Lady Rose's Daughter Part 19

"Well, perhaps I like to feel, sometimes, that I have a little power. I haven't much else."

The d.u.c.h.ess seized one of her hands and pressed it to her cheek.

"You have power, because every one loves and admires you. As for me, I would cut myself in little bits to please you.... Well, I only hope, when he's married his heiress, if he does marry her, they'll remember what they owe to you."

Did she feel the hand lying in her own shake? At any rate, it was brusquely withdrawn, and Julie walked to the end of the table to fetch some more flowers.

"I don't want any grat.i.tude," she said, abruptly, "from any one. Well, now, Evelyn, you understand about the bazaar? I wish I could, but I can't."

"Yes, I understand. Julie!" The d.u.c.h.ess rose impulsively, and threw herself into a chair beside the table where she could watch the face and movements of Mademoiselle Le Breton. "Julie, I want so much to talk to you--about _business_. You're not to be offended. Julie, _if_ you leave Lady Henry, how will you manage?"

"How shall I live, you mean?" said Julie, smiling at the euphemism in which this little person, for whom existence had rained gold and flowers since her cradle, had enwrapped the hard facts of bread-and-b.u.t.ter--facts with which she was so little acquainted that she approached them with a certain delicate mystery.

"You must have some money, you know, Julie," said the d.u.c.h.ess, timidly, her upraised face and Paris hat well matched by the gay poinsettias, the delicate eucharis and arums with which the table was now covered.

"I shall earn some," said Julie, quietly.

"Oh, but, Julie, you can't be bothered with any other tiresome old lady!"

"No. I should keep my freedom. But Dr. Meredith has offered me work, and got me a promise of more."

The d.u.c.h.ess opened her eyes.

"Writing! Well, of course, we all know you can do anything you want to do. And you won't let anybody help you at all?"

"I won't let anybody give me money, if that's what you mean," said Julie, smiling. But it was a smile without accent, without gayety.

The d.u.c.h.ess, watching her, said to herself, "Since I came in she is changed--quite changed."

"Julie, you're horribly proud!"

Julie's face contracted a little.

"How much 'power' should I have left, do you think--how much self-respect--if I took money from my friends?"

"Well, not money, perhaps. But, Julie, you know all about Freddie's London property. It's abominable how much he has. There are always a few houses he keeps in his own hands. If Lady Henry _does_ quarrel with you, and we could lend you a little house--for a time--_wouldn't_ you take it, Julie?"

Her voice had the coaxing inflections of a child. Julie hesitated.

"Only if the Duke himself offered it," she said, finally, with a brusque stiffening of her whole att.i.tude.

The d.u.c.h.ess flushed and stood up.

"Oh, well, that's all right," she said, but no longer in the same voice.

"Remember, I have your promise. Good-bye, Julie, you darling!... Oh, by-the-way, what an idiot I am! Here am I forgetting the chief thing I came about. Will you come with me to Lady Hubert to-night? Do! Freddie's away, and I hate going by myself."

"To Lady Hubert's?" said Julie, starting a little. "I wonder what Lady Henry would say?"

"Tell her Jacob won't be there," said the d.u.c.h.ess, laughing. "Then she won't make any difficulties."

"Shall I go and ask her?"

"Gracious! let me get out of the house first. Give her a message from me that I will come and see her to-morrow morning. We've got to make it up, Freddie says; so the sooner it's over, the better. Say all the civil things you can to her about to-night, and wire me this afternoon. If all's well, I come for you at eleven."

The d.u.c.h.ess rustled away. Julie was left standing by the table, alone.

Her face was very still, but her eyes shone, her teeth pressed her lip.

Unconsciously her hand closed upon a delicate blossom of eucharis and crushed it.

"I'll go," she said, to herself. "Yes, I'll go."

Her letter of the morning, as it happened, had included the following sentences:

"I think to-night I must put in an appearance at the Hubert Delafields', though I own that neither the house nor the son of the house is very much to my liking. But I hear that he has gone back to the country. And there are a few people who frequent Lady Hubert, who might just now be of use."

Lady Henry gave her consent that Mademoiselle Le Breton should accompany the d.u.c.h.ess to Lady Hubert's party almost with effusion. "It will be very dull," she said. "My sister-in-law makes a desert and calls it society. But if you want to go, go. As to Evelyn Crowborough, I am engaged to my dentist to-morrow morning."

When at night this message was reported to the d.u.c.h.ess, as she and Julie were on their way to Rutland Gate, she laughed.

"How much leek shall I have to swallow? What's to-morrow? Wednesday.

Hm--cards in the afternoon; in the evening I appear, sit on a stool at Lady Henry's feet, and look at you through my gla.s.ses as though I had never seen you before. On Thursday I leave a French book; on Friday I send the baby to see her. Goodness, what a time it takes!" said the d.u.c.h.ess, raising her very white and very small shoulders. "Well, for my life, I mustn't fail to-morrow night."

