Hutton, the butler, came in to look at the fire.
“Will you be sitting here tonight, miss?”
“Oh no, Hutton. I shall go back to the library. I think the fire in my own room is out.”
“I had better put out these lights, anyway,” said the man, looking round the brilliant room.
“Oh, certainly,” said Julie, and she began to assist him to do so.
Suddenly a thought occurred to her.
“Hutton!” She went up to him and spoke in a lower tone. “If the Duchess of Crowborough comes tonight, I should very much like to see her, and I know she wants to see me. Do you think it could possibly disturb Lady Henry if you were to show her into the library for twenty minutes?”
The man considered.
“I don’t think there could be anything heard upstairs, miss. I should, of course, warn her grace that her ladyship was ill.”
“Well, then, Hutton, please ask her to come in,” said Miss Le Breton, hurriedly. “And, Hutton, Dr. Meredith and Mr. Montresor, you know how disappointed they’ll be not to find Lady Henry at home?”
“Yes, miss. They’ll want to know how her ladyship is, no doubt. I’ll tell them you’re in the library. And Captain Warkworth, miss?—he’s never missed a Wednesday evening for weeks.”
“Oh, well, if he comes—you must judge for yourself, Hutton,” said Miss Le Breton, occupying herself with the electric switches. “I should like to tell them all—the old friends—how Lady Henry is.”
The butler’s face was respectful discretion itself.
“Of course, miss. And shall I bring tea and coffee?”
“Oh no,” said Miss Le Breton, hastily; and then, after reflection, “Well, have it ready; but I don’t suppose anybody will ask for it. Is there a good fire in the library?”
“Oh yes, miss. I thought you would be coming down there again. Shall I take some of these flowers down? The room looks rather bare, if anybody’s coming in.”
Julie colored a little.
“Well, you might—not many. And, Hutton, you’re sure we can’t disturb Lady Henry?”
Hutton’s expression was not wholly confident.
“Her ladyship’s very quick of hearing, miss. But I’ll shut those doors at the foot of the back stairs, and I’ll ask everyone to come in quietly.”
“Thank you, Hutton—thank you. That’ll be very good of you. And, Hutton—”
“Yes, miss.” The man paused with a large vase of white arums in his hand.
“You’ll say a word to Dixon, won’t you? If anybody comes in, there’ll be no need to trouble Lady Henry about it. I can tell her tomorrow.”
“Very good, miss. Dixon will be down to her supper presently.”
The butler departed. Julie was left alone in the now darkened room, lighted only by one lamp and the bright glow of the fire. She caught her breath—suddenly struck with the audacity of what she had been doing. Eight or ten of these people certainly would come in—eight or ten of Lady Henry’s “intimates.” If Lady Henry discovered it—after this precarious truce between them had just been patched up!
Julie made a step towards the door as though to recall the butler, then stopped herself. The thought that in an hour’s time Harry Warkworth might be within a few yards of her, and she not permitted to see him, worked intolerably in heart and brain, dulling the shrewd intelligence by which she was ordinarily governed. She was conscious, indeed, of some profound inner change. Life had been difficult enough before the Duchess had said those few words to her. But since!
Suppose he had deceived her at Lady Hubert’s party! Through all her mounting passion her acute sense of character did not fail her. She secretly knew that it was quite possible he had deceived her. But the knowledge merely added to the sense of danger which, in this case, was one of the elements of passion itself.
“He must have money—of course he must have money,” she was saying, feverishly, to herself. “But I’ll find ways. Why should he marry yet—for years? It would be only hampering him.”
Again she paused before the mirrored wall; and again imagination evoked upon the glass the same white and threatening image—her own near kinswoman—the child of her mother’s sister! How strange! Where was the little gossamer creature now—in what safe haven of money and family affection, and all the spoiling that money brings? From the climbing paths of her own difficult and personal struggle Julie Le Breton looked down with sore contempt on such a degenerate ease of circumstance. She had heard it said that the mother and daughter were lingering abroad for a time on their way home from India. Yet was the girl all the while pining for England, thinking not of her garden, her horse, her pets, but only of this slim young soldier who in a few minutes, perhaps, would knock at Lady Henry’s door, in quest of Aileen Moffatt’s unknown, unguessed-of cousin? These thoughts sent wild combative thrills through Julie’s pulses. She turned to one of the old French clocks. How much longer now—till he came?
“Her ladyship would like to see you, miss.”
The voice was Dixon’s, and Julie turned hurriedly, recalling all her self-possession. She climbed some steep stairs, still unmodernized, to Lady Henry’s floor. That lady slept at the back of the house, so as to be out of noise. Her room was an old-fashioned apartment, furnished about the year Queen Victoria came to the throne, with furniture, chintzes, and carpet of the most approved early Victorian pattern. What had been ugly then was dingy now; and its strong mistress, who had known so well how to assimilate and guard the fine decorations and noble pictures of the drawing-rooms, would not have a thing in it touched. “It suits me,” she would say, impatiently, when her stout
