“Yes, it would be hard for her to go alone,” said the Duchess, reflectively. She looked at her watch. “Only a little after eleven. Ring, please, Jacob.”
The carriage was ordered. Meanwhile the little lady inquired eagerly after her Julie. Had she been exhausted by the double journey? Was she alone in Paris, or was Madame Bornier with her?
Jacob had understood that Madame Bornier and the little girl had gone straight to Bruges.
The Duchess looked down and then looked up.
“Did—did you come across Major Warkworth?”
“Yes, I saw him for a moment in the Rue de la Paix, He was starting for Rome.”
The Duchess turned away as though ashamed of her question, and gave her orders for the carriage. Then her attention was suddenly drawn to her cousin. “How pale you look, Jacob,” she said, approaching him. “Won’t you have something—some wine?”
Delafield refused, declaring that all he wanted was an hour or two’s sleep.
“I go back to Paris tomorrow,” he said, as he prepared to take his leave. “Will you be here tonight if I look in?”
“Alack! we go to Scotland tonight! It was just a piece of luck that you found me this morning. Freddie is fuming to get away.”
Delafield paused a moment. Then he abruptly shook hands and went.
“He wants news of what happens at St. James’s Square,” thought the Duchess, suddenly, and she ran after him to the top of the stairs. “Jacob! If you don’t mind a horrid mess tonight, Freddie and I shall be dining alone—of course we must have something to eat. Somewhere about eight. Do look in. There’ll be a cutlet—on a trunk—anyway.”
Delafield laughed, hesitated, and finally accepted.
The Duchess went back to the drawing-room, not a little puzzled and excited.
“It’s very, very odd,” she said to herself. “And what is the matter with Jacob?”
Half an hour later she drove to the splendid house in St. James’s Square where Lord Lackington lay dying.
She asked for Lord Uredale, the eldest son, and waited in the library till he came.
He was a tall, squarely built man, with fair hair already gray, and somewhat absent and impassive manners.
At sight of him the Duchess’s eyes filled with tears. She hurried to him, her soft nature dissolved in sympathy.
“How is your father?”
“A trifle easier, though the doctors say there is no real improvement. But he is quite conscious—knows us all. I have just been reading him the debate.”
“You told me yesterday he had asked for Miss Le Breton,” said the Duchess, raising herself on tiptoe as though to bring her low tones closer to his ear. “She’s here—in town, I mean. She came back from Paris last night.”
Lord Uredale showed no emotion of any kind. Emotion was not in his line.
“Then my father would like to see her,” he said, in a dry, ordinary voice, which jarred upon the sentimental Duchess.
“When shall I bring her?”
“He is now comfortable and resting. If you are free—”
The Duchess replied that she would go to Heribert Street at once. As Lord Uredale took her to her carriage a young man ran down the steps hastily, raised his hat, and disappeared.
Lord Uredale explained that he was the husband of the famous young beauty, Mrs. Delaray, whose portrait Lord Lackington had been engaged upon at the time of his seizure. Having been all his life a skilful artist, a man of fashion, and a harmless haunter of lovely women, Lord Lackington, as the Duchess knew, had all but completed a gallery of a hundred portraits, representing the beauty of the reign. Mrs. Delaray’s would have been the hundredth in a series of which Mrs. Norton was the first.
“He has been making arrangements with the husband to get it finished,” said Lord Uredale; “it has been on his mind.”
The Duchess shivered a little.
“He knows he won’t finish it?”
“Quite well.”
“And he still thinks of those things?”
“Yes—or politics,” said Lord Uredale, smiling faintly. “I have written to Mr. Montresor. There are two or three points my father wants to discuss with him.”
“And he is not depressed, or troubled about himself?”
“Not in the least. He will be grateful if you will bring him Miss Le Breton.”
“Julie, my darling, are you fit to come with me?”
The Duchess held her friend in her arms, soothing and caressing her. How forlorn was the little house, under its dust-sheets, on this rainy, spring morning! And Julie, amid the dismantled drawing-room, stood spectrally white and still, listening, with scarcely a word in reply, to the affection, or the pity, or the news which the Duchess poured out upon her.
“Shall we go now? I am quite ready.”
And she withdrew herself from the loving grasp which held her, and put on her hat and gloves.
“You ought to be in bed,” said the Duchess. “Those night journeys are too abominable. Even Jacob looks a wreck. But what an extraordinary chance, Julie, that Jacob should have found you! How did you come across each other?”
“At the Nord Station,” said Julie, as she pinned her veil before the glass over the mantelpiece.
Some instinct silenced the Duchess. She asked no more questions, and they started for St. James’s Square.
“You won’t mind if I don’t talk?” said Julie, leaning back and closing her eyes. “I seem still to have the sea in my ears.”
The Duchess looked at her tenderly, clasping her hand close, and the carriage rolled along. But just before they reached St. James’s Square, Julie hastily raised the fingers which held her own and kissed them.
“Oh, Julie,” said the Duchess, reproachfully, “I don’t like you to do that!”
She flushed and frowned. It was she who ought to pay such acts of homage, not Julie.
“Father, Miss Le Breton is here.”
“Let her come in, Jack—and the Duchess, too.”
Lord Uredale went back to the door. Two figures came noiselessly into the room, the Duchess in front, with Julie’s hand in hers.
Lord Lackington was propped up in bed, and breathing fast. But he smiled as they approached him.
“This is goodbye, dear Duchess,” he said, in a whisper, as
