In London he showed little or nothing of his peculiar ways and pursuits; was, in fact, as far as anybody knew—­outside half a dozen friends—­just the ordinary, well-disposed young man, engaged in a business that every one understood.  With Lady Henry, his relations, apart from his sympathy with Julie Le Breton, had been for some time rather difficult.  She made gratitude hard for one of the most grateful of men.  When the circumstances of the Hubert Delafields had been much straitened, after Lord Hubert’s death, Lady Henry had come to their aid, and had, in particular, spent fifteen hundred pounds on Jacob’s school and college education.  But there are those who can make a gift burn into the bones of those who receive it.  Jacob had now saved nearly the whole sum, and was about to repay her.  Meanwhile his obligation, his relationship, and her age made it natural, or rather imperative, that he should be often in her house; but when he was with her the touch of arrogant brutality in her nature, especially towards servants and dependants, roused him almost to fury.  She knew it, and would often exercise her rough tongue merely for the pleasure of tormenting him.

No sooner, therefore, had he come to know the fragile, distinguished creature whom Lady Henry had brought back with her one autumn as her companion than his sympathies were instantly excited, first by the mere fact that she was Lady Henry’s dependant, and then by the confidence, as to her sad story and strange position, which she presently reposed in him and his cousin Evelyn.  On one or two occasions, very early in his acquaintance with her, he was a witness of some small tyranny of Lady Henry’s towards her.  He saw the shrinking of the proud nature, and the pain thrilled through his own nerves as though the lash had touched himself.  Presently it became a joy to him whenever he was in town to conspire with Evelyn Crowborough for her pleasure and relief.  It was the first time he had ever conspired, and it gave him sometimes a slight shock to see how readily these two charming women lent themselves, on occasion, to devices that had the aspect of intrigue, and involved a good deal of what, in his own case, he would have roundly dubbed lying.  And, in truth, if he had known, they did not find him a convenient ally, and he was by no means always in their confidence.

Once, about six months after Julie’s arrival in Bruton Street, he met her on a spring morning crossing Kensington Gardens with the dogs.  She looked startlingly white and ill, and when he spoke to her with eager sympathy her mouth quivered and her dark eyes clouded with tears.  The sight produced an extraordinary effect on a man large-hearted and simple, for whom women still moved in an atmosphere of romance.  His heart leaped within him as she let herself be talked with and comforted.  And when her delicate hand rested in his as they said good-bye, he was conscious of feelings—­wild, tumultuous feelings—­to which, in his walk homeward through the spring glades of the park, he gave impetuous course.