"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!"
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?"
"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: