulous +and God-fearing ancestors, overlaid by selfish living, and now +revived under the stress, the purification partly of deepening +passion, partly of a high responsibility. The letter was +incoherent, illogical; it showed now the meaner, now the nobler +elements of character; but it was human; it came from the warm +depths of life, and it had exerted in the end a composing and +appeasing force upon the woman to whom it was addressed. He had +loved her--if only at the moment of parting--he had loved her! At +the last there had been feeling, sincerity, anguish, and to these +all things may be forgiven.</p> +<p>And, indeed, what in her eyes there was to forgive, Julie had +long forgiven. Was it his fault if, when they met first, he was +already pledged--for social and practical reasons which her mind +perfectly recognized and understood--to Aileen Moffatt? Was it his +fault if the relations between herself and him had ripened into a +friendship which in its turn could only maintain itself by passing +into love? No! It was she, whose hidden, insistent +passion--nourished, indeed, upon a tragic ignorance--had +transformed what originally he had a perfect right to offer and to +feel.</p> +<p>So she defended him; for in so doing she justified herself. And +as to the Paris proposal, he had a right to treat her as a woman +capable of deciding for herself how far love should carry her; he +had a right to assume that her antecedents, her training, and her +circumstances were not those of the ordinary sheltered girl, and +that for her love might naturally wear a bolder and wilder aspect +than for others. He blamed himself too severely, too passionately; +but for this very blame her heart remembered him the more tenderly. +For it meant that his mind was torn and in travail for her, that +his thoughts clung to her in a passionate remorse; and again she +felt herself loved, and forgave with all her heart.</p> +<p>All the same, he was gone out of her life, and through the +strain and the unconscious progress to other planes and phases of +being, wrought by sickness and convalescence, her own passion for +him even was now a changed and blunted thing.</p> +<p>Was she ashamed of the wild impulse which had carried her to +Paris? It is difficult to say. She was often seized with the +shuddering consciousness of an abyss escaped, with wonder that she +was still in the normal, accepted world, that Evelyn might still be +her companion, that Thérèse still adored her more +fervently than any saint in the calendar. Perhaps, if the truth +were known, she was more abased in her own eyes by the +self-abandonment which had preceded the assignation with Warkworth. +She had much intellectual arrogance, and before her acquaintance +with Warkworth she had been accustomed to say and to feel that love +was but one passion among many, and to despise those who gave it +too great a place. And here she had flung herself into it, like any +dull or foolish girl for whom a love affair represents the only +stirring in the pool of life that she is ever likely to know.</p> +<p>Well, she must recapture herself and remake her life. As she sat +there in the still Italian evening she thought of the old boatman, +and those social and intellectual passions to which his burst of +patriotism had recalled her thoughts. Society, literature, friends, +and the ambitions to which these lead--let her go back to them and +build her days afresh. Dr. Meredith was coming. In his talk and +companionship she would once more dip and temper the tools of mind +and taste. No more vain self-arraignment, no more useless regrets. +She looked back with bitterness upon a moment of weakness when, in +the first stage of convalescence, in mortal weariness and +loneliness, she had slipped one evening into the Farm Street church +and unburdened her heart in confession. As she had told the +Duchess, the Catholicism instilled into her youth by the Bruges +nuns still laid upon her at times its ghostly and compelling hand. +Now in her renewed strength she was inclined to look upon it as an +element of weakness and disintegration in her nature. She resolved, +in future, to free herself more entirely from a useless +<i>Aberglaube</i>.</p> +<p>But Meredith was not the only visitor expected at the villa in +the next few days. She was already schooling herself to face the +arrival of Jacob Delafield.</p> +<p>It was curious how the mere thought of Delafield produced an +agitation, a shock of feeling, which seemed to spread through all +the activities of being. The faint, renascent glamour which had +begun to attach to literature and social life disappeared. She fell +into a kind of brooding, the sombre restlessness of one who feels +in the dark the recurrent presence of an attacking and pursuing +power, and is in a tremulous uncertainty where or how to meet +it.</p> +<p>The obscure tumult within her represented, in fact, a collision +between the pagan and Christian conceptions of life. In +self-dependence, in personal pride, in her desire to refer all +things to the arbitrament of reason, Julie, whatever her practice, +was theoretically a stoic and a pagan. But Delafield's personality +embodied another "must," another "ought," of a totally different +kind. And it was a "must" which, in a great crisis of her life, she +also had been forced to obey. There was the thought which stung and +humiliated. And the fact was irreparable; nor did she see how she +was ever to escape from the strange, silent, penetrating relation +it had established between her and the man who loved her and had +saved her, against her will.</p> +<p>During her convalescence at Crowborough House, Delafield had +been often admitted. It would have been impossible to exclude him, +unless she had confided the whole story of the Paris journey to the +Duchess. And whatever Evelyn might tremblingly guess, from Julie's +own mouth she knew nothing. So Delafield had come and gone, +bringing Lord Lackington's last words, and the account of his +funeral, or acting as intermediary in business matters between +Julie and the Chantrey brothers. Julie could not remember that she +had ever asked him for these services. They fell to him, as it +were, by common consent, and she had been too weak to resist.</p> +<p>At first, whenever he entered the room, whenever he approached +her, her sense of anger and resentment had been almost unbearable. +But little by little his courtesy, tact, and coolness had restored +a relation between them which, if not the old one, had still many +of the outward characters of intimacy. Not a word, not the remotest +allusion reminded her of what had happened. The man who had stood +before her transfigured on the deck of the steamer, stammering out, +"I thank God I had the courage to do it!"--it was often hard for +her to believe, as she stole a look at Delafield, chatting or +writing in the Duchess's drawing-room, that such a scene had ever +taken place.</p> +<hr style="width: 25%;"> +<p>The evening stole on. How was it that whenever she allowed the +thought of Delafield to obtain a real lodgment in the mind, even +the memory of Warkworth was for the time effaced? Silently, +irresistibly, a wild heat of opposition would develop within her. +These men round whom, as it were, there breathes an air of the +heights; in whom one feels the secret guard that religion keeps +over thoughts and words and acts--her passionate yet critical +nature flung out against them. How are they better than others, +after all? What right have they over the wills of others?</p> +<p>Nevertheless, as the rose of evening burned on the craggy +mountain face beyond Bellaggio, retreating upward, step by step, +till the last glorious summit had died into the cool and already +starlit blues of night, Julie, held, as it were, by a reluctant and +half-jealous fascination, sat dreaming on the hill-side, not now of +Warkworth, not of the ambitions of the mind, or society, but simply +of the goings and comings, the aspects and sayings of a man in +whose eyes she had once read the deepest and sternest things of the +soul--a condemnation and an anguish above and beyond himself.</p> +<hr style="width: 25%;"> +<p>Dr. Meredith arrived in due time, a jaded Londoner athirst for +idleness and fresh air. The Duchess and Julie carried him hither +and thither about the lake in the four-oar boat which had been +hired for the Duchess's pleasure. Here, enthroned between the two +ladies, he passed luxurious hours, and his talk of politics, +persons, and books brought just that stimulus to Julie's +intelligence and spirits for which the Duchess had been secretly +longing.</p> +<p>A first faint color returned to Julie's cheeks. She began to +talk again; to resume certain correspondences; to show herself once +more--at any rate intermittently--the affectionate, sympathetic, +and beguiling friend.</p> +<p>As for Meredith, he knew little, but he suspected a good deal. +There were certain features in her illness and convalescence which +suggested to him a mental cause; and if there were such a cause, it +must, of course, spring from her relations to Warkworth.</p> +<p>The name of that young officer was never mentioned. Once or +twice Meredith was tempted to introduce it. It rankled in his mind +that Julie had never been frank with him, freely as he had poured +his affection at her feet. But a moment of languor or of pallor +disarmed him.</p> +<p>"She is better," he said to the Duchess one day, abruptly. "Her +mind is full of activity. But why, at times, does she still look so +miserable--like a person without hope or future?"</p> +<p>The Duchess looked pensive. They were sitting in the corner of +one of the villa's terraced walks, amid a scented wilderness of +flowers. Above them was a canopy of purple and yellow--rose and +wistaria; while through the arches of the pergola which ran along +the walk gleamed all those various blues which make the spell of +Como--the blue and white of the clouds, the purple of the +mountains, the azure of the lake.</p> +<p>"Well, she was in love with him. I suppose it takes a little +time," said the Duchess, sighing.</p> +<p>"Why was she in love with him?" said Meredith, impatiently. "As +to the Moffatt engagement, naturally, she was kept in the +dark?"</p> +<p>"At first," said the Duchess, hesitating. "And when she knew, +poor dear, it was too late!"</p> +<p>"Too late for what?"</p> +<p>"Well, when one falls in love one doesn't all at once shake it +off because the man deceives you."</p> +<p>"One <i>should</i>," said Meredith, with energy. "Men are not +worth all that women spend upon them."</p> +<p>"Oh, that's true!" cried the Duchess--"so dreadfully true! But +what's the good of preaching? We shall go on spending it to the end +of time."</p> +<p>"Well, at any rate, don't choose the dummies and the +frauds."</p> +<p>"Ah, there you talk sense," said the Duchess. "And if only we +had the French system in England! If only one could say to Julie: +'Now look here, <i>there's</i> your husband! It's all settled--down +to plate and linen--and you've <i>got</i> to marry him!' how happy +we should all be."</p> +<p>Dr. Meredith stared.</p> +<p>"You have the man in your eye," he said.</p> +<p>The Duchess hesitated.</p> +<p>"Suppose you come a little walk with me in the wood," she said, +at last, gathering up her white skirts.</p> +<p>Meredith obeyed her. They were away for half an hour, and when +they returned the journalist's face, flushed and furrowed with +thought, was not very easy to read.</p> +<p>Nor was his temper in good condition. It required a climb to the +very top of Monte Crocione to send him back, more or less appeased, +a consenting player in the Duchess's game. For if there are men who +are flirts and egotists--who ought to be, yet never are, divined by +the sensible woman at a glance--so also there are men too well +equipped for this wicked world, too good, too well born, too +desirable.</p> +<p>It was in this somewhat flinty and carping mood that Meredith +prepared himself for the advent of Jacob Delafield.</p> +<hr style="width: 25%;"> +<p>But when Delafield appeared, Meredith's secret antagonisms were +soon dissipated. There was certainly no challenging air of +prosperity about the young man.</p> +<p>At first sight, indeed, he was his old cheerful self, always +ready for a walk or a row, on easy terms at once with the Italian +servants or boatmen. But soon other facts emerged--stealthily, as +it were, from the concealment in which a strong man was trying to +keep them.</p> +<p>"That young man's youth is over," said Meredith, abruptly, to +the Duchess one evening. He pointed to the figure of Delafield, who +was pacing, alone with his pipe, up and down one of the lower +terraces of the garden.</p> +<p>The Duchess showed a teased expression.</p> +<p>"It's like something wearing through," she said, slowly. "I +suppose it was always there, but it didn't show."</p> +<p>"Name your 'it.'"</p> +<p>"I can't." But she gave a little shudder, which made Meredith +look at her with curiosity.</p> +<p>"You feel something ghostly--unearthly?"</p> +<p>She nodded assent; crying out, however, immediately afterwards, +as though in compunction, that he was one of the dearest and best +of fellows.</p> +<p>"Of course he is," said Meredith. "It is only the mystic in him +coming out. He is one of the men who have the sixth sense."</p> +<p>"Well, all I know is, he has the oddest power over people," said +Evelyn, with another shiver. "If Freddie had it, my life wouldn't +be worth living. Thank goodness, he hasn't a vestige!"</p> +<p>"At bottom it's the power of the priest," said Meredith. "And +you women are far too susceptible towards it. Nine times out of ten +it plays the mischief."</p> +<p>The Duchess was silent a moment. Then she bent towards her +companion, finger on lip, her charming eyes glancing significantly +towards the lower terrace. The figures on it were now two. Julie +and Delafield paced together.</p> +<p>"But this is the tenth!" she said, in an eager whisper.</p> +<p>Meredith smiled at her, then flung her a dubious "Chi sa?" and +changed the subject.</p> +<hr style="width: 25%;"> +<p>Delafield, who was a fine oar, had soon taken command of the +lake expeditions; and by the help of two stalwart youths from +Tremezzo, the four-oar was in use from morning till night. Through +the broad lake which lies between Menaggio and Varenna it sped +northward to Gravedona; or beneath the shadowy cliffs of the Villa +Serbelloni it slipped over deep waters, haunted and dark, into the +sunny spaces of Lecco; or it coasted along the steep sides of Monte +Primo, so that the travellers in it might catch the blue stain of +the gentians on the turf, where it sloped into the lucent wave +below, or watch the fishermen on the rocks, spearing their prey in +the green or golden shallows.</p> +<p>The weather was glorious--a summer before its time. The wild +cherries shook down their snow upon the grass; but the pears were +now in bridal white, and a warmer glory of apple-blossom was just +beginning to break upon the blue. The nights were calm and moonlit; +the dawns were visions of mysterious and incredible beauty, wherein +mountain and forest and lake were but the garments, diaphanous, +impalpable, of some delicate, indwelling light and fire spirit, +which breathed and pulsed through the solidity of rock, no less +visibly than through the crystal leagues of air or the sunlit +spaces of water.</p> +<p>Yet presently, as it were, a hush of waiting, of tension, fell +upon their little party. Nature offered her best; but there was +only an apparent acceptance of her bounties. Through the outward +flow of talk and amusement, of wanderings on lake or hill, ugly +hidden forces of pain and strife, regret, misery, resistance, made +themselves rarely yet piercingly felt.</p> +<p>Julie drooped again. Her cheeks were paler even than when +Meredith arrived. Delafield, too, began to be more silent, more +absent. He was helpful and courteous as ever, but it began to be +seen that his gayety was an effort, and now and then there were +sharp or bitter notes in voice or manner, which jarred, and were +not soon forgotten.</p> +<p>Presently, Meredith and the Duchess found themselves looking on, +breathless and astonished, at the struggle of two personalities, +the wrestle between two wills. They little knew that it was a +renewed struggle--second wrestle. But silently, by a kind of tacit +agreement, they drew away from Delafield and Julie. They dimly +understood that he pursued and she resisted; and that for him life +was becoming gradually absorbed into the two facts of her presence +and her resistance.</p> +<p>"<i>On ne s'appuie que sur ce qui résiste</i>." For both +of them these words were true. Fundamentally, and beyond all +passing causes of grief and anger, each was fascinated by the full +strength of nature in the other. Neither could ever forget the +other. The hours grew electric, and every tiny incident became +charged with spiritual meaning.</p> +<p>Often for hours together Julie would try to absorb herself in +talk with Meredith. But the poor fellow got little joy from it. +Presently, at a word or look of Delafield's she would let herself +be recaptured, as though with a proud reluctance; they wandered +away together; and once more Meredith and the Duchess became the +merest by-standers.</p> +<p>The Duchess shrugged her shoulders over it, and, though she +laughed, sometimes the tears were in her eyes. She felt the +hovering of passion, but it was no passion known to her own blithe +nature.</p> +<p>And if only this strange state of things might end, one way or +other, and set her free to throw her arms round her Duke's neck, +and beg his pardon for all these weeks of desertion! She said to +herself, ruefully, that her babies would indeed have forgotten +her.</p> +<hr style="width: 25%;"> +<p>Yet she stood stoutly to her post, and the weeks passed quickly +by. It was the dramatic energy of the situation--so much more +dramatic in truth than either she or Meredith suspected--that made +it such a strain upon the onlookers.</p> +<p>One evening they had left the boat at Tremezzo, that they might +walk back along that most winning of paths that skirts the lake +between the last houses of Tremezzo and the inn at Cadenabbia. The +sunset was nearly over, but the air was still suffused with its +rose and pearl, and fragrant with the scent of flowering laurels. +Each mountain face, each white village, either couched on the +water's edge or grouped about its slender campanile on some +shoulder of the hills, each house and tree and figure seemed still +penetrated with light, the glorified creatures of some just +revealed and already fading world. The echoes of the evening bell +were floating on the lake, and from a boat in front, full of +peasant-folk, there rose a sound of singing, some litany of saint +or virgin, which stole in harmonies, rudely true, across the +water.</p> +<p>"They have been to the pilgrimage church above Lenno," said +Julie, pointing to the boat, and in order to listen to the singing, +she found a seat on a low wall above the lake.</p> +<p>There was no reply, and, looking round her, she saw with a start +that only Delafield was beside her, that the Duchess and Meredith +had already rounded the corner of the Villa Carlotta and were out +of sight.</p> +<p>Delafield's gaze was fixed upon her. He was very pale, and +suddenly Julie's breath seemed to fail her.</p> +<p>"I don't think I can bear it any longer," he said, as he came +close to her.</p> +<p>"Bear what?"</p> +<p>"That you should look as you do now."</p> +<p>Julie made no reply. Her eyes, very sad and bitter, searched the +blue dimness of the lake in silence.