“Julie, I’ve done everything you’ve asked me. I sent a card for the 20th to that rather 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?”
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.
Julie turned round. She was always pale, and the Duchess saw nothing unusual.
“Am I so keen?”
“Julie, you have done everything in the world for this man since he came home.”
“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—”
“So you thought you’d push him? Oh, Julie, you’re a darling—but you’re rather a wire-puller, aren’t you?”
Julie smiled faintly.
“Well, perhaps I like to feel, sometimes, that I have a little power. I haven’t much else.”
The Duchess seized one of her hands and pressed it to her cheek.
“You have power, because everyone 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.”
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 At any rate, it was brusquely withdrawn, and Julie walked to the end of the table to fetch some more flowers.
“I don’t want any gratitude,” she said, abruptly, “from anyone. Well, now, Evelyn, you understand about the bazaar? I wish I could, but I can’t.”
“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 business. You’re not to be offended. Julie, if you leave Lady Henry, how will you manage?”
“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.
“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.
“I shall earn some,” said Julie, quietly.
“Oh, but, Julie, you can’t be bothered with any other tiresome old lady!”
“No. I should keep my freedom. But Dr. Meredith has offered me work, and got me a promise of more.”
The Duchess opened her eyes.
“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?”
“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.
The Duchess, watching her, said to herself, “Since I came in she is changed—quite changed.”
“Julie, you’re horribly proud!”
Julie’s face contracted a little.
“How much ‘power’ should I have left, do you think—how much self-respect—if I took money from my friends?”
“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 does quarrel with you, and we could lend you a little house—for a time—wouldn’t you take it, Julie?”
Her voice had the coaxing inflections of a child. Julie hesitated.
“Only if the Duke himself offered it,” she said, finally, with a brusque stiffening of her whole attitude.
The Duchess flushed and stood up.
“Oh, well, that’s all right,” she said, but no longer in the same voice. “Remember, I have your promise. Goodbye, 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 tonight? Do! Freddie’s away, and I hate going by myself.”
“To Lady Hubert’s?” said Julie, starting a little. “I wonder what Lady Henry would say?”
“Tell her Jacob won’t be there,” said the Duchess, laughing. “Then she won’t make any difficulties.”
“Shall I go and ask her?”
“Gracious! let me get out of the house first. Give her a message from me that I will come and see her tomorrow 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 tonight, and wire me this afternoon. If all’s well, I come for you at eleven.”
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.
“I’ll go,” she said, to herself. “Yes, I’ll go.”
Her letter of the morning, as it happened, had included the following sentences:
“I think tonight 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.”
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
