feel with me," said the voice which for all its low pitch was beginning to make him feel as though he were in the centre of a hail-storm. "You are a man of the world, you knew my parents, and yet I understand perfectly that for you, too, I am disgraced. So be it! So be it! I don't quarrel with what any one may choose to think, but--"
She recaptured herself with difficulty, and there was silence. They were walking through the purple February dusk towards the Marble Arch. It was too dark to see her face under its delicate veil, and Sir Wilfrid did not wish to see it. But before he had collected his thoughts sufficiently his companion was speaking again, in a wholly different manner.
"I don't know what made me talk in this way. It was the contact with some one, I suppose, who had seen us at Gherardtsloo." She raised her veil, and he thought that she dashed away some tears. "That never happened to me before in London. Well, now, to return. If there is a breach--"
"Why should there be a breach?" said Sir Wilfrid. "My dear Miss Le Breton, listen to me for a few minutes. I see perfectly that you have a great deal to complain of, but I also see that Lady Henry has something of a case."
And with a courteous authority and tact worthy of his trade, the old diplomat began to discuss the situation.
Presently he found himself talking with an animation, a friendliness, an intimacy that surprised himself. What was there in the personality beside him that seemed to win a way inside a man's defences in spite of him? Much of what she had said had seemed to him arrogant or morbid. And yet as she listened to him, with an evident dying down of passion, an evident forlornness, he felt in her that woman's weakness and timidity of which she had accused herself in relation to Lady Henry, and was somehow, manlike, softened and disarmed. She had been talking wildly, because no doubt she felt herself in great difficulties. But when it was his turn to talk she neither resented nor resisted what he had to say. The kinder he was, the more she yielded, almost eagerly at times, as though the thorniness of her own speech had hurt herself most, and there were behind it all a sad life, and a sad heart that only asked in truth for a little sympathy and understanding.
"I shall soon be calling her 'my dear' and patting her hand," thought the old man, at last, astonished at himself. For the dejection in her attitude and gait began to weigh upon him; he felt a warm desire to sustain and comfort her. More and more thought, more and more contrivance did he throw into the straightening out of this tangle between two excitable women, not, it seemed, for Lady Henry's sake, not, surely, for Miss Le Breton's sake. But--ah! those two poor, dead folk, who had touched his heart long ago, did he feel the hovering of their ghosts beside him in the wintry wind?
At any rate, he abounded in shrewd and fatherly advice, and Mademoiselle Le Breton listened with a most flattering meekness.
"Well, now I think we have come to an understanding," he urged, hopefully, as they turned down Bruton Street again.
Mademoiselle Le Breton sighed.
"It is very kind of you. Oh, I will do my best. But--"
She shook her head uncertainly.
"No--no 'buts,'" cried Sir Wilfrid, cheerfully. "Suppose, as a first step," he smiled at his companion, "you tell Lady Henry about the bazaar?"
"By all means. She won't let me go. But Evelyn will find some one else."
"Oh, we'll see about that," said the old man, almost crossly. "If you'll allow me I'll try my hand."
Julie Le Breton did not reply, but her face glimmered upon him with a wistful friendliness that did not escape him, even in the darkness. In this yielding mood her voice and movements had so much subdued sweetness, so much distinction, that he felt himself more than melting towards her.
Then, of a sudden, a thought--a couple of thoughts--sped across him. He drew himself rather sharply together.
"Mr. Delafield, I gather, has been a good deal concerned in the whole matter?"
Mademoiselle Le Breton laughed and hesitated.
"He has been very kind. He heard Lady Henry's language once when she was excited. It seemed to shock him. He has tried once or twice to smooth her down. Oh, he has been most kind!"
"Has he any influence with her?"
"Not much."
"Do you think well of him?"
He turned to her with a calculated abruptness. She showed a little surprise.
"I? But everybody thinks well of him. They say the Duke trusts everything to him."
"When I left England he was still a rather lazy and unsatisfactory undergraduate. I was curious to know how he had developed. Do you know what his chief interests are now?"
Mademoiselle Le Breton hesitated.
"I'm really afraid I don't know," she said, at last, smiling, and, as it were, regretful. "But Evelyn Crowborough, of course, could tell you all about him. She and he are very old friends."
"No birds out of that cover," was Sir Wilfrid's inward comment.
The lamp over Lady Henry's door was already in sight when Sir Wilfrid, after some talk of the Montresors, with whom he was going to dine that night, carelessly said:
"That's a very good-looking fellow, that Captain Warkworth, whom I saw with Lady Henry last night."
"Ah, yes. Lady Henry has made great friends with him," said Mademoiselle Julie, readily. "She consults him about her memoir of her husband."
"Memoir of her husband!" Sir Wilfrid stopped short. "Heavens above! Memoir of Lord Henry?"
"She is half-way through it. I thought you knew."
"Well, upon my word! Whom shall we have a memoir of next? Henry Delafield! Henry Delafield! Good gracious!"
And Sir Wilfrid walked along, slashing at the railings with his stick, as though the action relieved him. Julie Le Breton quietly resumed:
"I understand that Lord Henry and Captain Warkworth's father went through the Indian Mutiny together, and Captain Warkworth has some letters--"
"Oh, I dare say--I dare say," muttered Sir Wilfrid. "What's this man home for just now?"
"Well, I think Lady Henry knows," said Mademoiselle Julie, turning to him an open look, like one who, once more, would gladly satisfy a questioner if they could. "He talks to her a great deal. But why shouldn't he come home?"
"Because he ought to be doing disagreeable duty with his regiment instead of always racing about the world in search of something to get his name up," said Sir Wilfrid, rather sharply. "At least, that's the view his brother officers mostly take of him."
"Oh," said Mademoiselle Julie, with amiable vagueness, "is there anything particular that you suppose he wants?"
"I am not at all in the secret of his ambitions," said Sir Wilfrid, lifting his shoulders. "But you and Lady Henry seemed well acquainted with him."
The straw-colored lashes veered her way.
"I had some talk with him in the Park this morning," said Julie Le Breton, reflectively. "He wants me to copy his father's letters for Lady Henry, and to get her to return the originals as soon as possible. He feels nervous when they are out of his hands."
"Hm!" said Sir Wilfrid.
At that moment Lady Henry's door-bell presented itself. The vigor with which Sir Wilfrid rang it may, perhaps, have expressed the liveliness of his unspoken scepticism. He did not for one moment believe that General Warkworth's letters had been the subject of the conversation he had witnessed that morning in the Park, nor that filial veneration had had anything whatever to say to it.
Julie Le Breton gave him her hand.
"Thank you very much," she said, gravely and softly.
Sir Wilfrid at the moment before had not meant to press it at all. But he did press it, aware the while of the most mingled feelings.