</p> +<p>Delafield sat down on the wall beside her. Not a soul was in +sight. At the Cadenabbia Hotel, the <i>table d'hôte</i> had +gathered in the visitors; a few boats passed and repassed in the +distance, but on land all was still.</p> +<p>Suddenly he took her hand with a firm grasp.</p> +<p>"Are you never going to forgive me?" he said, in a low +voice.</p> +<p>"I suppose I ought to bless you."</p> +<p>Her face seemed to him to express the tremulous misery of a +heart deeply, perhaps irrevocably, wounded. Emotion rose in a tide, +but he crushed it down.</p> +<p>He bent over her, speaking with deliberate tenderness.</p> +<p>"Julie, do you remember what you promised Lord Lackington when +he was dying?"</p> +<p>"Oh!" cried Julie.</p> +<p>She sprang to her feet, speechless and suffocated. Her eyes +expressed a mingled pride and terror.</p> +<p>He paused, confronting her with a pale resolution.</p> +<p>"You didn't know that I had seen him?"</p> +<p>"Know!"</p> +<p>She turned away fiercely, choking with sobs she could hardly +control, as the memory of that by-gone moment returned upon +her.</p> +<p>"I thought as much," said Delafield, in a low voice. "You hoped +never to hear of your promise again."</p> +<p>She made no answer; but she sank again upon the seat beside the +lake, and supporting herself on one delicate hand, which clung to +the coping of the wall, she turned her pale and tear-stained face +to the lake and the evening sky. There was in her gesture an +unconscious yearning, a mute and anguished appeal, as though from +the oppressions of human character to the broad strength of nature, +that was not lost on Delafield. His mind became the centre of a +swift and fierce debate. One voice said: "Why are you persecuting +her? Respect her weakness and her grief." And another replied: "It +is because she is weak that she must yield--must allow herself to +be guided and adored."</p> +<p>He came close to her again. Any passer-by might have supposed +that they were both looking at the distant boat and listening to +the pilgrimage chant.</p> +<p>"Do you think I don't understand why you made that promise?" he +said, very gently, and the mere self-control of his voice and +manner carried a spell with it for the woman beside him. "It was +wrung out of you by kindness for a dying man. You thought I should +never know, or I should never claim it. Well, I am selfish. I take +advantage. I do claim it. I saw Lord Lackington only a few hours +before his death. 'She mustn't be alone,' he said to me, several +times. And then, almost at the last, 'Ask her again. She'll +consider it--she promised.'"</p> +<p>Julie turned impetuously.</p> +<p>"Neither of us is bound by that--neither of us."</p> +<p>Delafield smiled.</p> +<p>"Does that mean that I am asking you now because he bade +me?"</p> +<p>A pause. Julie must needs raise her eyes to his. She flushed red +and withdrew them.</p> +<p>"No," he said, with a long breath, "you don't mean that, and you +don't think it. As for you--yes, you are bound! Julie, once more I +bring you my plea, and you must consider it."</p> +<p>"How can I be your wife?" she said, her breast heaving. "You +know all that has happened. It would be monstrous."</p> +<p>"Not at all," was his quiet reply. "It would be natural and +right. Julie, it is strange that I should be talking to you like +this. You're so much cleverer than I--in some ways, so much +stronger. And yet, in others--you'll let me say it, won't you?--I +could help you. I could protect you. It's all I care for in the +world."</p> +<p>"How can I be your wife?" she repeated, passionately, wringing +her hands.</p> +<p>"Be what you will--at home. My friend, comrade, housemate. I ask +nothing more--<i>nothing</i>." His voice dropped, and there was a +pause. Then he resumed. "But, in the eyes of the world, make me +your servant and your husband!"</p> +<p>"I can't condemn you to such a fate," she cried. "You know where +my heart is."</p> +<p>Delafield did not waver.</p> +<p>"I know where your heart was," he said, with firmness. "You will +banish that man from your thoughts in time. He has no right to be +there. I take all the risks--all."</p> +<p>"Well, at least for you, I am no hypocrite," she said, with a +quivering lip. "You know what I am."</p> +<p>"Yes, I know, and I am at your feet."</p> +<p>The tears dropped from Julie's eyes. She turned away and hid her +face against one of the piers of the wall.</p> +<p>Delafield attempted no caress. He quietly set himself to draw +the life that he had to offer her, the comradeship that he proposed +to her. Not a word of what the world called his "prospects" entered +in. She knew very well that he could not bring himself to speak of +them. Rather, a sort of ascetic and mystical note made itself heard +in all he said of the future, a note that before now had fascinated +and controlled a woman whose ambition was always strangely tempered +with high, poetical imagination.</p> +<p>Yet, ambitious she was, and her mind inevitably supplied what +his voice left unsaid.</p> +<p>"He will have to fill his place whether he wishes it or no," she +said to herself. "And if, in truth, he desires my help--"</p> +<p>Then she shrank from her own wavering. Look where she would into +her life, it seemed to her that all was monstrous and out of +joint.</p> +<p>"You don't realize what you ask," she said, at last, in despair. +"I am not what you call a good woman--you know it too well. I don't +measure things by your standards. I am capable of such a journey as +you found me on. I can't find in my own mind that I repent it at +all. I can tell a lie--you can't. I can have the meanest and most +sordid thoughts--you can't. Lady Henry thought me an intriguer--I +am one. It is in my blood. And I don't know whether, in the end, I +could understand your language and your life. And if I don't, I +shall make you miserable."</p> +<p>She looked up, her slender frame straightening under what was, +in truth, a noble defiance.</p> +<p>Delafield bent over her and took both her hands forcibly in his +own.</p> +<p>"If all that were true, I would rather risk it a thousand times +over than go out of your life again--a stranger. Julie, you have +done mad things for love--you should know what love is. Look in my +face--there--your eyes in mine! Give way! The dead ask it of +you--and it is God's will."</p> +<p>And as, drawn by the last, low-spoken words, Julie looked up +into his face, she felt herself enveloped by a mystical and +passionate tenderness that paralyzed her resistance. A force, +superhuman, laid its grasp upon her will. With a burst of tears, +half in despair, half in revolt, she submitted.</p> +<br> +<br> +<hr style="width: 35%;"> +<br> +<br> +<h2><a name="XXII"></a>XXII</h2> +<br> +<p>In the first week of May, Julie Le Breton married Jacob +Delafield in the English Church at Florence. The Duchess was there. +So was the Duke--a sulky and ill-resigned spectator of something +which he believed to be the peculiar and mischievous achievement of +his wife.</p> +<p>At the church door Julie and Delafield left for Camaldoli.</p> +<p>"Well, if you imagine that I intend to congratulate you or +anybody else upon that performance you are very much mistaken," +said the Duke, as he and his wife drove back to the "Grand +Bretagne" together.</p> +<p>"I don't deny it's--risky," said the Duchess, her hands on her +lap, her eyes dreamily following the streets.</p> +<p>"Risky!" repeated the Duke, shrugging his shoulders. "Well, I +don't want to speak harshly of your friends, Evelyn, but Miss Le +Breton--"</p> +<p>"Mrs. Delafield," said the Duchess.</p> +<p>"Mrs. Delafield, then"--the name was evidently a difficult +mouthful--"seems to me a most undisciplined and unmanageable woman. +Why does she look like a tragedy queen at her marriage? Jacob is +twice too good for her, and she'll lead him a life. And how you can +reconcile it to your conscience to have misled me so completely as +you have in this matter, I really can't imagine."</p> +<p>"Misled you?" said Evelyn.</p> +<p>Her innocence was really a little hard to bear, and not even the +beauty of her blue eyes, now happily restored to him, could appease +the mentor at her side.</p> +<p>"You led me plainly to believe," he repeated, with emphasis, +"that if I helped her through the crisis of leaving Lady Henry she +would relinquish her designs on Delafield."</p> +<p>"Did I?" said the Duchess. And putting her hands over her face +she laughed rather hysterically. "But that wasn't why you lent her +the house, Freddie."</p> +<p>"You coaxed me into it, of course," said the Duke.</p> +<p>"No, it was Julie herself got the better of you," said Evelyn, +triumphantly. "You felt her spell, just as we all do, and wanted to +do something for her."</p> +<p>"Nothing of the sort," said the Duke, determined to admit no +recollection to his disadvantage. "It was your doing entirely."</p> +<p>The Duchess thought it discreet to let him at least have the +triumph of her silence, smiling, and a little sarcastic though it +were.</p> +<p>"And of all the undeserved good fortune!" he resumed, feeling in +his irritable disapproval that the moral order of the universe had +been somehow trifled with. "In the first place, she is the daughter +of people who flagrantly misconducted themselves--<i>that</i> +apparently does her no harm. Then she enters the service of Lady +Henry in a confidential position, and uses it to work havoc in Lady +Henry's social relations. That, I am glad to say, <i>has</i> done +her a little harm, although not nearly as much as she deserves. And +finally she has a most discreditable flirtation with a man already +engaged--to her own cousin, please observe!--and pulls wires for +him all over the place in the most objectionable and unwomanly +manner."</p> +<p>"As if everybody didn't do that!" cried the Duchess. "You know, +Freddie, that your own mother always used to boast that she had +made six bishops and saved the Establishment."</p> +<p>The Duke took no notice.</p> +<p>"And yet there she is! Lord Lackington has left her a fortune--a +competence, anyway. She marries Jacob Delafield--rather a fool, I +consider, but all the same one of the best fellows in the world. +And at any time, to judge from what one hears of the health both of +Chudleigh and his boy, she may find herself Duchess of +Chudleigh."</p> +<p>The Duke threw himself back in the carriage with the air of one +who waits for Providence to reply.</p> +<p>"Oh, well, you see, you can't make the world into a moral tale +to please you," said the Duchess, absently.</p> +<p>Then, after a pause, she asked, "Are you still going to let them +have the house, Freddie?"</p> +<p>"I imagine that if Jacob Delafield applies to me to let it to +<i>him</i>, that I shall not refuse him," said the Duke, +stiffly.</p> +<p>The Duchess smiled behind her fan. Yet her tender heart was not +in reality very happy about her Julie. She knew well enough that it +was a strange marriage of which they had just been witnesses--a +marriage containing the seeds of many untoward things only too +likely to develop unless fate were kinder than rash mortals have +any right to expect.</p> +<p>"I wish to goodness Delafield weren't so religious," murmured +the Duchess, fervently, pursuing her own thoughts.</p> +<p>"Evelyn!"</p> +<p>"Well, you see, Julie isn't, at all," she added, hastily.</p> +<p>"You need not have troubled yourself to tell me that," was the +Duke's indignant reply.</p> +<hr style="width: 25%;"> +<p>After a fortnight at Camaldoli and Vallombrosa the Delafields +turned towards Switzerland. Julie, who was a lover of Rousseau and +Obermann, had been also busy with the letters of Byron. She wished +to see with her own eyes St. Gingolphe and Chillon, Bevay and +Glion.</p> +<p>So one day at the end of May they found themselves at Montreux. +But Montreux was already hot and crowded, and Julie's eyes turned +in longing to the heights. They found an old inn at Charnex, +whereof the garden commanded the whole head of the lake, and there +they settled themselves for a fortnight, till business, in fact, +should recall Delafield to England. The Duke of Chudleigh had shown +all possible kindness and cordiality with regard to the marriage, +and the letter in which he welcomed his cousin's new wife had both +touched Julie's feelings and satisfied her pride. "You are marrying +one of the best of men," wrote this melancholy father of a dying +son. "My boy and I owe him more than can be written. I can only +tell you that for those he loves he grudges nothing--no labor, no +sacrifice of himself. There are no half-measures in his affections. +He has spent himself too long on sick and sorry creatures like +ourselves. It is time he had a little happiness on his own account. +You will give it him, and Mervyn and I will be most grateful to +you. If joy and health can never be ours, I am not yet so vile as +to grudge them to others. God bless you! Jacob will tell you that +my house is not a gay one; but if you and he will sometimes visit +it, you will do something to lighten its gloom."</p> +<p>Julie wondered, as she wrote her very graceful reply, how much +the Duke might know about herself. Jacob had told his cousin, as +she knew, the story of her parentage and of Lord Lackington's +recognition of his granddaughter. But as soon as the marriage was +announced it was not likely that Lady Henry had been able to hold +her tongue.</p> +<p>A good many interesting tales of his cousin's bride had, indeed, +reached the melancholy Duke. Lady Henry had done all that she +conceived it her duty to do, filling many pages of note-paper with +what the Duke regarded as most unnecessary information.</p> +<p>At any rate, he had brushed it all aside with the impatience of +one for whom nothing on earth had now any savor or value beyond one +or two indispensable affections. "What's good enough for Jacob is +good for me," he wrote to Lady Henry, "and if I may offer you some +advice, it is that you should not quarrel with Jacob about a matter +so vital as his marriage. Into the rights and wrongs of the story +you tell me, I really cannot enter; but rather than break with +Jacob I would welcome <i>anybody</i> he chose to present to me. And +in this case I understand the lady is very clever, distinguished, +and of good blood on both sides. Have you had no trouble in your +life, my dear Flora, that you can make quarrels with a light heart? +If so, I envy you; but I have neither the energy nor the good +spirits wherewith to imitate you."</p> +<p>Julie, of course, knew nothing of this correspondence, though +from the Duke's letters to Jacob she divined that something of the +kind had taken place. But it was made quite plain to her that she +was to be spared all the friction and all the difficulty which may +often attend the entrance of a person like herself within the +circle of a rich and important family like the Delafields. With +Lady Henry, indeed, the fight had still to be fought. But Jacob's +mother, influenced on one side by her son and on the other by the +head of the family, accepted her daughter-in-law with the facile +kindliness and good temper that were natural to her; while his +sister, the fair-haired and admirable Susan, owed her brother too +much and loved him too well to be other than friendly to his +wife.</p> +<p>No; on the worldly side all was smooth. The marriage had been +carried through with ease and quietness The Duke, in spite of +Jacob's remonstrances, had largely increased his cousin's salary, +and Julie was already enjoying the income left her by Lord +Lackington. She had only to reappear in London as Jacob's wife to +resume far more than her old social ascendency. The winning cards +had all passed into her hands, and if now there was to be a +struggle with Lady Henry, Lady Henry would be worsted.</p> +<p>All this was or should have been agreeable to the sensitive +nerves of a woman who knew the worth of social advantages. It had +no effect, however, on the mortal depression which was constantly +Julie's portion during the early weeks of her marriage.</p> +<p>As for Delafield, he had entered upon this determining +experiment of his life--a marriage, which was merely a legalized +comradeship, with the woman he adored--in the mind of one resolved +to pay the price of what he had done. This graceful and stately +woman, with her high intelligence and her social gifts, was now his +own property. She was to be the companion of his days and the +mistress of his house. But although he knew well that he had a +certain strong hold upon her, she did not love him, and none of the +fusion of true marriage had taken place or could take place. So be +it. He set himself to build up a relation between them which should +justify the violence offered to natural and spiritual law. His own +delicacy of feeling and perception combined with the strength of +his passion to make every action of their common day a symbol and +sacrament. That her heart regretted Warkworth, that bitterness and +longing, an unspent and baffled love, must be constantly +overshadowing her--these things he not only knew, he was forever +reminding himself of them, driving them, as it were, into +consciousness, as the ascetic drives the spikes into his flesh. His +task was to comfort her, to make her forget, to bring her back to +common peace and cheerfulness of mind.</p> +<p>To this end he began with appealing as much as possible to her +intelligence. He warmly encouraged her work for Meredith. From the +first days of their marriage he became her listener, scholar, and +critic. Himself interested mainly in social, economical, or +religious discussion, he humbly put himself to school in matters of +<i>belles-lettres</i>. His object was to enrich Julie's daily life +with new ambitions and new pleasures, which might replace the +broodings of her illness and convalescence, and then, to make her +feel that she had at hand, in the companion of that life, one who +felt a natural interest in all her efforts, a natural pride in all +her successes.</p> +<p>Alack! the calculation was too simple--and too visible. It took +too little account of the complexities of Julie's nature, of the +ravages and the shock of passion. Julie herself might be ready +enough to return to the things of the mind, but they were no sooner +offered to her, as it were, in exchange for the perilous delights +of love, than she grew dumbly restive. She felt herself, also, too +much observed, too much thought over, made too often, if the truth +were known, the subject of religious or mystical emotion.</p> +<p>More and more, also, was she conscious of strangeness and +eccentricity in the man she had married. It often seemed to that +keen and practical sense which in her mingled so oddly with the +capacity for passion that, as they grew older, and her mind +recovered tone and balance, she would probably love the world +disastrously more and he disastrously less. And if so, the gulf +between them, instead of closing, could but widen.</p> +<p>One day--a showery day in early June--she was left alone for an +hour, while Delafield went down to Montreux to change some circular +notes. Julie took a book from the table and strolled out along the +lovely road that slopes gently downward from Charnex to the old +field-embowered village of Brent.</p> +<p>The rain was just over. It had been a cold rain, and the snow +had crept downward on the heights, and had even powdered the pines +of the Cubly. The clouds were sweeping low in the west. Towards +Geneva the lake was mere wide and featureless space--a cold and +misty water, melting into the fringes of the rain-clouds. But to +the east, above the Rhône valley, the sky was lifting; and as +Julie sat down upon a midway seat and turned herself eastward, she +was met by the full and unveiled glory of the higher Alps--the +Rochers de Naye, the Velan, the Dent du Midi. On the jagged peaks +of the latter a bright shaft of sun was playing, and the great +white or rock-ribbed mass raised itself above the mists of the +lower world, once more unstained and triumphant.