“Apparently it was her traps that worked,” said Sir Wilfrid, smiling. Lady Henry returned the smile unwillingly, as one loath to acknowledge her own folly.
“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. …
“ ‘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—’ ”
“I hope I may some day be favored with it,” said Sir Wilfrid.
Lady Henry laughed uncomfortably.
“Oh, I’ve had to tell lies,” she said, “plenty of them.”
“What! It was you that told the lies?”
Lady Henry’s look flashed.
“The open and honest ones,” she said, defiantly.
“Well,” said Sir Wilfrid, regretfully, “some sort were indispensable. So she came. How long ago?”
“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. Everyone 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 habitués congratulated me. ‘Such cultivation, such charm, such savoir-faire! Where on earth did you pick up such a treasure? What are her antecedents?’ etc., etc. So then, of course—”
“I hope no more than were absolutely necessary!” said Sir Wilfrid, hastily.
“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?”
“You gave me a few hints last night,” said Sir Wilfrid, hesitating.
Lady Henry pushed her chair back from the table. Her hands trembled on her stick.
“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!”
The old face had become purple. Lady Henry breathed hard.
“My dear friend,” said Sir Wilfrid, quickly, laying a calming hand on her arm, “don’t let this trouble you so. Dismiss her.”
“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?”
She paused, drawing herself rigidly erect. Sir Wilfrid, looking up sharply, remembered the little scene in the Park, and waited.
“Did you have any opportunity last night,” said Lady Henry, slowly, “of observing her and Jacob Delafield?”
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.
“Jacob Delafield?” he said. “Jacob Delafield? Are you sure?”
“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.”
“Good gracious!” said Sir Wilfrid, throwing away his cigarette.
“There!” said Lady Henry, in sombre triumph. “Now you can understand what I have brought on poor Henry’s family.”
A low knock was heard at the door.
“Come in,” said Lady Henry, impatiently.
The door opened, and Mademoiselle Le Breton appeared on the threshold, carrying a small gray terrier under each arm.
“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?”
III
It was nearly four o’clock. Sir Wilfrid had just closed Lady Henry’s door behind him, and was again walking along Bruton Street.
He was thinking of the little scene of
