“Oh, well, never mind, Freddie,” said the Duchess, springing up. “She’ll be gone before you come back, and I’ll look after her.”
The Duke offered a rather sulky embrace, walked to the door, and came back.
“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—”
“Yes,” said the Duchess, nodding. “I know; but he shan’t have Julie.”
Her smile completed the Duke’s annoyance.
“What have you to do with it? I beg, Evelyn—I insist—that you leave Miss Le Breton’s love affairs alone.”
“You forget, Freddie, that she is my friend.”
The little creature fronted him, all wilfulness and breathing hard, her small hands clasped on her breast.
With an angry exclamation the Duke departed.
At half-past eight a hansom dashed up to Crowborough House. Montresor emerged.
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.
After dinner, as Montresor rose with the Duchess to take his leave, Julie got a word with him in the corridor.
“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.”
He drew himself up, perhaps with a touch of haughtiness.
“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.”
“But mayn’t I—”
“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 tomorrow’s papers for some interesting news.”
He sprang into his hansom and was gone.
Julie went slowly upstairs. Of course she understood. The long intrigue had reached its goal, and within twelve hours the Times 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.
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.
What “gossamer girl” could have done so much? She threw back her head proudly and heard the beating of her heart.
Lady Henry was fiercely forgotten. She opened the drawing-room door, absorbed in a counting of the hours till she and Warkworth should meet.
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.
“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.”
She submitted to a sofa, to an adjusted light, to the papers on her knee. Then Delafield withdrew and took up a book.
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.
“Mr. Delafield!”
He heard the low voice and came.
“I have never thanked you for your goodness last night. I do thank you now—most earnestly.”
“You needn’t. You know very well what I would do to serve you if I could.”
“Even when you think me in the wrong?” said Julie, with a little, hysterical laugh.
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.
Delafield flushed at her words.
“How have I given you cause to say that?”
“Oh, you are very transparent. One sees that you are always troubling yourself about the right and wrong of things.”
“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?”
“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.”
“I didn’t know I was such a prig,” said Delafield, humbly. “It is true I am always puzzling over things.”
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