</p> +<p>But the cold <i>bise</i> was still blowing, and Julie, +shivering, drew her wrap closer round her. Her heart pined for Como +and the south; perhaps for the little Duchess, who spoiled and +petted her in the common, womanish ways.</p> +<p>The spring--a second spring--was all about her; but in this +chilly northern form it spoke to her with none of the ravishment of +Italy. In the steep fields above her the narcissuses were bent and +bowed with rain; the red-browns of the walnuts glistened in the wet +gleams of sun; the fading apple-blossom beside her wore a +melancholy beauty; only in the rich, pushing grass, with its wealth +of flowers and its branching cow-parsley, was there the stubborn +life and prophecy of summer.</p> +<p>Suddenly Julie caught up the book that lay beside her and opened +it with a hasty hand. It was one of that set of Saint-Simon which +had belonged to her mother, and had already played a part in her +own destiny.</p> +<p>She turned to the famous "character" of the Dauphin, of that +model prince, in whose death Saint-Simon, and Fénelon, and +France herself, saw the eclipse of all great hopes.</p> +<p>"A prince, affable, gentle, humane, patient, modest, full of +compunctions, and, as much as his position allowed--sometimes +beyond it--humble, and severe towards himself."</p> +<p>Was it not to the life? "<i>Affable, doux, humain--patient, +modeste--humble et austère pour soi</i>"--beyond what was +expected, beyond, almost, what was becoming?</p> +<p>She read on to the mention of the Dauphine, terrified, in her +human weakness, of so perfect a husband, and trying to beguile or +tempt him from the heights; to the picture of Louis Quatorze, the +grandfather, shamed in his worldly old age by the presence beside +him of this saintly and high-minded youth; of the Court, looking +forward with dismay to the time when it should find itself under +the rule of a man who despised and condemned both its follies and +its passions, until she reached that final rapture, where, in a +mingled anguish and adoration, Saint-Simon bids eternal farewell to +a character and a heart of which France was not worthy.</p> +<p>The lines passed before her, and she was conscious, guiltily +conscious, of reading them with a double mind.</p> +<p>Then she closed the book, held by the thought of her husband--in +a somewhat melancholy reverie.</p> +<p>There is a Catholic word with which in her convent youth she had +been very familiar--the word <i>recueilli</i>--"recollected." At no +time had it sounded kindly in her ears; for it implied fetters and +self--suppressions--of the voluntary and spiritual sort--wholly +unwelcome to and unvalued by her own temperament. But who that knew +him well could avoid applying it to Delafield? A man of +"recollection" living in the eye of the Eternal; keeping a guard +over himself in the smallest matters of thought and action; +mystically possessed by the passion of a spiritual ideal; in love +with charity, purity, simplicity of life.</p> +<p>She bowed her head upon her hands in dreariness of spirit. +Ultimately, what could such a man want with her? What had she to +give him? In what way could she ever be <i>necessary</i> to him? +And a woman, even in friendship, must feel herself that to be +happy.</p> +<p>Already this daily state in which she found herself--of owing +everything and giving nothing--produced in her a secret irritation +and repulsion; how would it be in the years to come?</p> +<p>"He never saw me as I am," she thought to herself, looking +fretfully back to their past acquaintance. "I am neither as weak as +he thinks me--nor as clever. And how strange it is--this +<i>tension</i> in which he lives!"</p> +<p>And as she sat there idly plucking at the wet grass, her mind +was overrun with a motley host of memories--some absurd, some +sweet, some of an austerity that chilled her to the core. She +thought of the difficulty she had in persuading Delafield to allow +himself even necessary comforts and conveniences; a laugh, +involuntary, and not without tenderness, crossed her face as she +recalled a tale he had told her at Camaldoli, of the contempt +excited in a young footman of a smart house by the mediocrity and +exiguity of his garments and personal appointments generally. "I +felt I possessed nothing that he would have taken as a gift," said +Delafield, with a grin. "It was chastening."</p> +<p>Yet though he laughed, he held to it; and Julie was already so +much of the wife as to be planning how to coax him presently out of +a portmanteau and a top-hat that were in truth a disgrace to their +species.</p> +<p>And all the time <i>she</i> must have the best of everything--a +maid, luxurious travelling, dainty food. They had had one or two +wrestles on the subject already. "Why are you to have all the high +thinking and plain living to yourself?" she had asked him, angrily, +only to be met by the plea, "Dear, get strong first--then you shall +do what you like."</p> +<p>But it was at La Verna, the mountain height overshadowed by the +memories of St. Francis, that she seemed to have come nearest to +the ascetic and mystical tendency in Delafield. He went about the +mountain-paths a transformed being, like one long spiritually +athirst who has found the springs and sources of life. Julie felt a +secret terror. Her impression was much the same as Meredith's--as +of "something wearing through" to the light of day. Looking back +she saw that this temperament, now so plain to view, had been +always there; but in the young and capable agent of the Chudleigh +property, in the Duchess's cousin, or Lady Henry's nephew, it had +passed for the most part unsuspected. How remarkably it had +developed!--whither would it carry them both in the future? When +thinking about it, she was apt to find herself seized with a sudden +craving for Mayfair, "little dinners," and good talk.</p> +<p>"What a pity you weren't born a Catholic!--you might have been a +religious," she said to him one night at La Verna, when he had been +reading her some of the <i>Fioretti</i> with occasional comments of +his own.</p> +<p>But he had shaken his head with a smile.</p> +<p>"You see, I have no creed--or next to none."</p> +<p>The answer startled her. And in the depths of his blue eyes +there seemed to her to be hovering a swarm of thoughts that would +not let themselves loose in her presence, but were none the less +the true companions of his mind. She saw herself a moment as Elsa, +and her husband as a modern Lohengrin, coming spiritually she knew +not whence, bound on some quest mysterious and unthinkable.</p> +<p>"What will you do," she said, suddenly, "when the dukedom comes +to you?"</p> +<p>Delafield's aspect darkened in an instant. If he could have +shown anger to her, anger there would have been.</p> +<p>"That is a subject I never think of or discuss, if I can help +it," he said, abruptly; and, rising to his feet, he pointed out +that the sun was declining fast towards the plain of the Casentino, +and they were far from their hotel.</p> +<p>"Inhuman!--unreasonable!" was the cry of the critical sense in +her as she followed him in silence.</p> +<hr style="width: 25%;"> +<p>Innumerable memories of this kind beat on Julie's mind as she +sat dreamily on her bench among the Swiss meadows. How natural that +in the end they should sweep her by reaction into imaginations +wholly indifferent--of a drum-and-trumpet history, in the actual +fighting world.</p> +<p>... Far, far in the African desert she followed the march of +Warkworth's little troop.</p> +<p>Ah, the blinding light--the African scrub and sand--the long, +single line--the native porters with their loads--the handful of +English officers with that slender figure at their head--the +endless, waterless path with its palms and mangoes and mimosas--the +scene rushed upon the inward eye and held it. She felt the heat, +the thirst, the weariness of bone and brain--all the spell and +mystery of the unmapped, unconquered land.</p> +<p>Did he think of her sometimes, at night, under the stars, or in +the blaze and mirage of noon? Yes, yes; he thought of her. Each to +the other their thoughts must travel while they lived.</p> +<p>In Delafield's eyes, she knew, his love for her had been mere +outrage and offence.</p> +<p>Ah, well, <i>he</i>, at least, had needed her. He had desired +only very simple, earthy things--money, position, success--things +it was possible for a woman to give him, or get for him; and at the +last, though it were only as a traitor to his word and his +<i>fiancée</i>, he had asked for love--asked commonly, +hungrily, recklessly, because he could not help it--and then for +pardon! And those are things the memory of which lies deep, deep in +the pulsing, throbbing heart.</p> +<p>At this point she hurriedly checked and scourged herself, as she +did a hundred times a day.</p> +<p>No, no, <i>no</i>! It was all over, and she and Jacob would +still make a fine thing of their life together. Why not?</p> +<p>And all the time there were burning hot tears in her eyes; and +as the leaves of Saint-Simon passed idly through her fingers, the +tears blotted out the meadows and the flowers, and blurred the +figure of a young girl who was slowly mounting the long slope of +road that led from the village of Brent towards the seat on which +Julie was sitting.</p> +<hr style="width: 25%;"> +<p>Gradually the figure approached. The mist cleared from Julie's +eyes. Suddenly she found herself giving a close and passionate +attention to the girl upon the road.</p> +<p>Her form was slight and small; under her shady hat there was a +gleam of fair hair arranged in smooth, shining masses about her +neck and temples. As she approached Julie she raised her eyes +absently, and Julie saw a face of singular and delicate beauty, +marred, however, by the suggestion of physical fragility, even +sickliness, which is carried with it. One might have thought it a +face blanched by a tropical climate, and for the moment touched +into faint color by the keen Alpine air. The eyes, indeed, were +full of life; they were no sooner seen but they defined and +enforced a personality. Eager, intent, a little fretful, they +expressed a nervous energy out of all proportion to their owner's +slender physique. In this, other bodily signs concurred. As she +perceived Julie on the bench, for instance, the girl's slight, +habitual frown sharply deepened; she looked at the stranger with +keen observation, both glance and gesture betraying a quick and +restless sensibility.</p> +<p>As for Julie, she half rose as the girl neared her. Her cheeks +were flushed, her lips parted; she had the air of one about to +speak. The girl looked at her in a little surprise and passed +on.</p> +<p>She carried a book under her arm, into which were thrust a few +just-opened letters. She had scarcely passed the bench when an +envelope fell out of the book and lay unnoticed on the road.</p> +<p>Julie drew a long breath. She picked up the envelope. It lay in +her hand, and the name she had expected to see was written upon +it.</p> +<p>For a moment she hesitated. Then she ran after the owner of the +letter.</p> +<p>"You dropped this on the road."</p> +<p>The girl turned hastily.</p> +<p>"Thank you very much. I am sorry to have given you the +trouble--"</p> +<p>Then she paused, arrested evidently by the manner in which Julie +stood regarding her.</p> +<p>"Did--did you wish to speak to me?" she said, uncertainly.</p> +<p>"You are Miss Moffatt?"</p> +<p>"Yes. That is my name. But, excuse me. I am afraid I don't +remember you." The words were spoken with a charming sweetness and +timidity.</p> +<p>"I am Mrs. Delafield."</p> +<p>The girl started violently.</p> +<p>"Are you? I--I beg your pardon!"</p> +<p>She stood in a flushed bewilderment, staring at the lady who had +addressed her, a troubled consciousness possessing itself of her +face and manner more and more plainly with every moment.</p> +<p>Julie asked herself, hurriedly: "How much does she know? What +has she heard?" But aloud she gently said: "I thought you must have +heard of me. Lord Uredale told me he had written--his father wished +it--to Lady Blanche. Your mother and mine were sisters."</p> +<p>The girl shyly withdrew her eyes.</p> +<p>"Yes, mother told me."</p> +<p>There was a moment's silence. The mingled fear and recklessness +which had accompanied Julie's action disappeared from her mind. In +the girl's manner there was neither jealousy nor hatred, only a +young shrinking and reserve.</p> +<p>"May I walk with you a little?"</p> +<p>"Please do. Are you staying at Montreux?"</p> +<p>"No; we are at Charnex--and you?"</p> +<p>"We came up two days ago to a little <i>pension</i> at Brent. I +wanted to be among the fields, now the narcissuses are out. If it +were warm weather we should stay, but mother is afraid of the cold +for me. I have been ill."</p> +<p>"I heard that," said Julie, in a voice gravely kind and winning. +"That was why your mother could not come home."</p> +<p>The girl's eyes suddenly filled with tears.</p> +<p>"No; poor mother! I wanted her to go--we had a good nurse--but +she would not leave me, though she was devoted to my grandfather. +She--"</p> +<p>"She is always anxious about you?"</p> +<p>"Yes. My health has been a trouble lately, and since father +died--"</p> +<p>"She has only you."</p> +<p>They walked on a few paces in silence. Then the girl looked up +eagerly.</p> +<p>"You saw grandfather at the last? Do tell me about it, please. +My uncles write so little."</p> +<p>Julie obeyed with difficulty. She had not realized how hard it +would be for her to talk of Lord Lackington. But she described the +old man's gallant dying as best she could; while Aileen Moffatt +listened with that manner at once timid and rich in feeling which +seemed to be her characteristic.</p> +<p>As they neared the top of the hill where the road begins to +incline towards Charnex, Julie noticed signs of fatigue in her +companion.</p> +<p>"You have been an invalid," she said. "You ought not to go +farther. May I take you home? Would your mother dislike to see +me?"</p> +<p>The girl paused perceptibly. "Ah, there she is!"</p> +<p>They had turned towards Brent, and Julie saw coming towards +them, with somewhat rapid steps, a small, elderly lady, +gray-haired, her features partly hidden by her country hat.</p> +<p>A thrill passed through Julie. This was the sister whose name +her mother had mentioned in her last hour. It was as though +something of her mother, something that must throw light upon that +mother's life and being, were approaching her along this Swiss +road.</p> +<p>But the lady in question, as she neared them, looked with +surprise, not unmingled with hauteur, upon her daughter and the +stranger beside her.</p> +<p>"Aileen, why did you go so far? You promised me only to be a +quarter of an hour."</p> +<p>"I am not tired, mother. Mother, this is Mrs. Delafield. You +remember, Uncle Uredale wrote--"</p> +<p>Lady Blanche Moffatt stood still. Once more a fear swept through +Julie's mind, and this time it stayed. After an evident hesitation, +a hand was coldly extended.</p> +<p>"How do you do? I heard from my brothers of your marriage, but +they said you were in Italy."</p> +<p>"We have just come from there."</p> +<p>"And your husband?"</p> +<p>"He has gone down to Montreux, but he should be home very soon +now. We are only a few steps from our little inn. Would you not +rest there? Miss Moffatt looks very tired."</p> +<p>There was a pause. Lady Blanche was considering her daughter. +Julie saw the trembling of her wide, irregular mouth, of which the +lips were slightly turned outward. Finally she drew her daughter's +hand into her arm, and bent anxiously towards her, scrutinizing her +face.</p> +<p>"Thank you. We will rest a quarter of an hour. Can we get a +carriage at Charnex?"</p> +<p>"Yes, I think so, if you will wait a little on our balcony."</p> +<p>They walked on towards Charnex. Lady Blanche began to talk +resolutely of the weather, which was, indeed, atrocious. She spoke +as she would have done to the merest acquaintance. There was not a +word of her father; not a word, either, of her brother's letter, or +of Julie's relationship to herself. Julie accepted the situation +with perfect composure, and the three kept up some sort of a +conversation till they reached the paved street of Charnex and the +old inn at its lower end.</p> +<p>Julie guided her companions through its dark passages, till they +reached an outer terrace where there were a few scattered seats, +and among them a deck-chair with cushions.</p> +<p>"Please," said Julie, as she kindly drew the girl towards it. +Aileen smiled and yielded. Julie placed her among the cushions, +then brought out a shawl, and covered her warmly from the sharp, +damp air. Aileen thanked her, and lightly touched her hand. A +secret sympathy seemed to have suddenly sprung up between them.</p> +<p>Lady Blanche sat stiffly beside her daughter, watching her face. +The warm touch of friendliness in Aileen's manner towards Mrs. +Delafield seemed only to increase the distance and embarrassment of +her own. Julie appeared to be quite unconscious. She ordered tea, +and made no further allusion of any kind to the kindred they had in +common. She and Lady Blanche talked as strangers.</p> +<p>Julie said to herself that she understood. She remembered the +evening at Crowborough House, the spinster lady who had been the +Moffatts' friend, her own talk with Evelyn. In that way, or in some +other, the current gossip about herself and Warkworth, gossip they +had been too mad and miserable to take much account of, had reached +Lady Blanche. Lady Blanche probably abhorred her; though, because +of her marriage, there was to be an outer civility. Meanwhile no +sign whatever of any angry or resentful knowledge betrayed itself +in the girl's manner. Clearly the mother had shielded her.</p> +<p>Julie felt the flutter of an exquisite relief. She stole many a +look at Aileen, comparing the reality with that old, ugly notion +her jealousy had found so welcome--of the silly or insolent little +creature, possessing all that her betters desired, by the mere +brute force of money or birth. And all the time the reality was +<i>this</i>--so soft, suppliant, ethereal! Here, indeed, was the +child of Warkworth's picture--the innocent, unknowing child, whom +their passion had sacrificed and betrayed. She could see the face +now, as it lay piteous, in Warkworth's hand. Then she raised her +eyes to the original. And as it looked at her with timidity and +nascent love her own heart beat wildly, now in remorse, now in a +reviving jealousy.</p> +<p>Secretly, behind this mask of convention, were they both +thinking of him? A girl's thoughts are never far from her lover; +and Julie was conscious, this afternoon, of a strange and +mysterious preoccupation, whereof Warkworth was the centre.</p> +<hr style="width: 25%;"> +<p>Gradually the great mountains at the head of the lake freed +themselves from the last wandering cloud-wreaths. On the rock faces +of the Rochers de Naye the hanging pine-woods, brushed with snow, +came into sight. The white walls of Glion shone faintly out, and a +pearly gold, which was but a pallid reflection of the Italian +glory, diffused itself over mountain and lake. The sun was +grudging; there was no caress in the air. Aileen shivered a little +in her shawls, and when Julie spoke of Italy the girl's enthusiasm +and longing sprang, as it were, to meet her, and both were +conscious of another slight link between them.