At Lady Hubert's they found a very tolerable, not to say lively, gathering, which quite belied Lady Henry's slanders. There was not the same conscious brilliance, the same thrill in the air, as pertained to the gatherings in Bruton Street. But there was a more solid social comfort, such as befits people untroubled by the certainty that the world is looking on. The guests of Bruton Street laughed, as well-bred people should, at the estimation in which Lady Henry's salon was held, by those especially who did not belong to it. Still, the mere knowledge of this outside estimate kept up a certain tension. At Lady Hubert's there was no tension, and the agreeable n.o.bodies who found their way in were not made to blush for the agreeable nothings of their conversation.

Lady Hubert herself made for ease--partly, no doubt, for stupidity. She was fair, sleepy, and substantial. Her husband had spent her fortune, and ruffled all the temper she had. The Hubert Delafields were now, however, better off than they had been--investments had recovered--and Lady Hubert's temper was once more placid, as Providence had meant it to be. During the coming season it was her firm intention to marry her daughter, who now stood beside her as she received her guests--a blonde, sweet-featured girl, given, however, so it was said, to good works, and not at all inclined to trouble herself overmuch about a husband.

The rooms were fairly full; and the entry of the d.u.c.h.ess and Mademoiselle Le Breton was one of the incidents of the evening, and visibly quickened the pulses of the a.s.sembly. The little Dresden-china d.u.c.h.ess, with her clothes, her jewels, and her smiles, had been, since her marriage, one of the chief favorites of fashion. She had been brought up in the depths of the country, and married at eighteen. After six years she was not in the least tired of her popularity or its penalties. All the life in her dainty person, her glancing eyes, and small, smiling lips rose, as it were, to meet the stir that she evoked.

She vaguely saw herself as t.i.tania, and played the part with childish glee. And like t.i.tania, as she had more than once ruefully reflected, she was liable to be chidden by her lord.

But the Duke was on this particular evening debating high subjects in the House of Lords, and the d.u.c.h.ess was amusing herself. Sir Wilfrid Bury, who arrived not long after his G.o.ddaughter, found her the centre first of a body-guard of cousins, including among them apparently a great many handsome young men, and then of a small crowd, whose vaguely smiling faces reflected the pleasure that was to be got, even at a distance, out of her young and merry beauty.

Julie Le Breton was not with her. But in the next room Sir Wilfrid soon perceived the form and face which, in their own way, exacted quite as much attention from the world as those of the d.u.c.h.ess. She was talking with many people, and, as usual, he could not help watching her. Never yet had he seen her wide, black eyes more vivid than they were to-night.

Now, as on his first sight of her, he could not bring himself to call them beautiful. Yet beautiful they were, by every canon of form and color. No doubt it was something in their expression that offended his own well-drilled instincts.

He found himself thinking suspicious thoughts about most of the conversations in which he saw her engaged. Why was she bestowing those careful smiles on that intolerable woman, Lady Froswick? And what an acquaintance she seemed to have among these elderly soldiers, who might at all times be reckoned on at Lady Hubert's parties! One gray-haired veteran after another recalled himself to her attention, got his few minutes with her, and pa.s.sed on smiling. Certain high officials, too, were no less friendly. Her court, it seemed to him, was mainly composed of the middle-aged; to-night, at any rate, she left the young to the d.u.c.h.ess. And it was on the whole a court of men. The women, as he now perceived, were a trifle more reserved. There was not, indeed, a trace of exclusion. They were glad to see her; glad, he thought, to be noticed by her. But they did not yield themselves--or so he fancied--with the same wholeness as their husbands.

"How old is she?" he asked himself. "About nine-and-twenty?... Jacob's age--or a trifle older."

After a time he lost sight of her, and in the amus.e.m.e.nt of his own evening forgot her. But as the rooms were beginning to thin he walked through them, looking for a famous collection of miniatures that belonged to Lady Hubert. English family history was one of his hobbies, and he was far better acquainted with the Delafield statesmen, and the Delafield beauties of the past, than were any of their modern descendants. Lady Hubert's Cosways and Plimers had made a lively impression upon him in days gone by, and he meant to renew acquaintance with them.

But they had been moved from the room in which he remembered them, and he was led on through a series of drawing-rooms, now nearly empty, till on the threshold of the last he paused suddenly.

A lady and gentleman rose from a sofa on which they had been sitting.

Captain Warkworth stood still. Mademoiselle Le Breton advanced to the new-comer.

"Is it very late?" she said, gathering up her fan and gloves. "We have been looking at Lady Hubert's miniatures. That lady with the m.u.f.f"--she pointed to the case which occupied a conspicuous position in the room--"is really wonderful. Can you tell me, Sir Wilfrid, where the d.u.c.h.ess is?"

"No, but I can help you find her," said that gentleman, forgetting the miniatures and endeavoring to look at neither of his companions.