“You forget, Freddie, that she is my friend.”

The little creature fronted him, all wilfulness and breathing hard, her small hands clasped on her breast.

With an angry exclamation the Duke departed.

* * * * *

At half-past eight a hansom dashed up to Crowborough House.  Montresor emerged.

He found the two ladies and Jacob Delafield just beginning dinner, and stayed with them an hour; but it was not an hour of pleasure.  The great man was tired with work and debate, depressed also by the quarrel with his old friend.  Julie did not dare to put questions, and guiltily shrank into herself.  She divined that a great price was being paid on her behalf, and must needs bitterly ask whether anything that she could offer or plead was worth it—­bitterly suspect, also, that the query had passed through other minds than her own.

After dinner, as Montresor rose with the Duchess to take his leave, Julie got a word with him in the corridor.

“You will give me ten minutes’ talk?” she said, lifting her pale face to him.  “You mustn’t, mustn’t quarrel with Lady Henry because of me.”

He drew himself up, perhaps with a touch of haughtiness.

“Lady Henry could end it in a moment.  Don’t, I beg of you, trouble your head about the matter.  Even as an old friend, one must be allowed one’s self-respect.”

“But mayn’t I—­”

“Nearly ten o’clock!” he cried, looking at his watch.  “I must be off this moment.  So you are going to the house in Heribert Street?  I remember Lady Mary Leicester perfectly.  As soon as you are settled, tell me, and I will present myself.  Meanwhile “—­he smiled and bent his black head towards her—­“look in to-morrow’s papers for some interesting news.”

He sprang into his hansom and was gone.

Julie went slowly up-stairs.  Of course she understood.  The long intrigue had reached its goal, and within twelve hours the Times would announce the appointment of Captain Warkworth, D.S.O., to the command of the Mokembe military mission.  He would have obtained his heart’s desire—­through her.

How true were those last words, perhaps only Julie knew.  She looked back upon all the manoeuvres and influences she had brought to bear—­flattery here, interest or reciprocity there, the lures of Crowborough House, the prestige of Lady Henry’s drawing-room.  Wheel by wheel she had built up her cunning machine, and the machine had worked.  No doubt the last completing touch had been given the night before.  Her culminating offence against Lady Henry—­the occasion of her disgrace and banishment—­had been to Warkworth the stepping-stone of fortune.

What “gossamer girl” could have done so much?  She threw back her head proudly and heard the beating of her heart.

Lady Henry was fiercely forgotten.  She opened the drawing-room door, absorbed in a counting of the hours till she and Warkworth should meet.