</p> +<p>Suddenly a sound of steps came to them from below.</p> +<p>"My husband," said Julie, rising, and, going to the balustrade, +she waved to Delafield, who had come up from Montreux by one of the +steep vineyard paths. "I will tell him you are here," she added, +with what might have been taken for the shyness of the young +wife.</p> +<p>She ran down the steps leading from the terrace to the lower +garden. Aileen looked at her mother.</p> +<p>"Isn't she wonderful?" she said, in an ardent whisper. "I could +watch her forever. She is the most graceful person I ever saw. +Mother, is she like Aunt Rose?"</p> +<p>Lady Blanche shook her head.</p> +<p>"Not in the least," she said, shortly. "She has too much manner +for me."</p> +<p>"Oh, mother!" And the girl caught her mother's hand in caressing +remonstrance, as though to say: "Dear little mother, you must like +her, because I do; and you mustn't think of Aunt Rose, and all +those terrible things, except for pity."</p> +<p>"Hush!" said Lady Blanche, smiling at her a little excitedly. +"Hush; they're coming!"</p> +<p>Delafield and Julie emerged from the iron staircase. Lady +Blanche turned and looked at the tall, distinguished pair, her ugly +lower lip hardening ungraciously. But she and Delafield had a +slight previous acquaintance, and she noticed instantly the +charming and solicitous kindness with which he greeted her +daughter.</p> +<p>"Julie tells me Miss Moffatt is still far from strong," he said, +returning to the mother.</p> +<p>Lady Blanche only sighed for answer. He drew a chair beside her, +and they fell into the natural talk of people who belong to the +same social world, and are travelling in the same scenes.</p> +<p>Meanwhile Julie was sitting beside the heiress. Not much was +said, but each was conscious of a lively interest in the other, and +every now and then Julie would put out a careful hand and draw the +shawls closer about the girl's frail form. The strain of guilty +compunction that entered into Julie's feeling did but make it the +more sensitive. She said to herself in a vague haste that now she +would make amends. If only Lady Blanche were willing--</p> +<p>But she should be willing! Julie felt the stirrings of the old +self-confidence, the old trust in a social ingenuity which had, in +truth, rarely failed her. Her intriguing, managing instinct made +itself felt--the mood of Lady Henry's companion.</p> +<hr style="width: 25%;"> +<p>Presently, as they were talking, Aileen caught sight of an +English newspaper which Delafield had brought up from Montreux. It +lay still unopened on one of the tables of the terrace.</p> +<p>"Please give it me," said the girl, stretching out an eager +hand. "It will have Tiny's marriage, mamma! A cousin of mine," she +explained to Julie, who rose to hand it to her. "A very favorite +cousin. Oh, thank you."</p> +<p>She opened the paper. Julie turned away, that she might relieve +Lady Blanche of her teacup.</p> +<p>Suddenly a cry rang out--a cry of mortal anguish. Two ladies who +had just stepped out upon the terrace from the hotel drawing-room +turned in terror; the gardener who was watering the flower-boxes at +the farther end stood arrested.</p> +<p>"Aileen!" shrieked Lady Blanche, running to her. "What--what is +it?"</p> +<p>The paper had dropped to the floor, but the child still pointed +to it, gasping.</p> +<p>"Mother--mother!"</p> +<p>Some intuition woke in Julie. She stood dead-white and dumb, +while Lady Blanche threw herself on her daughter.</p> +<p>"Aileen, darling, what is it?"</p> +<p>The girl, in her agony, threw her arms frantically round her +mother, and dragged herself to her feet. She stood tottering, her +hand over her eyes.</p> +<p>"He's dead, mother! He's--dead!"</p> +<p>The last word sank into a sound more horrible even than the +first cry. Then she swayed out of her mother's arms. It was Julie +who caught her, who laid her once more on the deck-chair--a broken, +shrunken form, in whom all the threads and connections of life had +suddenly, as it were, fallen to ruin. Lady Blanche hung over her, +pushing Julie away, gathering the unconscious girl madly in her +arms. Delafield rushed for water-and-brandy. Julie snatched the +paper and looked at the telegrams.</p> +<p>High up in the first column was the one she sought.</p> +<p>/# "CAIRO, <i>June</i> 12.--Great regret is felt here at the +sudden and tragic news of Major Warkworth's death from fever, which +seems to have occurred at a spot some three weeks' distance from +the coast, on or about May 25. Letters from the officer who has +succeeded him in the command of the Mokembe expedition have now +reached Denga. A fortnight after leaving the coast Major Warkworth +was attacked with fever; he made a brave struggle against it, but +it was of a deadly type, and in less than a week he succumbed. The +messenger brought also his private papers and diaries, which have +been forwarded to his representatives in England. Major Warkworth +was a most promising and able officer, and his loss will be keenly +felt." #/</p> +<p>Julie fell on her knees beside her swooning cousin. Lady +Blanche, meanwhile, was loosening her daughter's dress, chafing her +icy hands, or moaning over her in a delirium of terror.</p> +<p>"My darling--my darling! Oh, my God! Why did I allow it? Why did +I ever let him come near her? It was my fault--my fault! And it's +killed her!"</p> +<p>And clinging to her child's irresponsive hands, she looked down +upon her in a convulsion of grief, which included not a shadow of +regret, not a gleam of pity for anything or any one else in the +world but this bone of her bone and flesh of her flesh, which lay +stricken there.</p> +<p>But Julie's mind had ceased to be conscious of the tragedy +beside her. It had passed for the second time into the grasp of an +illusion which possessed itself of the whole being and all its +perceptive powers. Before her wide, terror-stricken gaze there rose +once more the same piteous vision which had tortured her in the +crisis of her love for Warkworth. Against the eternal snows which +close in the lake the phantom hovered in a ghastly +relief--emaciated, with matted hair, and purpled cheeks, and +eyes--not to be borne!--expressing the dumb anger of a man, still +young, who parts unwillingly from life in a last lonely spasm of +uncomforted pain.</p> +<br> +<br> +<hr style="width: 35%;"> +<br> +<br> +<h2><a name="XXIII"></a>XXIII</h2> +<br> +<p>It was midnight in the little inn at Charnex. The rain which for +so many nights in this miserable June had been beating down upon +the village had at last passed away. The night was clear and +still--a night when the voice of mountain torrents, far distant, +might reach the ear suddenly--sharply pure--from the very depths of +silence.</p> +<p>Julie was in bed. She had been scarcely aware of her maid's help +in undressing. The ordinary life was, as it were, suspended. Two +scenes floated alternately before her--one the creation of memory, +the other of imagination; and the second was, if possible, the more +vivid, the more real of the two. Now she saw herself in Lady +Henry's drawing-room; Sir Wilfrid Bury and a white-haired general +were beside her. The door opened and Warkworth entered--young, +handsome, soldierly, with that boyish, conquering air which some +admired and others disliked. His eyes met hers, and a glow of +happiness passed through her.</p> +<p>Then, at a stroke, the London drawing-room melted away. She was +in a low bell-tent. The sun burned through its sides; the air was +stifling. She stood with two other men and the doctor beside the +low camp-bed; her heart was wrung by every movement, every sound; +she heard the clicking of the fan in the doctor's hands, she saw +the flies on the poor, damp brow.</p> +<p>And still she had no tears. Only, existence seemed to have ended +in a gulf of horror, where youth and courage, repentance and high +resolve, love and pleasure were all buried and annihilated +together.</p> +<p>That poor girl up-stairs! It had not been possible to take her +home. She was there with nurse and doctor, her mother hanging upon +every difficult breath. The attack of diphtheria had left a +weakened heart and nervous system; the shock had been cruel, and +the doctor could promise nothing for the future.</p> +<p>"Mother--mother!... <i>Dead!</i>"</p> +<p>The cry echoed in Julie's ears. It seemed to fill the old, +low-ceiled room in which she lay. Her fancy, preternaturally alive, +heard it thrown back from the mountains outside--returned to her in +wailing from the infinite depths of the lake. She was conscious of +the vast forms and abysses of nature, there in the darkness, beyond +the walls of her room, as something hostile, implacable....</p> +<p>And while he lay there dead, under the tropical sand, she was +still living and breathing here, in this old Swiss inn--Jacob +Delafield's wife, at least in name.</p> +<p>There was a knock at her door. At first she did not answer it. +It seemed to be only one of the many dream sounds which tormented +her nerves. Then it was repeated. Mechanically she said "Come +in."</p> +<p>The door opened, and Delafield, carrying a light, which he +shaded with his hand, stood on the threshold.</p> +<p>"May I come and talk to you?" he said, in a low voice. "I know +you are not sleeping."</p> +<p>It was the first time he had entered his wife's room. Through +all her misery, Julie felt a strange thrill as her husband's face +was thus revealed to her, brightly illumined, in the loneliness of +the night. Then the thrill passed into pain--the pain of a new and +sharp perception.</p> +<p>Delafield, in truth, was some two or three years younger than +Warkworth. But the sudden impression on Julie's mind, as she saw +him thus, was of a man worn and prematurely aged--markedly older +and graver, even, since their marriage, since that memorable +evening by the side of Como when, by that moral power of which he +seemed often to be the mere channel and organ, he had overcome her +own will and linked her life with his.</p> +<p>She looked at him in a kind of terror. Why was he so pale--an +embodied grief? Warkworth's death was not a mortal stroke for +<i>him</i>.</p> +<p>He came closer, and still Julie's eyes held him. Was it her +fault, this--this shadowed countenance, these suggestions of a dumb +strain and conflict, which not even his strong youth could bear +without betrayal? Her heart cried out, first in a tragic +impatience; then it melted within her strangely, she knew not +how.</p> +<p>She sat up in bed and held out her hands. He thought of that +evening in Heribert Street, after Warkworth had left her, when she +had been so sad and yet so docile. The same yearning, the same +piteous agitation was in her attitude now.</p> +<p>He knelt down beside the bed and put his arms round her. She +clasped her hands about his neck and hid her face on his shoulder. +There ran through her the first long shudder of weeping.</p> +<p>"He was so young!" he heard her say through sobs. "So +young!"</p> +<p>He raised his hand and touched her hair tenderly.</p> +<p>"He died serving his country," he said, commanding his voice +with difficulty. "And you grieve for him like this! I can't pity +him so much."</p> +<p>"You thought ill of him--I know you did." She spoke between +deep, sobbing breaths. "But he wasn't--he wasn't a bad man."</p> +<p>She fell back on her pillow and the tears rained down her +cheeks.</p> +<p>Delafield kissed her hand in silence.</p> +<p>"Some day--I'll tell you," she said, brokenly.</p> +<p>"Yes, you shall tell me. It would help us both."</p> +<p>"I'll prove to you he wasn't vile. When--when he proposed that +to me he was distracted. So was I. How could he break off his +engagement? Now you see how she loved him. But we couldn't part--we +couldn't say good-bye. It had all come on us unawares. We wanted to +belong to each other--just for two days--and then part forever. Oh, +I'll tell you--"</p> +<p>"You shall tell me all--here!" he said, firmly, crushing her +delicate hands in his own against his breast, so that she felt the +beating of his heart.</p> +<p>"Give me my hand. I'll show you his letter--his last letter to +me." And, trembling, she drew from under her pillow that last +scrawled letter, written from the squalid hotel near the Gare de +Sceaux.</p> +<p>No sooner, however, had she placed it in Delafield's hands than +she was conscious of new forces of feeling in herself which robbed +the act of its simplicity. She had meant to plead her lover's cause +and her own with the friend who was nominally her husband. Her +action had been a cry for sympathy, as from one soul to +another.</p> +<p>But as Delafield took the letter and began to read, her pulses +began to flutter strangely. She recalled the phrases of passion +which the letter contained. She became conscious of new fears, new +compunctions.</p> +<p>For Delafield, too, the moment was one of almost intolerable +complexity. This tender intimacy of night--the natural intimacy of +husband and wife; this sense, which would not be denied, however +sternly he might hold it in check, of her dear form beside him; the +little refinements and self-revelations of a woman's room; his +half-rights towards her, appealing at once to love, and to the +memory of that solemn pledge by which he had won her--what man who +deserved the name but must be conscious, tempestuously conscious, +of such thoughts and facts?</p> +<p>And then, wrestling with these smarts, these impulses, belonging +to the natural, physical life, the powers of the moral +being--compassion, self-mastery, generosity; while strengthening +and directing all, the man of faith was poignantly aware of the +austere and tender voices of religion.</p> +<p>Amid this play of influences he read the letter, still kneeling +beside her and holding her fingers clasped in his. She had closed +her eyes and lay still, save for the occasional tremulous movement +of her free hand, which dried the tears on her cheek.</p> +<p>"Thank you," he said, at last, with a voice that wavered, as he +put the letter down. "Thank you. It was good of you to let me see +it. It changes all my thoughts of him henceforward. If he had +lived--"</p> +<p>"But he's dead! He's dead!" cried Julie, in a sudden agony, +wrenching her hand from his and burying her face in the pillow. +"Just when he wanted to live. Oh, my God--my God! No, there's no +God--nothing that cares--that takes any notice!"</p> +<p>She was shaken by deep, convulsive weeping. Delafield soothed +her as best he could. And presently she stretched out her hand with +a quick, piteous gesture, and touched his face.</p> +<p>"You, too! What have I done to you? How you looked, just now! I +bring a curse. Why did you want to marry me? I can't tear this out +of my heart--I can't!"</p> +<p>And again she hid herself from him. Delafield bent over her.</p> +<p>"Do you imagine that I should be poor-souled enough to ask +you?"</p> +<p>Suddenly a wild feeling of revolt ran through Julie's mind. The +loftiness of his mood chilled her. An attitude more weakly, +passionately human, a more selfish pity for himself would, in +truth, have served him better. Had the pain of the living man +escaped his control, avenging itself on the supremacy that death +had now given to the lover, Delafield might have found another +Julie in his arms. As it was, her husband seemed to her perhaps +less than man, in being more; she admired unwillingly, and her +stormy heart withdrew itself.</p> +<p>And when at last she controlled her weeping, and it became +evident to him that she wished once more to be alone, his +sensitiveness perfectly divined the secret reaction in her. He rose +from his place beside her with a deep, involuntary sigh. She heard +it, but only to shrink away.</p> +<p>"You will sleep a little?" he said, looking down upon her.</p> +<p>"I will try, <i>mon ami</i>."</p> +<p>"If you don't sleep, and would like me to read to you, call me. +I am in the next room."</p> +<p>She thanked him faintly, and he went away. At the door he paused +and came back again.</p> +<p>"To-night"--he hesitated--"while the doctors were here, I ran +down to Montreux by the short path and telegraphed. The consul at +Zanzibar is an old friend of mine. I asked him for more particulars +at once, by wire. But the letters can't be here for a +fortnight."</p> +<p>"I know. You're very, very good."</p> +<hr style="width: 25%;"> +<p>Hour after hour Delafield sat motionless in his room, till "high +in the Valais depths profound" he "saw the morning break."</p> +<p>There was a little balcony at his command, and as he noiselessly +stepped out upon it, between three and four o'clock, he felt +himself the solitary comrade of the mist-veiled lake, of those +high, rosy mountains on the eastern verge, the first throne and +harbor of the light--of the lower forest-covered hills that "took +the morning," one by one, in a glorious and golden succession. All +was fresh, austere, and vast--the spaces of the lake, the distant +hollows of high glaciers filled with purple shadow, the precipices +of the Rochers de Naye, where the new snow was sparkling in the +sun, the cool wind that blew towards him from the gates of Italy, +down the winding recesses of that superb valley which has been a +thoroughfare of nations from the beginning of time.</p> +<p>Not a boat on the wide reaches of the lake; not a voice or other +sound of human toil, either from the vineyards below or the meadows +above. Meanwhile some instinct, perhaps also some faint movements +in her room, told him that Julie was no less wakeful than himself. +And was not that a low voice in the room above him--the trained +voice and footsteps of a nurse? Ah, poor little heiress, she, too, +watched with sorrow!</p> +<p>A curious feeling of shame, of self-depreciation crept into his +heart. Surely he himself of late had been lying down with fear and +rising up with bitterness? Never a day had passed since they had +reached Switzerland but he, a man of strong natural passions, had +bade himself face the probable truth that, by a kind of violence, +he had married a woman who would never love him--had taken +irrevocably a false step, only too likely to be fatal to himself, +intolerable to her.</p> +<p>Nevertheless, steeped as he had been in sadness, in foreboding, +and, during this by-gone night, in passionate envy of the dead yet +beloved Warkworth, he had never been altogether unhappy. That +mysterious <i>It</i>--that other divine self of the +mystic--God--the enwrapping, sheltering force--had been with him +always. It was with him now--it spoke from the mysterious color and +light of the dawn.</p> +<p>How, then, could he ever equal Julie in <i>experience</i>, in +the true and poignant feeling of any grief whatever? His mind was +in a strange, double state. It was like one who feels himself +unfairly protected by a magic armor; he would almost throw it aside +in a remorseful eagerness to be with his brethren, and as his +brethren, in the sore weakness and darkness of the human combat; +and then he thinks of the hand that gave the shield, and his heart +melts in awe.</p> +<p>"<i>Friend of my soul and of the world, make me thy tool--thy +instrument! Thou art Love! Speak through me! Draw her heart to +mine</i>."</p> +<p>At last, knowing that there was no sleep in him, and realizing +that he had brooded enough, he made his way out of the hotel and up +through the fresh and dew-drenched meadows, where the haymakers +were just appearing, to the Les Avants stream. A plunge into one of +its cool basins retempered the whole man. He walked back through +the scented field-paths, resolutely restraining his mind from the +thoughts of the night, hammering out, indeed, in his head a scheme +for the establishment of small holdings on certain derelict land in +Wiltshire belonging to his cousin.