sources of Lady Henry's dissatisfaction?" he said, at last, rather coldly.
Mademoiselle Le Breton hesitated.
"I don't want to make myself out a saint," she said, at last, in another voice and with a humility which was, in truth, hardly less proud than her self-assertion. "I--I was brought up in poverty, and my mother died when I was fifteen. I had to defend myself as the poor defend themselves--by silence. I learned not to talk about my own affairs. I couldn't afford to be frank, like a rich English girl. I dare say, sometimes I have concealed things which had been better made plain. They were never of any real importance, and if Lady Henry had shown any consideration--"
Her voice failed her a little, evidently to her annoyance. They walked on without speaking for a few paces. "Never of any real importance?" Sir Wilfrid wondered.
Their minds apparently continued the conversation though their lips were silent, for presently Julie Le Breton said, abruptly:
"Of course I am speaking of matters where Lady Henry might have some claim to information. With regard to many of my thoughts and feelings, Lady Henry has no right whatever to my confidence."
"She gives us fair warning," thought Sir Wilfrid.
Aloud he said:
"It is not a question of thoughts and feelings, I understand, but of actions."
"Like the visit to the Duncombes'?" said Mademoiselle Le Breton, impatiently. "Oh, I quite admit it--that's only one of several instances Lady Henry might have brought forward. You see, she led me to make these friendships; and now, because they annoy her, I am to break them. But she forgets. Friends are too--too new in my life, too precious--"
Again the voice wavered. How it thrilled and penetrated! Sir Wilfrid found himself listening for every word.
"No," she resumed. "If it is a question of renouncing the friends I have made in her house, or going--it will be going. That may as well be quite clear."
Sir Wilfrid looked up.
"Let me ask you one question, mademoiselle."
"Certainly. Whatever you like."
"Have you ever had, have you now, any affection for Lady Henry?"
"Affection? I could have had plenty. Lady Henry is most interesting to watch. It is magnificent, the struggles she makes with her infirmities."
Nothing could have been more agreeable than the modulation of these words, the passage of the tone from a first note of surprise to its grave and womanly close. Again, the same suggestions of veiled and vibrating feeling. Sir Wilfrid's nascent dislike softened a little.
"After all," he said, with gentleness, "one must make allowance for old age and weakness, mustn't one?"
"Oh, as to that, you can't say anything to me that I am not perpetually saying to myself," was her somewhat impetuous reply. "Only there is a point when ill-temper becomes not only tormenting to me but degrading to herself. … Oh, if you only knew!"--the speaker drew an indignant breath. "I can hardly bring myself to speak of such misères. But everything excites her, everything makes her jealous. It is a grievance that I should have a new dress, that Mr. Montresor should send me an order for the House of Commons, that Evelyn Crowborough should give me a Christmas present. Last Christmas, Evelyn gave me these furs--she is the only creature in London from whom I would accept a farthing or the value of a farthing."
She paused, then rapidly threw him a question:
"Why, do you suppose, did I take it from her?"
"She is your kinswoman," said Wilfrid, quietly.
"Ah, you knew that! Well, then, mayn't Evelyn be kind to me, though I am what I am? I reminded Lady Henry, but she only thought me a mean parasite, sponging on a duchess for presents above my station. She said things hardly to be forgiven. I was silent. But I have never ceased to wear the furs."
With what imperious will did the thin shoulders straighten themselves under the folds of chinchilla! The cloak became symbolic, a flag not to be struck.
"I never answer back, please understand--never," she went on, hurriedly. "You saw to-day how Lady Henry gave me her orders. There is not a servant in the house with whom she would dare such a manner. Did I resent it?"
"You behaved with great forbearance. I watched you with admiration."
"Ah, forbearance! I fear you don't understand one of the strangest elements in the whole case. I am afraid of Lady Henry, mortally afraid! When she speaks to me I feel like a child who puts up its hands to ward off a blow. My instinct is not merely to submit, but to grovel. When you have had the youth that I had, when you have existed, learned, amused yourself on sufferance, when you have had somehow to maintain yourself among girls who had family, friends, money, name, while you--"
Her voice stopped, resolutely silenced before it broke. Sir Wilfrid uncomfortably felt that he had no sympathy to produce worthy of the claim that her whole personality seemed to make upon it. But she recovered herself immediately.
"Now I think I had better give you an outline of the last six months," she said, turning to him. "Of course it is my side of the matter. But you have heard Lady Henry's."
And with great composure she laid before him an outline of the chief quarrels and grievances which had embittered the life of the Bruton Street house during the period she had named. It was a wretched story, and she clearly told it with repugnance and disgust. There was in her tone a note of offended personal delicacy, as of one bemired against her will.
Evidently, Lady Henry was hardly to be defended. The thing had been "odious," indeed. Two women of great ability and different ages, shut up together and jarring at every point, the elder furiously jealous and exasperated by what seemed to her the affront offered to her high rank and her past ascendency by the social success of her dependant, the other defending herself, first by the arts of flattery and submission, and then, when these proved hopeless, by a social skill that at least wore many of the aspects of intrigue--these were the essential elements of the situation; and, as her narrative proceeded, Sir Wilfrid admitted to himself that it was hard to see any way out of it. As to his own sympathies, he did not know what to make of them.
"No. I have been only too yielding," said Mademoiselle Le Breton, sorely, when her tale was done. "I am ashamed when I look back on what I have borne. But now it has gone too far, and something must be done. If I go, frankly, Lady Henry will suffer."
Sir Wilfrid looked at his companion.
"Lady Henry is well aware of it."
"Yes," was the calm reply, "she knows it, but she does not realize it. You see, if it comes to a rupture she will allow no half-measures. Those who stick to me will have to quarrel with her. And there will be a great many who will stick to me."
Sir Wilfrid's little smile was not friendly.
"It is indeed evident," he said, "that you have thought it all out."
Mademoiselle Le Breton did not reply. They walked on a few minutes in silence, till she said, with a suddenness and in a low tone that startled her companion:
"If Lady Henry could ever have felt that she humbled me, that I acknowledged myself at her mercy! But she never could. She knows that I feel myself as well born as she, that I am not ashamed of my parents, that my principles give me a free mind about such things."
"Your principles?" murmured Sir Wilfrid.
"You were right," she turned upon him with a perfectly quiet but most concentrated passion. "I have had to think things out. I know, of course, that the world goes with Lady Henry. Therefore I must be nameless and kinless and hold my tongue. If the world knew, it would expect me to hang my head. I don't! I am as proud of my mother as of my father. I adore both their memories. Conventionalities of that kind mean nothing to me."
"My dear lady--"
"Oh, I don't expect you or any one else to