"As for Jacob Delafield, don"t trouble yourself to write me any further news of him. He has insulted me lately in a way I shall not soon forgive--nothing to do, however, with the lady who says she refused him. Whether her report be veracious or no matters nothing to me, any more than his chances of succeeding to the Captain"s place. He is one of the ingenious fools who despise the old ways of ruining themselves, and in the end achieve it as well as the commoner sort. He owes me a good deal, and at one time it pleased me to imagine that he was capable both of affection and grat.i.tude. That is the worst of being a woman; we pa.s.s from one illusion to another; love is only the beginning; there are a dozen to come after.
"You will scold me for a bitter tongue. Well, my dear Wilfrid, I am not gay here. There are too many women, too many church services, and I see too much of my doctor. I pine for London, and I don"t see why I should have been driven out of it by an _intrigante_.
"Write to me, my dear Wilfrid. I am not quite so bad as I paint myself; say to yourself she has arthritis, she is sixty-five, and her new companion reads aloud with a tw.a.n.g; then you will only wonder at my moderation."
Sir Wilfrid returned the letter to his pocket. That day, at luncheon with Lady Hubert, he had had the curiosity to question Susan Delafield, Jacob"s fair-haired sister, as to the reasons for her brother"s quarrel with Lady Henry.
It appeared that being now in receipt of what seemed to himself, at any rate, a large salary as his cousin"s agent, he had thought it his duty to save up and repay the sums which Lady Henry had formerly spent upon his education.
His letter enclosing the money had reached that lady during the first week of her stay at Torquay. It was, no doubt, couched in terms less cordial or more formal than would have been the case before Miss Le Breton"s expulsion. "Not that he defends her altogether," said Susan Delafield, who was herself inclined to side with Lady Henry; "but as Lady Henry has refused to see him since, it was not much good being friendly, was it?"
Anyway, the letter and its enclosure had completed a breach already begun. Lady Henry had taken furious offence; the check had been insultingly returned, and had now gone to swell the finances of a London hospital.
Sir Wilfrid was just reflecting that Jacob"s honesty had better have waited for a more propitious season, when, looking up, he saw the War Minister beside him, in the act of searching for a newspaper.
"Released?" said Bury, with a smile.
"Yes, thank Heaven. Lackington is, I believe, still pounding at me in the House of Lords. But that amuses him and doesn"t hurt me."
"You"ll carry your resolutions?"
"Oh, dear, yes, with no trouble at all," said the Minister, almost with sulkiness, as he threw himself into a chair and looked with distaste at the newspaper he had taken up.
Sir Wilfrid surveyed him.
"We meet to-night?" he said, presently.
"You mean in Heribert Street? I suppose so," said Montresor, without cordiality.
"I have just got a letter from her ladyship."
"Well, I hope it is more agreeable than those she writes to me. A more unreasonable old woman--"
The tired Minister took up _Punch_, looked at a page, and flung it down again. Then he said:
"Are you going?"
"I don"t know. Lady Henry gives me leave, which makes me feel myself a kind of spy."
"Oh, never mind. Come along. Mademoiselle Julie will want all our support. I don"t hear her as kindly spoken of just now as I should wish."
"No. Lady Henry has more personal hold than we thought."
"And Mademoiselle Julie less tact. Why, in the name of goodness, does she go and get herself talked about with the particular man who is engaged to her little cousin? You know, by-the-way, that the story of her parentage is leaking out fast? Most people seem to know something about it."
"Well, that was bound to come. Will it do her good or harm?"
"Harm, for the present. A few people are straitlaced, and a good many feel they have been taken in. But, anyway, this flirtation is a mistake."
"n.o.body really knows whether the man is engaged to the Moffatt girl or no. The guardians have forbidden it."
"At any rate, everybody is kind enough to say so. It"s a blunder on Mademoiselle Julie"s part. As to the man himself, of course, there is nothing to say. He is a very clever fellow." Montresor looked at his companion with a sudden stiffness, as though defying contradiction. "He will do this piece of work that we have given him to do extremely well."
"The Mokembe mission?"
Montresor nodded.
"He had very considerable claims, and was appointed entirely on his military record. All the tales as to Mademoiselle"s influence--with me, for instance--that Lady Henry has been putting into circulation are either absurd fiction or have only the very smallest foundation in fact."
Sir Wilfrid smiled amicably and diverted the conversation.
"Warkworth starts at once?"
"He goes to Paris to-morrow. I recommended him to see Pattison, the Military Secretary there, who was in the expedition of five years back."
"This hasn"t gone as well as it ought," said Dr. Meredith, in the ear of the d.u.c.h.ess.
They were standing inside the door of Julie"s little drawing-room. The d.u.c.h.ess, in a dazzling frock of white and silver, which placed Clarisse among the divinities of her craft, looked round her with a look of worry.
"What"s the matter with the tiresome creatures? Why is everybody going so early? And there are not half the people here who ought to be here."
Meredith shrugged his shoulders.
"I saw you at Chatton House the other night," he said, in the same tone.
"Well?" said the d.u.c.h.ess, sharply.
"It seemed to me there was something of a demonstration."
"Against Julie? Let them try it!" said the little lady, with evasive defiance. "We shall be too strong for them."
"Lady Henry is putting her back into it. I confess I never thought she would be either so venomous or so successful."
"Julie will come out all right."
"She would--triumphantly--if--"
The d.u.c.h.ess glanced at him uneasily.
"I believe you are overworking her. She looks skin and bone."
Dr. Meredith shook his head.
"On the contrary, I have been holding her back. But it seems she wants to earn a good deal of money."
"That"s so absurd," cried the d.u.c.h.ess, "when there are people only pining to give her some of theirs."