</p> +<p>As he was descending on Charnex, he met the postman and took his +letters. One among them, from the Duke of Chudleigh, contained a +most lamentable account of Lord Elmira. The father and son had +returned to England, and an angry, inclement May had brought a +touch of pneumonia to add to all the lad's other woes. In itself it +was not much--was, indeed, passing away. "But it has used up most +of his strength," said the Duke, "and you know whether he had any +to waste. Don't forget him. He constantly thinks and talks of +you."</p> +<p>Delafield restlessly wondered when he could get home. But he +realized that Julie would now feel herself tragically linked to the +Moffatts, and how could he leave her? He piteously told himself +that here, and now, was his chance with her. As he bore himself now +towards her, in this hour of her grief for Warkworth, so, perhaps, +would their future be.</p> +<p>Yet the claims of kindred were strong. He suffered much inward +distress as he thought of the father and son, and their old +touching dependence upon him. Chudleigh, as Jacob knew well, was +himself incurably ill. Could he long survive his poor boy?</p> +<p>And so that other thought, which Jacob spent so much ingenuity +in avoiding, rushed upon him unawares. The near, inevitable +expectation of the famous dukedom, which, in the case of almost any +other man in England, must at least have quickened the blood with a +natural excitement, produced in Delafield's mind a mere dull sense +of approaching torment. Perhaps there was something non-sane in his +repulsion, something that linked itself with his father's +"queerness," or the bigotry and fanaticism of his grandmother, the +Evangelical Duchess, with her "swarm of parsons," as Sir Wilfrid +remembered her. The oddity, which had been violent or brutal in +earlier generations, showed itself in him, one might have said, in +a radical transposition of values, a singularity of criterion, +which the ordinary robust Englishman might very well dismiss with +impatience as folly or cant.</p> +<p>Yet it was neither; and the feeling had, in truth, its own logic +and history. He had lived from his youth up among the pageants of +rank and possession. They had no glamour for him; he realized their +burdens, their ineffectiveness for all the more precious kinds of +happiness--how could he not, with these two forlorn figures of +Chudleigh and his boy always before him? As for imagination and +poetry, Delafield, with a mind that was either positive or +mystical--the mind, one might say, of the land-agent or the +saint--failed to see where they came in. Family tradition, no +doubt, carries a thrill. But what thrill is there in the mere +possession of a vast number of acres of land, of more houses, new +and old, than any human being can possibly live in, of more money +than any reasonable man can ever spend, and more responsibilities +than he can ever meet? Such things often seemed to Delafield pure +calamity--mere burdens upon life and breath. That he could and must +be forced, some time, by law and custom, to take them up, was +nothing but a social barbarity.</p> +<p>Mingled with all which, of course, was his passionate sense of +spiritual democracy. To be throned apart, like a divine being, +surrounded by the bought homage of one's fellows, and possessed of +more power than a man can decently use, was a condition which +excited in Delafield the same kind of contemptuous revolt that it +would have excited in St. Francis. "Be not ye called master"--a +Christian even of his transcendental and heterodox sort, if he +<i>were</i> a Christian, must surely hold these words in awe, at +least so far as concerned any mastery of the external or secular +kind. To masteries of another order the saint has never been +disinclined.</p> +<p>As he once more struck the village street, this familiar whirl +of thoughts was buzzing in Delafield's mind, pierced, however, by +one sharper and newer. Julie! Did he know--had he ever dared to +find out--how she regarded this future which was overtaking them? +She had tried to sound <i>him</i>; she had never revealed +herself.</p> +<p>In Lady Henry's house he had often noticed in Julie that she had +an imaginative tenderness for rank or great fortune. At first it +had seemed to him a woman's natural romanticism; then he explained +it to himself as closely connected with her efforts to serve +Warkworth.</p> +<p>But suppose he were made to feel that there, after all, lay her +compensation? She had submitted to a loveless marriage and lost her +lover; but the dukedom was to make amends. He knew well that it +would be so with nine women out of ten. But the bare thought that +it might be so with Julie maddened him. He then was to be for her, +in the future, the mere symbol of the vulgarer pleasures and +opportunities, while Warkworth held her heart?</p> +<p>Nay!</p> +<p>He stood still, strengthening in himself the glad and sufficient +answer. She had refused him twice--knowing all his circumstances. +At this moment he adored her doubly for those old rebuffs.</p> +<hr style="width: 25%;"> +<p>Within twenty-four hours Delafield had received a telegram from +his friend at Zanzibar. For the most part it recapitulated the news +already sent to Cairo, and thence transmitted to the English +papers. But it added the information that Warkworth had been buried +in the neighborhood of a certain village on the caravan route to +Mokembe, and that special pains had been taken to mark the spot. +And the message concluded: "Fine fellow. Hard luck. Everybody +awfully sorry here."</p> +<p>These words brought Delafield a sudden look of passionate +gratitude from Julie's dark and sunken eyes. She rested her face +against his sleeve and pressed his hand.</p> +<p>Lady Blanche also wept over the telegram, exclaiming that she +had always believed in Henry Warkworth, and now, perhaps, those +busybodies who at Simla had been pleased to concern themselves with +her affairs and Aileen's would see cause to be ashamed of +themselves.</p> +<p>To Delafield's discomfort, indeed, she poured out upon him a +stream of confidences he would have gladly avoided. He had brought +the telegram to her sitting-room. In the room adjoining it was +Aileen, still, according to her mother's account, very ill, and +almost speechless. Under the shadow of such a tragedy it seemed to +him amazing that a mother could find words in which to tell her +daughter's story to a comparative stranger. Lady Blanche appeared +to him an ill-balanced and foolish woman; a prey, on the one hand, +to various obscure jealousies and antagonisms, and on the other to +a romantic and sentimental temper which, once roused, gloried in +despising "the world," by which she generally meant a very ordinary +degree of prudence.</p> +<p>She was in chronic disagreement, it seemed, with her daughter's +guardians, and had been so from the first moment of her widowhood, +the truth being that she was jealous of their legal powers over +Aileen's fortune and destiny, and determined, notwithstanding, to +have her own way with her own child. The wilfulness and caprice of +the father, which had taken such strange and desperate forms in +Rose Delaney, appeared shorn of all its attraction and romance in +the smaller, more conventional, and meaner egotisms of Lady +Blanche.</p> +<p>And yet, in her own way, she was full of heart. She lost her +head over a love affair. She could deny Aileen nothing. That was +what her casual Indian acquaintances meant by calling her "sweet." +When Warkworth's attentions, pushed with an ardor which would have +driven any prudent mother to an instant departure from India, had +made a timid and charming child of eighteen the talk of Simla, Lady +Blanche, excited and dishevelled--was it her personal untidiness +which accounted for the other epithet of "quaint," which had +floated to the Duchess's ear, and been by her reported to +Julie?--refused to break her daughter's heart. Warkworth, indeed, +had begun long before by flattering the mother's vanity and sense +of possession, and she now threw herself hotly into his cause as +against Aileen's odious trustees.</p> +<p>They, of course, always believed the worst of everybody. As for +her, all she wanted for the child was a good husband. Was it not +better, in a world of fortune-hunters, that Aileen, with her +half-million, should marry early? Of money, she had, one would +think, enough. It was only the greed of certain persons which could +possibly desire more. Birth? The young man was honorably born, +good-looking, well mannered. What did you want more? <i>She</i> +accepted a democratic age; and the obstacles thrown by Aileen's +guardians in the way of an immediate engagement between the young +people appeared to her, so she declared, either vulgar or +ridiculous.</p> +<p>Well, poor lady, she had suffered for her whims. First of all, +her levity had perceived, with surprise and terror, the hold that +passion was taking on the delicate and sensitive nature of Aileen. +This young girl, so innocent and spotless in thought, so virginally +sweet in manner, so guileless in action, developed a power of +loving, an absorption of the whole being in the beloved, such as +our modern world but rarely sees.</p> +<p>She lived, she breathed for Warkworth. Her health, always frail, +suffered from their separation. She became a thin and frail +vision--a "gossamer girl" indeed. The ordinary life of travel and +society lost all hold upon her; she passed through it in a mood of +weariness and distaste that was in itself a danger to vital force. +The mother became desperately alarmed, and made a number of +flurried concessions. Letters, at any rate, should be allowed, in +spite of the guardians, and without their knowledge. Yet each +letter caused emotions which ran like a storm-wind through the +child's fragile being, and seemed to exhaust the young life at its +source. Then came the diphtheria, acting with poisonous effect on a +nervous system already overstrained.</p> +<p>And in the midst of the mother's anxieties there burst upon her +the sudden, incredible tale that Warkworth--to whom she herself was +writing regularly, and to whom Aileen, from her bed, was sending +little pencilled notes, sweetly meant to comfort a sighing +lover--had been entangling himself in London with another, a Miss +Le Breton, positively a nobody, as far as birth and position were +concerned, the paid companion of Lady Henry Delafield, and yet, as +it appeared, a handsome, intriguing, unscrupulous hussy, just the +kind of hawk to snatch a morsel from a dove's mouth--a woman, in +fact, with whom a little bread-and-butter girl like Aileen might +very well have no chance.</p> +<p>Emily Lawrence's letter, in the tone of the candid friend, +written after her evening at Crowborough House, had roused a +mingled anguish and fury in the mother's breast. She lifted her +eyes from it to look at Aileen, propped up in bed, her head thrown +back against the pillow, and her little hands closed happily over +Warkworth's letters; and she went straight from that vision to +write to the traitor.</p> +<p>The traitor defended and excused himself by return of post. He +implored her to pay no attention to the calumnious distortion of a +friendship which had already served Aileen's interests no less than +his own. It was largely to Miss Le Breton's influence that he owed +the appointment which was to advance him so materially in his +career. At the same time he thought it would be wise if Lady +Blanche kept not only the silly gossip that was going about, but +even this true and innocent fact, from Aileen's knowledge. One +never knew how a girl would take such things, and he would rather +explain it himself at his own time.</p> +<p>Lady Blanche had to be content. And meanwhile the glory of the +Mokembe appointment was a strong factor in Aileen's recovery. She +exulted over it by day and night, and she wrote the letters of an +angel.</p> +<p>The mother watched her writing them with mixed feelings. As to +Warkworth's replies, which she was sometimes allowed to see, Lady +Blanche, who had been a susceptible girl, and the heroine of +several "affairs," was secretly and strongly of opinion that men's +love-letters, at any rate, were poor things nowadays, compared with +what they had been.</p> +<p>But Aileen was more than satisfied with them. How busy he must +be, and with such important business! Poor, harassed darling, how +good of him to write her a word--to give her a thought!</p> +<hr style="width: 25%;"> +<p>And now Lady Blanche beheld her child crushed and broken, a +nervous wreck, before her life had truly begun. The agonies which +the mother endured were very real, and should have been touching. +But she was not a touching person. All her personal traits--her +red-rimmed eyes, her straggling hair, the slight, disagreeable +twist in her nose and mouth--combined, with her signal lack of +dignity and reticence, to stir the impatience rather than the +sympathy of the by-stander.</p> +<p>"And mamma was so fond of her," Julie would say to herself +sometimes, in wonder, proudly contrasting the wild grace and +originality of her disgraced mother with the awkward, slipshod ways +of the sister who had remained a great lady.</p> +<p>Meanwhile, Lady Blanche was, indeed, perpetually conscious of +her strange niece, perpetually thinking of the story her brothers +had told her, perpetually trying to recall the sister she had lost +so young, and then turning from all such things to brood angrily +over the Lawrence letter, and the various other rumors which had +reached her of Warkworth's relations to Miss Le Breton.</p> +<p>What was in the woman's mind now? She looked pale and tragic +enough. But what right had she to grieve--or, if she did grieve, to +be pitied?</p> +<p>Jacob Delafield had been fool enough to marry her, and fate +would make her a duchess. So true it is that they who have no +business to flourish do flourish, like green bay-trees.</p> +<p>As to poor Rose--sometimes there would rise on Lady Blanche's +mind the sudden picture of herself and the lost, dark-eyed sister, +scampering on their ponies through the country lanes of their +childhood; of her lessons with Rose, her worship of Rose; and then +of that black curtain of mystery and reprobation which for the +younger child of sixteen had suddenly descended upon Rose and all +that concerned her.</p> +<p>But Rose's daughter! All one could say was that she had turned +out as the child of such proceedings might be expected to turn +out--a minx. The aunt's conviction as to that stood firm. And while +Rose's face and fate had sunk into the shadows of the past, even +for her sister, Aileen was <i>here</i>, struggling for her +delicate, threatened life, her hand always in the hand of this +woman who had tried to steal her lover from her, her soft, hopeless +eyes, so tragically unconscious, bent upon the bold intriguer.</p> +<p>What possessed the child? Warkworth's letters, Julie's +company--those seemed to be all she desired.</p> +<p>And at last, in the June beauty and brilliance, when a +triumphant summer had banished the pitiful spring, when the meadows +were all perfume and color, and the clear mountains, in a clear +sky, upheld the ever-new and never-ending pomp of dawn and noon and +night, the little, wasted creature looked up into Julie's face, +and, without tears, gasped out her story.</p> +<p>"These are his letters. Some day I'll--I'll read you some of +them; and this--is his picture. I know you saw him at Lady Henry's. +He mentioned your name. Will you please tell me everything--all the +times you saw him, and what he talked of? You see I am much +stronger. I can bear it all now."</p> +<hr style="width: 25%;"> +<p>Meanwhile, for Delafield, this fortnight of waiting--waiting for +the African letters, waiting for the revival of life in Aileen--was +a period of extraordinary tension, when all the powers of nerve and +brain seemed to be tested and tried to the utmost. He himself was +absorbed in watching Julie and in dealing with her.</p> +<p>In the first place, as he saw, she could give no free course to +grief. The tragic yearning, the agonized tenderness and pity which +consumed her, must be crushed out of sight as far as possible. They +would have been an offence to Lady Blanche, a bewilderment to +Aileen. And it was on her relation to her new-found cousin that, as +Delafield perceived, her moral life for the moment turned. This +frail girl was on the brink of perishing because death had taken +Warkworth from her. And Julie knew well that Warkworth had neither +loved her nor deserved her--that he had gone to Africa and to death +with another image in his heart.</p> +<p>There was a perpetual and irreparable cruelty in the situation. +And from the remorse of it Julie could not escape. Day by day she +was more profoundly touched by the clinging, tender creature, more +sharply scourged by the knowledge that the affection developing +between them could never be without its barrier and its mystery, +that something must always remain undisclosed, lest Aileen cast her +off in horror.</p> +<p>It was a new moral suffering, in one whose life had been based +hitherto on intellect, or passion. In a sense it held at bay even +her grief for Warkworth, her intolerable compassion for his fate. +In sheer dread lest the girl should find her out and hate her, she +lost insensibly the first poignancy of sorrow.</p> +<p>These secrets of feeling left her constantly pale and silent. +Yet her grace had never been more evident. All the inmates of the +little <i>pension</i>, the landlord's family, the servants, the +visitors, as the days passed, felt the romance and thrill of her +presence. Lady Blanche evoked impatience of ennui. She was +inconsiderate; she was meddlesome; she soon ceased even to be +pathetic. But for Julie every foot ran, every eye smiled.</p> +<p>Then, when the day was over, Delafield's opportunity began. +Julie could not sleep. He gradually established the right to read +with her and talk with her. It was a relation very singular, and +very intimate. She would admit him at his knock, and he would find +her on her sofa, very sad, often in tears, her black hair loose +upon her shoulders. Outwardly there was often much ceremony, even +distance between them; inwardly, each was exploring the other, and +Julie's attitude towards Delafield was becoming more uncertain, +more touched with emotion.</p> +<p>What was, perhaps, most noticeable in it was a new timidity, a +touch of anxious respect towards him. In the old days, what with +her literary cultivation and her social success, she had always +been the flattered and admired one of their little group. Delafield +felt himself clumsy and tongue-tied beside her. It was a +superiority on her part very natural and never ungraceful, and it +was his chief delight to bring it forward, to insist upon it, to +take it for granted.</p> +<p>But the relation between them had silently shifted.</p> +<p>"You <i>judge</i>--you are always judging," she had said once, +impatiently, to Delafield. And now it was round these judgments, +these inward verdicts of his, on life or character, that she was +perpetually hovering. She was infinitely curious about them. She +would wrench them from him, and then would often shiver away from +him in resentment.