“You have the old guard, anyway,” added the journalist, with a smile, as he looked round the room. The Duchess, Delafield, Montresor and his wife, General McGill, and three or four other old habitués of the Bruton Street evenings were scattered about the little drawing-room. General Fergus, too, was there—had arrived early, and was staying late. His frank soldier’s face, the accent, cheerful, homely, careless, with which he threw off talk full of marrow, talk only possible—for all its simplicity—to a man whose life had been already closely mingled with the fortunes of his country, had done something to bind Julie’s poor little party together. Her eye rested on him with gratitude. Then she replied to Meredith.
“Mr. Montresor will scarcely come again.”
“What do you mean? Ungrateful lady! Montresor! who has already sacrificed Lady Henry and the habits of thirty years to your beaux yeux!”
“That is what he will never forgive me,” said Julie, sadly. “He has satisfied his pride, and I—have lost a friend.”
“Pessimist! Mrs. Montresor seemed to me most friendly.”
Julie laughed.
“She, of course, is enchanted. Her husband has never been her own till now. She married him, subject to Lady Henry’s rights. But all that she will soon forget—and my existence with it.”
“I won’t argue. It only makes you more stubborn,” said Meredith. “Ah, still they come!”
For the door opened to admit the tall figure of Major Warkworth.
“Am I very late?” he said, with a surprised look as he glanced at the thinly scattered room. Julie greeted him, and he excused himself on the ground of a dinner which had begun just an hour late, owing to the tardiness of a cabinet minister.
Meredith observed the young man with some attention, from the dark corner in which Julie had left him. The gossip of the moment had reached him also, but he had not paid much heed to it. It seemed to him that no one knew anything firsthand of the Moffatt affair. And for himself, he found it difficult to believe that Julie Le Breton was any man’s dupe.
She must marry, poor thing! Of course she must marry. Since it had been plain to him that she would never listen to his own suit, this greathearted and clear-brained man had done his best to stifle in himself all small or grasping impulses. But this fellow—with his inferior temper and morale—alack! why are the clever women such fools?
If only she had confided in him—her old and tried friend—he thought he could have put things before her, so as to influence without offending her. But he suffered—had always suffered—from the jealous reserve which underlay her charm, her inborn tendency to secretiveness and intrigue.
Now, as he watched her few words with Warkworth, it seemed to him that he saw the signs of some hidden relation. How flushed she was suddenly, and her eyes so bright!
He was not allowed much time or scope, however, for observation. Warkworth took a turn round the room, chatted a little with this person and that, then, on the plea that he was off to Paris early on the following morning, approached his hostess again to take his leave.
“Ah, yes, you start tomorrow,” said Montresor, rising. “Well, good luck to you—good luck to you.”
General Fergus, too, advanced. The whole room, indeed, awoke to the situation, and all the remaining guests grouped themselves round the young soldier. Even the Duchess was thawed a little by this actual moment of departure. After all, the man was going on his country’s service.
“No child’s play, this mission, I can assure you,” General McGill had said to her. “Warkworth will want all the powers he has—of mind or body.”
The slim, young fellow, so boyishly elegant in his well-cut evening-dress, received the ovation offered to him with an evident pleasure which tried to hide itself in the usual English ways. He had been very pale when he came in. But his cheek reddened as Montresor grasped him by the hand, as the two generals bade him a cordial godspeed, as Sir Wilfrid gave him a jesting message for the British representative in Egypt, and as the ladies present accorded him those flattering and admiring looks that woman keeps for valor.
Julie counted for little in these farewells. She stood apart and rather silent. “They have had their goodbye,” thought the Duchess, with a thrill she could not help.
“Three days in Paris?” said Sir Wilfrid. “A fortnight to Denga—and then how long before you start for the interior?”
“Oh, three weeks for collecting porters and supplies. They’re drilling the escort already. We should be off by the middle of May.”
“A bad month,” said General Fergus, shrugging his shoulders.
“Unfortunately, affairs won’t wait. But I am already stiff with quinine,” laughed Warkworth—“or I shall be by the time I get to Denga. Goodbye—goodbye.”
And in another moment he was gone. Miss Le Breton had given him her hand and wished him “Bon voyage,” like everybody else.
The party broke up. The Duchess kissed her Julie with peculiar tenderness; Delafield pressed her hand, and his deep, kind eyes gave her a lingering look, of which, however, she was quite unconscious; Meredith renewed his half-irritable, half-affectionate counsels of rest and recreation; Mrs. Montresor was conventionally effusive; Montresor alone bade the mistress of the house a somewhat cold and perfunctory farewell. Even Sir Wilfrid was a little touched, he knew not why; he vowed to himself that his report to Lady Henry on the morrow should contain no food for malice, and inwardly he forgave Mademoiselle Julie the old romancings.
XVIII
It was twenty minutes since the last carriage had driven away. Julie was still waiting in the little hall, pacing its squares of black-and-white marble, slowly, backward and forward.
There was a
