“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.”
Unseen himself, Sir Wilfrid surveyed her. He thought her a consummate actress, and revelled in each new phase.
The Duchess, half laughing, half crying, began to scold her friend. Delafield bent over Julie Le Breton’s chair.
“Have you had some tea?”
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 businesslike brevity.
“I have brought the sheets of the new Shelley book, Miss Le Breton. It is due for publication on the 22nd. 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.”
Julie put out a languid hand for the portfolio.
“I don’t think you ought to trust me.”
“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.”
“Ah!”
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.”
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.
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.
“Sir Wilfrid”—she spoke in low entreaty—“you must help me to prevent any breach between Lady Henry and Mr. Montresor.”
He looked at her gayly.
“I fear,” he said, “you are too late. That point is settled, as I understand from herself.”
“Surely not—so soon!”
“There was an exchange of letters this morning.”
“Oh, but you can prevent it—you must!” She clasped her hands.
“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.”
She sank back in her chair, raising her hands and letting them fall with a gesture of despair.
One little stroke of punishment—just one! Surely there was no cruelty in that. Sir Wilfrid caught the Horatian lines dancing through his head:
“Just oblige me and touch
With your wand that minx Chloe—
But don’t hurt her much!”
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.
Delafield bent over Miss Le Breton.
“You will go and rest? Evelyn advises it.”
She rose to her feet, and most of the party rose, too.
“Goodbye—goodbye,” 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.”
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 tonight, 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: “The old man must know!”
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.
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 goodbye. 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,