</p> +<p>He, meanwhile, as he advanced further in the knowledge of her +strange nature, was more and more bewildered by her--her +perversities and caprices, her brilliancies and powers, her utter +lack of any standard or scheme of life. She had been for a long +time, as it seemed to him, the creature of her exquisite social +instincts--then the creature of passion. But what a woman through +it all, and how adorable, with those poetic gestures and looks, +those melancholy, gracious airs that ravished him perpetually! And +now this new attitude, as of a child leaning, wistfully looking in +your face, asking to be led, to be wrestled and reasoned with.</p> +<p>The days, as they passed, produced in him a secret and mounting +intoxication. Then, perhaps for a day or two, there would be a +reaction, both foreseeing that a kind of spiritual tyranny might +arise from their relation, and both recoiling from it....</p> +<p>One night she was very restless and silent. There seemed to be +no means of approach to her true mind. Suddenly he took her +hand--it was some days since they had spoken of Warkworth--and +almost roughly reminded her of her promise to tell him all.</p> +<p>She rebelled. But his look and manner held her, and the inner +misery sought an outlet. Submissively she began to speak, in her +low, murmuring voice; she went back over the past--the winter in +Bruton Street; the first news of the Moffatt engagement; her +efforts for Warkworth's promotion; the history of the evening party +which had led to her banishment; the struggle in her own mind and +Warkworth's; the sudden mad schemes of their last interview; the +rush of the Paris journey.</p> +<p>The mingled exaltation and anguish, the comparative absence of +regret with which she told the story, produced an astonishing +effect on Delafield. And in both minds, as the story proceeded, +there emerged ever more clearly the consciousness of that imperious +act by which he had saved her.</p> +<p>Suddenly she stopped.</p> +<p>"I know you can find no excuse for it all," she said, in +excitement.</p> +<p>"Yes; for all--but for one thing," was his low reply.</p> +<p>She shrank, her eyes on his face.</p> +<p>"That poor child," he said, under his breath.</p> +<p>She looked at him piteously.</p> +<p>"Did you ever realize what you were doing?" he asked her, +raising her hand to his lips.</p> +<p>"No, no! How could I? I thought of some one so different--I had +never seen her--"</p> +<p>She paused, her wide--seeking gaze fixed upon him through tears, +as though she pleaded with him to find +explanations--palliatives.</p> +<p>But he gently shook his head.</p> +<p>Suddenly, shaken with weeping, she bowed her face upon the hands +that held her own. It was like one who relinquishes all pleading, +all defence, and throws herself on the mercy of the judge.</p> +<p>He tenderly asked her pardon if he had wounded her. But he +shrank from offering any caress. The outward signs of life's most +poignant and most beautiful moments are generally very simple and +austere.</p> +<br> +<br> +<hr style="width: 35%;"> +<br> +<br> +<h2><a name="XXIV"></a>XXIV</h2> +<br> +<p>"You have had a disquieting letter?"</p> +<p>The voice was Julie's. Delafield was standing, apparently in +thought, at the farther corner of the little, raised terrace of the +hotel. She approached him with an affectionate anxiety, of which he +was instantly conscious.</p> +<p>"I am afraid I may have to leave you to-night," he said, turning +towards her, and holding out the letter in his hand.</p> +<p>It contained a few agitated lines from the Duke of +Chudleigh.</p> +<p>"They tell me my lad can't get over this. He's made a gallant +fight, but this beats us. A week or two--no more. Ask Mrs. +Delafield to let you come. She will, I know. She wrote to me very +kindly. Mervyn keeps talking of you. You'd come, if you heard him. +It's ghastly--the cruelty of it all. Whether I can live without +him, that's the point."</p> +<p>"You'll go, of course?" said Julie, returning it.</p> +<p>"To-night, if you allow it."</p> +<p>"Of course. You ought."</p> +<p>"I hate leaving you alone, with this trouble on your hands," +said Jacob, in some agitation. "What are your plans?"</p> +<p>"I could follow you next week. Aileen comes down to-day. And I +should like to wait here for the mail."</p> +<p>"In five days, about, it should be here," said Delafield.</p> +<p>There was a silence. She dropped into a chair beside the +balustrade of the terrace, which was wreathed in wistaria, and +looked out upon the vast landscape of the lake. His thought was, +"How can the mail matter to her? She cannot suppose that he had +written--"</p> +<p>Aloud he said, in some embarrassment, "You expect letters +yourself?"</p> +<p>"I expect nothing," she said, after a pause. "But Aileen is +living on the chance of letters."</p> +<p>"There may be nothing for her--except, indeed, her letters to +him--poor child!"</p> +<p>"She knows that. But the hope keeps her alive."</p> +<p>"And you?" thought Delafield, with an inward groan, as he looked +down upon her pale profile. He had a moment's hateful vision of +himself as the elder brother in the parable. Was Julie's mind to be +the home of an eternal antithesis between the living husband and +the dead lover--in which the latter had forever the <i>beau +rôle</i>?</p> +<p>Then, impatiently, Jacob wrenched himself from mean thoughts. It +was as though he bared his head remorse-fully before the dead +man.</p> +<p>"I will go to the Foreign Office," he said, in her ear, "as I +pass through town. They will have letters. All the information I +can get you shall have at once."</p> +<p>"Thank you, <i>mon ami</i>", she said, almost inaudibly.</p> +<p>Then she looked up, and he was startled by her eyes. Where he +had expected grief, he saw a shrinking animation.</p> +<p>"Write to me often," she said, imperiously.</p> +<p>"Of course. But don't trouble to answer much. Your hands are so +full here."</p> +<p>She frowned.</p> +<p>"Trouble! Why do you spoil me so? Demand--insist--that I should +write!"</p> +<p>"Very well," he said, smiling, "I demand--I insist!"</p> +<p>She drew a long breath, and went slowly away from him into the +house. Certainly the antagonism of her secret thoughts, though it +persisted, was no longer merely cold or critical. For it concerned +one who was not only the master of his own life, but threatened +unexpectedly to become the master of hers.</p> +<p>She had begun, indeed, to please her imagination with the idea +of a relation between them, which, while it ignored the ordinary +relations of marriage, should yet include many of the intimacies +and refinements of love. More and more did the surprises of his +character arrest and occupy her mind. She found, indeed, no +"plaster saint." Her cool intelligence soon detected the traces of +a peevish or stubborn temper, and of a natural inertia, perpetually +combated, however, by the spiritual energy of a new and other self +exfoliating from the old; a self whose acts and ways she watched, +sometimes with the held breath of fascination, sometimes with a +return of shrinking or fear. That a man should not only appear but +be so good was still in her eyes a little absurd. Perhaps her +feeling was at bottom the common feeling of the sceptical nature. +"We should listen to the higher voices; but in such a way that if +another hypothesis were true, we should not have been too +completely duped."</p> +<p>She was ready, also, to convict him of certain prejudices and +superstitions which roused in her an intellectual impatience. But +when all was said, Delafield, unconsciously, was drawing her +towards him, as the fowler draws a fluttering bird. It was the +exquisite refinement of those spiritual insights and powers he +possessed which constantly appealed, not only to her heart, but--a +very important matter in Julie's case--to her taste, to her own +carefully tempered instinct for the rare and beautiful.</p> +<p>He was the master, then, she admitted, of a certain vein of +spiritual genius. Well, here should he lead--and even, if he +pleased, command her. She would sit at his feet, and he should open +to her ranges of feeling, delights, and subtleties of moral +sensation hitherto unknown to her.</p> +<p>Thus the feeling of ennui and reaction which had marked the +first weeks of her married life had now wholly disappeared. +Delafield was no longer dull or pedantic in her eyes. She passed +alternately from moments of intolerable smart and pity for the dead +to moments of agitation and expectancy connected with her husband. +She thought over their meeting of the night before; she looked +forward to similar hours to come.</p> +<p>Meanwhile his relation towards her in many matters was still +naïvely ignorant and humble--determined by the simplicity of a +man of some real greatness, who never dreamed of claiming tastes or +knowledge he did not possess, whether in small things or large. +This phase, however, only gave the more value to one which +frequently succeeded it. For suddenly the conversation would enter +regions where he felt himself peculiarly at home, and, with the +same unconsciousness on his part, she would be made to feel the +dignity and authority which surrounded his ethical and spiritual +life. And these contrasts--this weakness and this +strength--combined with the man-and-woman element which is always +present in any situation of the kind, gave rise to a very varied +and gradually intensifying play of feeling between them. Feeling +only possible, no doubt, for the <i>raffinés</i> of this +world; but for them full of strange charm, and even of +excitement.</p> +<hr style="width: 25%;"> +<p>Delafield left the little inn for Montreux, Lausanne, and London +that afternoon. He bent to kiss his wife at the moment of his +departure, in the bare sitting-room that had been improvised for +them on the ground floor of the hotel, and as she let her face +linger ever so little against his she felt strong arms flung round +her, and was crushed against his breast in a hungry embrace. When +he released her with a flush and a murmured word of apology she +shook her head, smiling sadly but saying nothing. The door closed +on him, and at the sound she made a hasty step forward.</p> +<p>"Jacob! Take me with you!"</p> +<p>But her voice died in the rattle and bustle of the diligence +outside, and she was left trembling from head to foot, under a +conflict of emotions that seemed now to exalt, now to degrade +her.</p> +<p>Half an hour after Delafield's departure there appeared on the +terrace of the hotel a tottering, emaciated form--Aileen Moffatt, +in a black dress and hat, clinging to her mother's arm. But she +refused the deck--chair, which they had spread with cushions and +shawls.</p> +<p>"No; let me sit up." And she took an ordinary chair, looking +round upon the lake and the little flowery terrace with a slow, +absorbed look, like one trying to remember. Suddenly she bowed her +head on her hands.</p> +<p>"Aileen!" cried Lady Blanche, in an agony.</p> +<p>But the girl motioned her away. "Don't, mummy. I'm all +right."</p> +<p>And restraining any further emotion, she laid her arms on the +balustrade and gazed long and calmly into the purple depths and +gleaming snows of the Rhône valley. Her hat oppressed her and +she took it off, revealing the abundance of her delicately golden +hair, which, in its lack of lustre and spring, seemed to share in +the physical distress and loss of the whole personality.</p> +<p>The face was that of a doomed creature, incapable now of making +any successful struggle for the right to live. What had been +sensibility had become melancholy; the slight, chronic frown was +deeper, the pale lips more pinched. Yet intermittently there was +still great sweetness, the last effort of a "beautiful soul" meant +for happiness, and withered before its time.</p> +<p>As Julie stood beside her, while Lady Blanche had gone to fetch +a book from the salon, the poor child put out her hand and grasped +that of Julie.</p> +<p>"It is quite possible I may get the letter to-night," she said, +in a hurried whisper. "My maid went down to Montreux--there is a +clever man at the post-office who tried to make it out for us. He +thinks it'll be to-night."</p> +<p>"Don't be too disappointed if nothing comes," said Julie, +caressing the hand. Its thinness, its icy and lifeless touch, +dismayed her. Ah, how easily might this physical wreck have been +her doing!</p> +<hr style="width: 25%;"> +<p>The bells of Montreux struck half-past six. A restless and +agonized expectation began to show itself in all the movements of +the invalid. She left her chair and began to pace the little +terrace on Julie's arm. Her dragging step, the mournful black of +her dress, the struggle between youth and death in her sharpened +face, made her a tragic presence. Julie could hardly bear it, while +all the time she, too, was secretly and breathlessly waiting for +Warkworth's last words.</p> +<p>Lady Blanche returned, and Julie hurried away.</p> +<p>She passed through the hotel and walked down the Montreux road. +The post had already reached the first houses of the village, and +the postman, who knew her, willingly gave her the letters.</p> +<p>Yes, a packet for Aileen, addressed in an unknown hand to a +London address, and forwarded thence. It bore the Denga +postmark.</p> +<p>And another for herself, readdressed from London by Madame +Bornier. She tore off the outer envelope; beneath was a letter of +which the address was feebly written in Warkworth's hand: +"Mademoiselle Le Breton, 3 Heribert Street, London."</p> +<p>She had the strength to carry her own letter to her room, to +call Aileen's maid and send her with the other packet to Lady +Blanche. Then she locked herself in....</p> +<p>Oh, the poor, crumpled page, and the labored hand-writing!</p> +<p>"Julie, I am dying. They are such good fellows, but they can't +save me. It's horrible.</p> +<p>"I saw the news of your engagement in a paper the day before I +left Denga. You're right. He'll make you happy. Tell him I said so. +Oh, my God, I shall never trouble you again! I bless you for the +letter you wrote me. Here it is.... No, I can't--can't read it. +Drowsy. No pain--"</p> +<p>And here the pen had dropped from his hand. Searching for +something more, she drew from the envelope the wild and passionate +letter she had written him at Heribert Street, in the early morning +after her return from Paris, while she was waiting for Delafield to +bring her the news of Lord Lackington's state.</p> +<hr style="width: 25%;"> +<p>The small <i>table d'hôte</i> of the Hotel Michel was +still further diminished that night. Lady Blanche was with her +daughter, and Mrs. Delafield did not appear.</p> +<p>But the moon was hanging in glory over the lake when Julie, +unable to bear her room and her thoughts any longer, threw a lace +scarf about her head and neck, and went blindly climbing through +the upward paths leading to Les Avants. The roads were silver in +the moonlight; so was the lake, save where the great mountain +shadows lay across the eastern end. And suddenly, white, through +pine-trees, "Jaman, delicately tall!"</p> +<p>The air cooled her brow, and from the deep, enveloping night her +torn heart drew balm, and a first soothing of the pulse of pain. +Every now and then, as she sat down to rest, a waking dream +overshadowed her. She seemed to be supporting Warkworth in her +arms; his dying head lay upon her breast, and she murmured courage +and love into his ear. But not as Julie Le Breton. Through all the +anguish of what was almost an illusion of the senses, she still +felt herself Delafield's wife. And in that flood of silent speech +she poured out on Warkworth, it was as though she offered him also +Jacob's compassion, Jacob's homage, mingled with her own.</p> +<p>Once she found herself sitting at the edge of a meadow, +environed by the heavy scents of flowers. Some apple-trees with +whitened trunks rose between her and the lake a thousand feet +below. The walls of Chillon, the houses of Montreux, caught the +light; opposite, the deep forests of Bouveret and St. Gingolphe lay +black upon the lake; above them rode the moon. And to the east the +high Alps, their pure lines a little effaced and withdrawn, as when +a light veil hangs over a sanctuary.</p> +<p>Julie looked out upon a vast freedom of space, and by a natural +connection she seemed to be also surveying her own world of life +and feeling, her past and her future. She thought of her childhood +and her parents, of her harsh, combative youth, of the years with +Lady Henry, of Warkworth, of her husband, and the life into which +his strong hand had so suddenly and rashly drawn her. Her thoughts +took none of the religious paths so familiar to his. And yet her +reverie was so far religious that her mind seemed to herself to be +quivering under the onset of affections, emotions, awes, till now +unknown, and that, looking back, she was conscious of a groping +sense of significance, of purpose, in all that had befallen her. +Yet to this sense she could put no words. Only, in the end, through +the constant action of her visualizing imagination, it connected +itself with Delafield's face, and with the memory of many of his +recent acts and sayings.</p> +<p>It was one of those hours which determine the history of a man +or woman. And the august Alpine beauty entered in, so that Julie, +in this sad and thrilling act of self-probing, felt herself in the +presence of powers and dominations divine.</p> +<p>Her face, stained with tears, took gradually some of the calm, +the loftiness of the night. Yet the close-shut, brooding mouth +would slip sometimes into a smile exquisitely soft and gentle, as +though the heart remembered something which seemed to the +intelligence at once folly and sweetness.</p> +<p>What was going on within her was, to her own consciousness, a +strange thing. It appeared to her as a kind of simplification, a +return to childhood; or, rather, was it the emergence in the grown +mind, tired with the clamor of its own egotistical or passionate +life, of some instincts, natural to the child, which she, +nevertheless, as a child had never known; instincts of trust, of +self-abandonment, steeped, perhaps, in those tears which are +themselves only another happiness?...</p> +<p>But hush! What are our poor words in the presence of these +nobler secrets of the wrestling and mounting spirit!</p> +<hr style="width: 25%;"> +<p>On the way down she saw another figure emerge from the dark.</p> +<p>"Lady Blanche!"</p> +<p>Lady Blanche stood still.</p> +<p>"The hotel was stifling," she said, in a voice that vainly tried +for steadiness.</p> +<p>Julie perceived that she had been weeping.</p> +<p>"Aileen is asleep?"</p> +<p>"Perhaps. They have given her something to make her sleep."</p> +<p>They walked on towards the hotel.</p> +<p>Julie hesitated.</p> +<p>"She was not disappointed?" she said, at last, in a low +voice.</p> +<p>"No!" said the mother, sharply. "But one knew, of course, there +must be letters for her. Thank God, she can feel that his very last +thought was for her! The letters which have reached her are dated +the day before the fatal attack began--giving a complete account of +his march--most interesting--showing how he trusted her +already--though she is such a child. It will tranquillize her to +feel how completely she possessed his heart--poor fellow!"</p> +<p>Julie said nothing, and Lady Blanche, with bitter satisfaction, +felt rather than saw what seemed to her the just humiliation +expressed in the drooping and black-veiled figure beside her.</p> +<p>Next day there was once more a tinge of color on Aileen's +cheeks. Her beautiful hair fell round her once more in a soft life +and confusion, and the roses which her mother had placed beside her +on the bed were not in too pitiful contrast with her frail +loveliness.</p> +<p>"Read it, please," she said, as soon as she found herself alone +with Julie, pushing her letter tenderly towards her. "He tells me +everything--everything! All he was doing and hoping--consults me in +everything. Isn't it an honor--when I'm so ignorant and childish? +I'll try to be brave--try to be worthy--"</p> +<p>And while her whole frame was shaken with deep, silent sobs, she +greedily watched Julie read the letter.</p> +<p>"Oughtn't I to try and live," she said, dashing away her tears, +as Julie returned it, "when he loved me so?"</p> +<p>Julie kissed her with a passionate and guilty pity. The letter +might have been written to any friend, to any charming child for +whom a much older man had a kindness. It gave a business-like +account of their march, dilated on one or two points of policy, +drew some humorous sketches of his companions, and concluded with a +few affectionate and playful sentences.</p> +<p>But when the wrestle with death began, Warkworth wrote but one +last letter, uttered but one cry of the heart, and it lay now in +Julie's bosom.</p> +<hr style="width: 25%;"> +<p>A few days passed. Delafield's letters were short and full of +sadness. Elmira still lived; but any day or hour might see the end. +As for the father--But the subject was too tragic to be written of, +even to her. Not to feel, not to realize; there lay the only chance +of keeping one's own courage, and so of being any help whatever to +two of the most miserable of human beings.</p> +<p>At last, rather more than a week after Delafield's departure, +came two telegrams. One was from Delafield--"Mervyn died this +morning. Duke's condition causes great anxiety." The other from +Evelyn Crowborough--"Elmira died this morning. Going down to +Shropshire to help Jacob."</p> +<p>Julie threw down the telegrams. A rush of proud tears came to +her eyes. She swept to the door of her room, opened it, and called +her maid.</p> +<p>The maid came, and when she saw the sparkling looks and strained +bearing of her mistress, wondered what crime she was to be rebuked +for. Julie merely bade her pack at once, as it was her intention to +catch the eight o'clock through train at Lausanne that night for +England.</p> +<hr style="width: 25%;"> +<p>Twenty hours later the train carrying Julie to London entered +Victoria Station. On the platform stood the little Duchess, +impatiently expectant. Julie was clasped in her arms, and had no +time to wonder at the pallor and distraction of her friend before +she was hurried into the brougham waiting beyond the train.</p> +<p>"Oh, Julie!" cried the Duchess, catching the traveller's hands, +as they drove away. "Julie, darling!"</p> +<p>Julie turned to her in amazement. The blue eyes fixed upon her +had no tears, but in them, and in the Duchess's whole aspect, was +expressed a vivid horror and agitation which struck at Julie's +heart.</p> +<p>"What is it?" she said, catching her breath. "What is it?"</p> +<p>"Julie, I was going to Faircourt this morning. First your +telegram stopped me. I thought I'd wait and go with you. Then came +another, from Delafield. The Duke! The poor Duke!"</p> +<p>Julie's attitude changed unconsciously--instantly.</p> +<p>"Yes; tell me!"</p> +<p>"It's in all the papers to-night--on the placards--don't look +out!" And the Duchess lifted her hand and drew down the blinds of +the brougham. "He was in a most anxious state yesterday, but they +thought him calmer at night, and he insisted on being left alone. +The doctors still kept a watch, but he managed in some mysterious +way to evade them all, and this morning he was missed. After two +hours they found him--in the river that runs below the house!"</p> +<p>There was a silence.</p> +<p>"And Jacob?" said Julie, hoarsely.</p> +<p>"That's what I'm so anxious about," exclaimed the Duchess. "Oh, +I am thankful you've come! You know how Jacob's always felt about +the Duke and Mervyn--how he's hated the notion of succeeding. And +Susan, who went down yesterday, telegraphed to me last +night--before this horror--that he was 'terribly strained and +overwrought.'"</p> +<p>"Succeeding?" said Julie, vaguely. Mechanically she had drawn up +the blind again, and her eyes followed the dingy lines of the +Vauxhall Bridge Road, till suddenly they turned away from the +placards outside a small stationer's shop which announced: "Tragic +death of the Duke of Chudleigh and his son."</p> +<p>The Duchess looked at her curiously without replying. Julie +seemed to be grappling with some idea which escaped her, or, +rather, was presently expelled by one more urgent.</p> +<p>"Is Jacob ill?" she said, abruptly, looking her companion full +in the face.</p> +<p>"I only know what I've told you. Susan says 'strained and +overwrought.' Oh, it'll be all right when he gets you!"</p> +<p>Julie made no reply. She sat motionless, and the Duchess, +stealing another glance at her, must needs, even in this tragic +turmoil, allow herself the reflection that she was a more delicate +study in black-and-white, a more refined and accented personality +than ever.</p> +<p>"You won't mind," said Evelyn, timidly, after a pause; "but Lady +Henry is staying with me, and also Sir Wilfrid Bury, who had such a +bad cold in his lodgings that I went down there a week ago, got the +doctor's leave, and carried him off there and then. And Mr. +Montresor's coming in. He particularly wanted, he said, just to +press your hand. But they sha'n't bother you if you're tired. Our +train goes at 10.10, and Freddie has got the express stopped for us +at Westonport--about three in the morning."</p> +<p>The carriage rolled into Grosvenor Square, and presently stopped +before Crowborough House. Julie alighted, looked round her at the +July green of the square, at the brightness of the window-boxes, +and then at the groom of the chambers who was taking her wraps from +her--the same man who, in the old days, used to feed Lady Henry's +dogs with sweet biscuit. It struck her that he was showing her a +very particular and eager attention.</p> +<hr style="width: 25%;"> +<p>Meanwhile in the Duchess's drawing--room a little knot of people +was gathered--Lady Henry, Sir Wilfrid Bury, and Dr. Meredith. Their +demeanor illustrated both the subduing and the exciting influence +of great events. Lady Henry was more talkative than usual. Sir +Wilfrid more silent.</p> +<p>Lady Henry seemed to have profited by her stay at Torquay. As +she sat upright in a stiff chair, her hands resting on her stick, +she presented her characteristic aspect of English solidity, +crossed by a certain free and foreign animation. She had been +already wrangling with Sir Wilfrid, and giving her opinion freely +on the "socialistic" views on rank and property attributed to Jacob +Delafield. "If <i>he</i> can't digest the cake, that doesn't mean +it isn't good," had been her last impatient remark, when Sir +Wilfrid interrupted her.</p> +<p>"Only a few minutes more," he said, looking at his watch. "Now, +then, what line do we take? How much is our friend likely to +know?"</p> +<p>"Unless she has lost her eyesight--which Evelyn has not +reported--she will know most of what matters before she has gone a +hundred yards from the station," said Lady Henry, dryly.</p> +<p>"Oh, the streets! Yes; but persons are often curiously dazed by +such a gallop of events."</p> +<p>"Not Julie Le Breton!"</p> +<p>"I should like to be informed as to the part you are about to +play," said Sir Wilfrid, in a lower voice, "that I may play up to +it. Where are you?"</p> +<p>Both looked at Meredith, who had walked to a distant window and +was standing there looking out upon the square. Lady Henry was well +aware that <i>he</i> had not forgiven her, and, to tell the truth, +was rather anxious that he should. So she, too, dropped her +voice.</p> +<p>"I bow to the institutions of my country," she said, a little +sparkle in the strong, gray eye.</p> +<p>"In other words, you forgive a duchess?"</p> +<p>"I acknowledge the head of the family, and the greater carries +the less."</p> +<p>"Suppose Jacob should be unforgiving?"</p> +<p>"He hasn't the spirit."</p> +<p>"And she?"</p> +<p>"Her conscience will be on my side."</p> +<p>"I thought it was your theory that she had none?"</p> +<p>"Jacob, let us hope, will have developed some. He has a good +deal to spare."</p> +<p>Sir Wilfrid laughed. "So it is you who will do the +pardoning?"</p> +<p>"I shall offer an armed and honorable peace. The Duchess of +Chudleigh may intrigue and tell lies, if she pleases. I am not +giving her a hundred a year."</p> +<p>There was a pause.</p> +<p>"Why, if I may ask," said Sir Wilfrid, at the end of it, "did +you quarrel with Jacob? I understand there was a separate +cause:"</p> +<p>Lady Henry hesitated.</p> +<p>"He paid me a debt," she said, at last, and a sudden flush rose +in her old, blanched cheek.</p> +<p>"And that annoyed you? You have the oddest code!"</p> +<p>Lady Henry bit her lip.</p> +<p>"One does not like one's money thrown in one's face."</p> +<p>"Most unreasonable of women!"</p> +<p>"Never mind, Wilfrid. We all have our feelings."</p> +<p>"Precisely. Well, no doubt Jacob will make peace. As for--Ah, +here comes Montresor!"</p> +<p>A visible tremor passed through Lady Henry. The door was thrown +open, and the footman announced the Minister for War.</p> +<p>"Her grace, sir, is not yet returned."</p> +<p>Montresor stumbled into the room, and even with his eye-glasses +carefully adjusted, did not at once perceive who was in it.</p> +<p>Sir Wilfrid went towards him.</p> +<p>"Ah, Bury! Convalescent, I hope?"</p> +<p>"Quite. The Duchess has gone to meet Mrs. Delafield."</p> +<p>"Mrs.--?" Montresor's mouth opened. "But, of course, you +know?"</p> +<p>"Oh yes, I know. But one's tongue has to get oiled. You see Lady +Henry?"</p> +<p>Montresor started.</p> +<p>"I am glad to see Lady Henry," he replied, stiffly.</p> +<p>Lady Henry slowly rose and advanced two steps. She quietly held +out her hand to him, and, smiling, looked him in the face.</p> +<p>"Take it. There is no longer any cause of quarrel between us. I +raise the embargo."</p> +<p>The Minister took the hand, and shook his head.</p> +<p>"Ah, but you had no right to impose it," he said, with +energy.</p> +<p>"Oh, for goodness sake, meet me half-way," cried Lady Henry, "or +I shall never hold out!"</p> +<p>Sir Wilfrid, whose half-embarrassed gaze was bent on the ground, +looked up and was certain that he saw a gleam of moisture in those +wrinkled eyes.</p> +<p>"Why have you held out so long? What does it matter to me +whether Miss Julie be a duchess or no? That doesn't make up to me +for all the months you've shut your door on me. And I was always +given to understand, by-the-way, that it wouldn't matter to +you."</p> +<p>"I've had three months at Torquay," said Lady Henry, raising her +shoulders.</p> +<p>"I hope it was dull to distraction."</p> +<p>"It was. And my doctor tells me the more I fret the more gout I +may expect."</p> +<p>"So all this is not generosity, but health?"</p> +<p>"Kiss my hand, sir, and have done with it! You are all avenged. +At Torquay I had four companions in seven weeks."</p> +<p>"More power to them!" said Montresor. "Meredith, come here. +Shall we accept the pleas?"</p> +<p>Meredith came slowly from the window, his hands behind his +back.</p> +<p>"Lady Henry commands and we obey," he said, slowly. "But to-day +begins a new world--founded in ruin, like the rest of them."</p> +<p>He raised his fine eyes, in which there was no laughter, rather +a dreamy intensity. Lady Henry shrank.</p> +<p>"If you're thinking of Chudleigh," she said, uncertainly, "be +glad for him. It was release. As for Henry Warkworth--"</p> +<p>"Ah, poor fellow!" said Montresor, perfunctorily. "Poor +fellow!"</p> +<p>He had dropped Lady Henry's hand, but he now recaptured it, +enclosing the thin, jewelled fingers in his own.</p> +<p>"Well, well, then it's peace, with all my heart." He stooped and +lightly kissed the fingers. "And now, when do you expect our +friend?"</p> +<p>"At any moment," said Lady Henry.</p> +<p>She seated herself, and Montresor beside her.</p> +<p>"I am told," said Montresor, "that this horror will not only +affect Delafield personally, but that he will regard the dukedom as +a calamity."</p> +<p>"Hm!--and you believe it?" said Lady Henry.</p> +<p>"I try to," was the Minister's laughing reply. "Ah, surely, here +they are!"</p> +<p>Meredith turned from the window, to which he had gone back.</p> +<p>"The carriage has just arrived," he announced, and he stood +fidgeting, standing first on one foot, then on the other, and +running his hand through his mane of gray hair. His large features +were pale, and any close observer would have detected the quiver of +emotion.</p> +<p>A sound of voices from the anteroom, the Duchess's light tones +floating to the top. At the same time a door on the other side of +the drawing-room opened and the Duke of Crowborough appeared.</p> +<p>"I think I hear my wife," he said, as he greeted Montresor and +hurriedly crossed the room.</p> +<p>There was a rustle of quick steps, and the little Duchess +entered.</p> +<p>"Freddie, here is Julie!"</p> +<p>Behind appeared a tall figure in black. Everybody in the room +advanced, including Lady Henry, who, however, after a few steps +stood still behind the others, leaning on her stick.</p> +<p>Julie looked round the little circle, then at the Duke of +Crowborough, who had gravely given her his hand. The suppressed +excitement already in the room clearly communicated itself to her. +She did not lose her self-command for an instant, but her face +pleaded.</p> +<p>"Is it really true? Perhaps there is some mistake?"</p> +<p>"I fear there can be none," said the Duke, sadly. "Poor +Chudleigh had been long dead when they found him."</p> +<p>"Freddie," said the Duchess, interrupting, "I have told Greswell +we shall want the carriage at half-past nine for Euston. Will that +do?"</p> +<p>"Perfectly."</p> +<p>Greswell, the handsome groom of the chambers, approached +Julie.</p> +<p>"Your grace's maid wishes to know whether it is your grace's +wish that she should go round to Heribert Street before taking the +luggage to Euston?"</p> +<p>Julie looked at the man, bewildered. Then a stormy color rushed +into her cheeks.</p> +<p>"Does he mean my maid?" she said to the Duke, piteously.</p> +<p>"Certainly. Will you give your orders?"</p> +<p>She gave them, and then, turning again to the Duke, she covered +her eyes with her hands a moment.</p> +<p>"What does it all mean?" she said, faltering. "It seems as +though we were all mad."</p> +<p>"You understand, of course, that Jacob succeeds?" said the Duke, +not without coldness; and he stood still an instant, gazing at this +woman, who must now, he supposed, feel herself at the very summit +of her ambitions.</p> +<p>Julie drew a long breath. Then she perceived Lady Henry. +Instantly, impetuously, she crossed the room. But as she reached +that composed and formidable figure, the old timidity, the old +fear, seized her. She paused abruptly, but she held out her +hand.</p> +<p>Lady Henry took it. The two women stood regarding each other, +while the other persons in the room instinctively turned away from +their meeting. Lady Henry's first look was one of curiosity. Then, +before the indefinable, ennobling change in Julie's face, now full +of the pale agitation of memory, the eyes of the older woman +wavered and dropped. But she soon recovered herself.</p> +<p>"We meet again under very strange circumstances," she said, +quietly; "though I have long foreseen them. As for our former +experience, we were in a false relation, and it made fools of us +both. You and Jacob are now the heads of the family. And if you +like to make friends with me on this new footing, I am ready. As to +my behavior, I think it was natural; but if it rankles in your +mind, I apologize."</p> +<p>The personal pride of the owner, curbed in its turn by the pride +of tradition and family, spoke strangely from these words. Julie +stood trembling, her chest heaving.</p> +<p>"I, too, regret--and apologize," she said, in a low voice.</p> +<p>"Then we begin again. But now you must let Evelyn take you to +rest for an hour or two. I am sorry you have this hurried journey +to-night."</p> +<p>Julie pressed her hands to her breast with one of those dramatic +movements that were natural to her.</p> +<p>"Oh, I must see Jacob!" she said, under her breath--"I must see +Jacob!"</p> +<p>And she turned away, looking vaguely round her. Meredith +approached.</p> +<p>"Comfort yourself," he said, very gently, pressing her hand in +both of his. "It has been a great shock, but when you get there +he'll be all right."</p> +<p>"Jacob?"</p> +<p>Her expression, the piteous note in her voice, awoke in him an +answering sense of pain. He wondered how it might be between the +husband and wife. Yet it was borne in upon him, as upon Lady Henry, +that her marriage, however interpreted, had brought with it +profound and intimate transformation. A different woman stood +before him. And when, after a few more words, the Duchess swept +down upon them, insisting that Julie must rest awhile, Meredith +stood looking after the retreating figures, filled with the old, +bitter sense of human separateness, and the fragmentariness of all +human affections. Then he made his farewells to the Duke and Lady +Henry, and slipped away. He had turned a page in the book of life; +and as he walked through Grosvenor Square he applied his mind +resolutely to one of the political "causes" with which, as a +powerful and fighting journalist, he was at that moment +occupied.</p> +<p>Lady Henry, too, watched Julie's exit from the room.</p> +<p>"So now she supposes herself in love with Jacob?" she thought, +with amusement, as she resumed her seat.</p> +<p>"What if Delafield refuses to be made a duke?" said Sir Wilfrid, +in her ear.</p> +<p>"It would be a situation new to the Constitution," said Lady +Henry, composedly. "I advise you, however, to wait till it +occurs."</p> +<hr style="width: 25%;"> +<p>The northern express rushed onward through the night. Rugby, +Stafford, Crewe had been left behind. The Yorkshire valleys and +moors began to show themselves in pale ridges and folds under the +moon. Julie, wakeful in her corner opposite the little, sleeping +Duchess, was conscious of an interminable rush of images through a +brain that longed for a few unconscious and forgetful moments. She +thought of the deferential station-master at Euston; of the fuss +attending their arrival on the platform; of the arrangements made +for stopping the express at the Yorkshire Station, where they were +to alight.</p> +<p>Faircourt? Was it the great Early-Georgian house of which she +had heard Jacob speak--the vast pile, half barrack, half palace, in +which, according to him, no human being could be either happy or at +home?</p> +<p>And this was now his--and hers? Again the whirl of thoughts +swept and danced round her.</p> +<p>A wild, hill country. In the valleys, the blackness of thick +trees, the gleam of rivers, the huge, lifeless factories; and +beyond, the high, silver edges, the sharp shadows of the moors.... +The train slackened, and the little Duchess woke at once.</p> +<p>"Ten minutes to three. Oh, Julie, here we are!"</p> +<p>The dawn was just coldly showing as they alighted. Carriages and +servants were waiting, and various persons whose identity and +function it was not easy to grasp. One of them, however, at once +approached Julie with a privileged air, and she perceived that he +was a doctor.</p> +<p>"I am very glad that your grace has come," he said, as he raised +his hat. "The trouble with the Duke is shock, and want of +sleep."</p> +<p>Julie looked at him, still bewildered.</p> +<p>"How long has my husband been ill?"</p> +<p>He walked on beside her, describing in as few words as possible +the harrowing days preceding the death of the boy, Delafield's +attempts to soothe and control the father, the stratagem by which +the poor Duke had outwitted them all, and the weary hours of search +through the night, under a drizzling rain, which had resulted, +about dawn, in the discovery of the Duke's body in one of the +deeper holes of the river.</p> +<p>"When the procession returned to the house, your husband"--the +speaker framed the words uncertainly--"had a long fainting-fit. It +was probably caused by the exhaustion of the search--many hours +without food--and many sleepless nights. We kept him in his room +all day. But towards evening he insisted on getting up. The +restlessness he shows is itself a sign of shock. I trust, now you +are here, you may be able to persuade him to spare himself. +Otherwise the consequences might be grave."</p> +<p>The drive to the house lay mainly through a vast park, dotted +with stiff and melancholy woods. The morning was cloudy; even the +wild roses in the hedges and the daisies in the grass had neither +gayety nor color. Soon the house appeared--an immense pile of +stone, with a pillared centre, and wings to east and west, built in +a hollow, gray and sunless. The mournful blinds drawn closely down +made of it rather a mausoleum for the dead than a home for the +living.</p> +<p>At the approach of the carriage, however, doors were thrown +open, servants appeared, and on the steps, trembling and +heavy-eyed, stood Susan Delafield.</p> +<p>She looked timidly at Julie, and then, as they passed into the +great central hall, the two kissed each other with tears.</p> +<p>"He is in his room, waiting for you. The doctors persuaded him +not to come down. But he is dressed, and reading and writing. We +don't believe he has slept at all for a week."</p> +<hr style="width: 25%;"> +<p>"Through there," said Susan Delafield, stepping back. "That is +the door."</p> +<br> +<a name="illus-480.jpg"></a> +<p class="ctr"><a href="images/illus-480.jpg"><img src= +"images/illus-480.jpg" width="60%" alt=""></a><br> +<b>"SHE FOUND HERSELF KNEELING BESIDE HIM"</b></p> +<br> +<p>Julie softly opened it, and closed it behind her. Delafield had +heard her approach, and was standing by the table, supporting +himself upon it. His aspect filled Julie with horror. She ran to +him and threw her arms round him. He sank back into his chair, and +she found herself kneeling beside him, murmuring to him, while his +head rested upon her shoulder.</p> +<p>"Jacob, I am here! Oh, I ought to have been here all through! +It's terrible--terrible! But, Jacob, you won't suffer so--now I'm +here--now we're together--now I love you, Jacob?"</p> +<p>Her voice broke in tears. She put back the hair from his brow, +kissing him with a tenderness in which there was a yearning and +lovely humility. Then she drew a little away, waiting for him to +speak, in an agony.</p> +<p>But for a time he seemed unable to speak. He feebly released +himself, as though he could not bear the emotion she offered him, +and his eyes closed.</p> +<p>"Jacob, come and lie down!" she said, in terror. "Let me call +the doctors."</p> +<p>He shook his head, and a faint pressure from his hand bade her +sit beside him.</p> +<p>"I shall be better soon. Give me time. I'll tell you--"</p> +<p>Then silence again. She sat holding his hand, her eyes fixed +upon him. Time passed, she knew not how. Susan came into the +room--a small sitting-room in the east wing--to tell her that the +neighboring bedroom had been prepared for herself. Julie only +looked up for an instant with a dumb sign of refusal. A doctor came +in, and Delafield made a painful effort to take the few spoonfuls +of food and stimulant pressed upon him. Then he buried his face in +the side of the arm-chair.</p> +<p>"Please let us be alone," he said, with a touch of his old +peremptoriness, and both Susan and the doctor obeyed.</p> +<p>But it was long before he could collect energy enough to talk. +When he did, he made an effort to tell her the story of the boy's +death, and the father's self-destruction. He told it leaning +forward in his chair, his eyes on the ground, his hands loosely +joined, his voice broken and labored. Julie listened, gathering +from his report an impression of horror, tragic and irremediable, +similar to that which had shaken the balance of his own mind. And +when he suddenly looked up with the words, "And now <i>I</i> am +expected to take their place--to profit by their deaths! What +rightful law of God or man binds me to accept a life and a +responsibility that I loathe?" Julie drew back as though he had +struck her. His face, his tone were not his own--there was a +violence, a threat in them, addressed, as it were, specially to +<i>her</i>. "If it were not for you," his eyes seemed to say, "I +could refuse this thing, which will destroy me, soul and body."</p> +<p>She was silent, her pulses fluttering, and he resumed, speaking +like one groping his way:</p> +<p>"I could have done the work, of course--I have done it for five +years. I could have looked after the estate and the people. But the +money, the paraphernalia, the hordes of servants, the mummery of +the life! Why, Julie, should we be forced into it? What +happiness--I ask you--what happiness can it bring to either of +us?"</p> +<p>And again he looked up, and again it seemed to Julie that his +expression was one of animated hostility and antagonism--antagonism +to her, as embodying for the moment all the arguments--of +advantage, custom, law--he was, in his own mind, fighting and +denying. With a failing heart she felt herself very far from him. +Was there not also something in his attitude, unconsciously, of +that old primal antagonism of the man to the woman, of the stronger +to the weaker, the more spiritual to the more earthy?</p> +<p>"You think, no doubt," he said, after a pause, "that it is my +duty to take this thing, even if I <i>could</i> lay it down?"</p> +<p>"I don't know what I think," she said, hurriedly. "It is very +strange, of course, what you say. We ought to discuss it +thoroughly. Let me have a little time."</p> +<p>He gave an impatient sigh, then suddenly rose.</p> +<p>"Will you come and look at them?"</p> +<p>She, too, rose and put her hand in his.</p> +<p>"Take me where you will."</p> +<p>"It is not horrible," he said, shading his eyes a moment. "They +are at peace."</p> +<p>With a feeble step, leaning on her arm, he guided her through +the great, darkened house. Julie was dimly aware of wide +staircases, of galleries and high halls, of the pictures of past +Delafields looking down upon them. The morning was now far +advanced. Many persons were at work in the house, but Julie was +conscious of them only as distant figures that vanished at their +approach. They walked alone, guarded from all intrusion by the awe +and sympathy of the unseen human beings around them.</p> +<p>Delafield opened the closed door.</p> +<p>The father and son lay together, side by side, the boy's face in +a very winning repose, which at first sight concealed the traces of +his long suffering; the father's also--closed eyes and sternly shut +mouth--suggesting, not the despair which had driven him to his +death, but, rather, as in sombre triumph, the all-forgetting, +all-effacing sleep which he had won from death.</p> +<p>They stood a moment, till Delafield fell on his knees. Julie +knelt beside him. She prayed for a while; then she wearied, being, +indeed, worn out with her journey. But Delafield was motionless, +and it seemed to Julie that he hardly breathed.</p> +<p>She rose to her feet, and found her eyes for the first time +flooded with tears. Never for many weeks had she felt so lonely, or +so utterly unhappy. She would have given anything to forget herself +in comforting Jacob. But he seemed to have no need of her, no +thought of her.</p> +<p>As she vaguely looked round her, she saw that beside the dead +man was a table holding some violets--the only flowers in the +room--some photographs, and a few well--worn books. Softly she took +up one. It was a copy of the <i>Meditations of Marcus Aurelius</i>, +much noted and underlined. It would have seemed to her sacrilege to +look too close; but she presently perceived a letter between its +pages, and in the morning light, which now came strongly into the +room through a window looking on the garden, she saw plainly that +it was written on thin, foreign paper, that it was closed, and +addressed to her husband.</p> +<p>"Jacob!"</p> +<p>She touched him softly on the shoulder, alarmed by his long +immobility.</p> +<p>He looked up, and it appeared to Julie as though he were shaking +off with difficulty some abnormal and trancelike state. But he +rose, looking at her strangely.</p> +<p>"Jacob, this is yours."</p> +<p>He took the book abruptly, almost as if she had no right to be +holding it. Then, as he saw the letter, the color rushed into his +face. He took it, and after a moment's hesitation walked to the +window and opened it.</p> +<p>She saw him waver, and ran to his support. But he put out a hand +which checked her.</p> +<p>"It was the last thing he wrote," he said; and then, +uncertainly, and without reading any but the first words of the +letter, he put it into his pocket.</p> +<p>Julie drew back, humiliated. His gesture said that to a secret +so intimate and sacred he did not propose to admit his wife.</p> +<p>They went back silently to the room from which they had come. +Sentence after sentence came to Julie's lips, but it seemed useless +to say them, and once more, but in a totally new way, she was +"afraid" of the man beside her.</p> +<hr style="width: 25%;"> +<p>She left him shortly after, by his own wish.</p> +<p>"I will lie down, and you must rest," he said, with +decision.</p> +<p>So she bathed and dressed, and presently she allowed the kind, +fair-haired Susan to give her food, and pour out her own history of +the death-week which she and Jacob had passed through. But in all +that was said, Julie noticed that Susan spoke of her brother very +little, and of his inheritance and present position not at all. And +once or twice she noticed a wondering or meditative expression in +the girl's charming eyes as they rested on herself, and realized +that the sense of mystery, of hushed expectancy, was not confined +to her own mind.</p> +<p>When Susan left her at nine o'clock, it was to give a number of +necessary orders in the house. The inquest was to be held in the +morning, and the whole day would be filled with arrangements for +the double funeral. The house would be thronged with officials of +all sorts. "Poor Jacob!" said the sister, sighing, as she went +away.</p> +<p>But the tragic tumult had not yet begun. The house was still +quiet, and Julie was for the first time alone.</p> +<p>She drew up the blinds, and stood gazing out upon the park, now +flooded with light; at the famous Italian garden beneath the +windows, with its fountains and statues; at the wide lake which +filled the middle distance; and the hills beyond it, with the +plantations and avenues which showed the extension of the park as +far as the eye could see.</p> +<p>Julie knew very well what it all implied. Her years with Lady +Henry, in connection with her own hidden sense of birth and family, +had shown her with sufficient plainness the conditions under which +the English noble lives. She <i>was</i> actually, at that moment, +Duchess of Chudleigh; her strong intelligence faced and appreciated +the fact; the social scope and power implied in those three words +were all the more vivid to her imagination because of her history +and up-bringing. She had not grown to maturity <i>inside</i>, like +Delafield, but as an exile from a life which was yet naturally +hers--an exile, full, sometimes, of envy, and the passions of +envy.</p> +<p>It had no terrors for her--quite the contrary--this high social +state. Rather, there were moments when her whole nature reached out +to it, in a proud and confident ambition. Nor had she any mystical +demurrer to make. The originality which in some ways she richly +possessed was not concerned in the least with the upsetting of +class distinctions, and as a Catholic she had been taught loyally +to accept them.</p> +<p>The minutes passed away. Julie sank deeper and deeper into +reverie, her head leaning against the side of the window, her hands +clasped before her on her black dress. Once or twice she found the +tears dropping from her eyes, and once or twice she smiled.</p> +<p>She was not thinking of the tragic circumstances amid which she +stood. From that short trance of feeling even the piteous figures +of the dead father and son faded away. Warkworth entered into it, +but already invested with the passionless and sexless beauty of a +world where--whether it be to us poetry or reality--"they neither +marry nor are given in marriage." Her warm and living thoughts +spent themselves on one theme only--the redressing of a spiritual +balance. She was no longer a beggar to her husband; she had the +wherewithal to give. She had been the mere recipient, burdened with +debts beyond her paying; now--</p> +<p>And then it was that her smiles came--tremluous, fugitive, +exultant.</p> +<hr style="width: 25%;"> +<p>A bell rang in the long corridor, and the slight sound recalled +her to life and action. She walked towards the door which separated +her from the sitting-room where she had left her husband, and +opened it without knocking.</p> +<p>Delafield was sitting at a writing-table in the window. He had +apparently been writing; but she found him in a moment of pause, +playing absently with the pen he still held.</p> +<p>As she entered he looked up, and it seemed to her that his +aspect and his mood had changed. Her sudden and indefinable sense +of this made it easier for her to hasten to him, and to hold out +her hands to him.</p> +<p>"Jacob, you asked me a question just now, and I begged you to +give me time. But I am here to answer it. If it would be to your +happiness to refuse the dukedom, refuse it. I will not stand in +your way, and I will never reproach you. I suppose"--she made +herself smile upon him--"there are ways of doing such a strange +thing. You will be much criticised, perhaps much blamed. But if it +seems to you right, do it. I'll just stand by you and help you. +Whatever makes you happy shall make me happy, if only--"</p> +<p>Delafield had risen impetuously and held her by both hands. His +breast heaved, and the hurrying of her own breath would now hardly +let her speak.</p> +<p>"If only what?" he said, hoarsely.</p> +<p>She raised her eyes.</p> +<p>"If only, <i>mon ami</i>"--she disengaged one hand and laid it +gently on his shoulder--"you will give me your trust, and"--her +voice dropped--"your love!"</p> +<p>They gazed at each other. Between them, around them hovered +thoughts of the past--of Warkworth, of the gray Channel waves, of +the spiritual relation which had grown up between them in +Switzerland, mingled with the consciousness of this new, +incalculable present, and of the growth and change in +themselves.</p> +<p>"You'd give it all up?" said Delafield, gently, still holding +her at arm's-length.</p> +<p>"Yes," she nodded to him, with a smile.</p> +<p>"For me? For my sake?"</p> +<p>She smiled again. He drew a long breath, and turning to the +table behind him, took up a letter which was lying there.</p> +<p>"I want you to read that," he said, holding it out to her.</p> +<p>She drew back, with a little, involuntary frown.</p> +<p>He understood.</p> +<p>"Dearest," he cried, pressing her hand passionately, "I have +been in the grip of all the powers of death! Read it--be good to +me!"</p> +<p>Standing beside him, with his arm round her, she read the +melancholy Duke's last words:</p> +<p>/# "My Dear Jacob,--I leave you a heavy task, which I know well +is, in your eyes, a mere burden. But, for my sake, accept it. The +man who runs away has small right to counsel courage. But you know +what my struggle has been. You'll judge me mercifully, if no one +else does. There is in you, too, the little, bitter drop that +spoils us all; but you won't be alone. You have your wife, and you +love her. Take my place here, care for our people, speak of us +sometimes to your children, and pray for us. I bless you, dear +fellow. The only moments of comfort I have ever known this last +year have come from you. I would live on if I could, but I +must--<i>must</i> have sleep." #/</p> +<p>Julie dropped the paper. She turned to look at her husband.</p> +<p>"Since I read that," he said, in a low voice, "I have been +sitting here alone--or, rather, it is my belief that I have not +been alone. But"--he hesitated--"it is very difficult for me to +speak of that--even to you. At any rate, I have felt the touch of +discipline, of command. My poor cousin deserted. I, it seems"--he +drew a long and painful breath--"must keep to the ranks."</p> +<p>"Let us discuss it," said Julie; and sitting down, hand in hand, +they talked quietly and gravely.</p> +<p>Suddenly, Delafield turned to her with renewed emotion.</p> +<p>"I feel already the energy, the honorable ambition you will +bring to it. But still, you'd have given it up, Julie? You'd have +given it up?"</p> +<p>Julie chose her words.</p> +<p>"Yes. But now that we are to keep it, will you hate me if, some +day--when we are less sad--I get pleasure from it? I sha'n't be +able to help it. When we were at La Verna, I felt that you ought to +have been born in the thirteenth century, that you were really +meant to wed poverty and follow St. Francis. But now you have got +to be horribly, hopelessly rich. And I, all the time, am a +worldling, and a modern. What you'll suffer from, I shall +perhaps--enjoy."</p> +<p>The word fell harshly on the darkened room. Delafield shivered, +as though he felt the overshadowing dead. Julie impetuously took +his hand.</p> +<p>"It will be my part to be a worldling--for your sake," she said, +her breath wavering. Their eyes met. From her face shone a +revelation, a beauty that enwrapped them both. Delafield fell on +his knees beside her, and laid his head upon her breast. The +exquisite gesture with which she folded her arms about him told her +inmost thought. At last he needed her, and the dear knowledge +filled and tamed her heart.</p> +<br> +<p>THE END</p> +<br> + +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13782 ***</div> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/13782-h/images/illus-000.jpg b/13782-h/images/illus-000.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..194436c --- /dev/null +++ b/13782-h/images/illus-000.jpg diff --git a/13782-h/images/illus-030.jpg b/13782-h/images/illus-030.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..0351b9d --- /dev/null +++ b/13782-h/images/illus-030.jpg diff --git a/13782-h/images/illus-052.jpg b/13782-h/images/illus-052.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..6c43b81 --- /dev/null +++ b/13782-h/images/illus-052.jpg diff --git a/13782-h/images/illus-100.jpg b/13782-h/images/illus-100.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..3cdb7fd --- /dev/null +++ b/13782-h/images/illus-100.jpg diff --git a/13782-h/images/illus-242.jpg b/13782-h/images/illus-242.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..6ea5b8d --- /dev/null +++ b/13782-h/images/illus-242.jpg diff --git a/13782-h/images/illus-254.jpg b/13782-h/images/illus-254.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..e3d021c --- /dev/null +++ b/13782-h/images/illus-254.jpg diff --git a/13782-h/images/illus-356.jpg b/13782-h/images/illus-356.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..6a99fe5 --- /dev/null +++ b/13782-h/images/illus-356.jpg diff --git a/13782-h/images/illus-480.jpg b/13782-h/images/illus-480.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..7fb9263 --- /dev/null +++ b/13782-h/images/illus-480.jpg |
