“Well,” she said, slowly, “I can tell you of some one who is very devoted to Julie—­some one worthy of her.  Come with me.”

And she took him away into the next room, still talking in his ear.

* * * * *

When they returned, Lord Lackington was radiant.  With a new eagerness he looked for Julie’s distant figure amid the groups scattered about the central room.  The Duchess had sworn him to secrecy, indeed; and he meant to be discretion itself.  But—­Jacob Delafield!  Yes, that, indeed, would be a solution.  His pride was acutely pleased; his affection—­of which he already began to feel no small store for this charming woman of his own blood, this poor granddaughter de la main gauche—­was strengthened and stimulated.  She was sad now and out of spirits, poor thing, because, no doubt, of this horrid business with Lady Henry, to whom, by-the-way, he had written his mind.  But time would see to that—­time—­gently and discreetly assisted by himself and the Duchess.  It was impossible that she should finally hold out against such a good fellow—­impossible, and most unreasonable.  No.  Rose’s daughter would be brought back safely to her mother’s world and class, and poor Rose’s tragedy would at last work itself out for good.  How strange, romantic, and providential!

In such a mood did he now devote himself to Julie.  He chattered about the pictures; he gossiped about their owners; he excused himself for the absence of “that gad-about Blanche”; he made her promise him a Whitsuntide visit instead, and whispered in her ear, “You shall have her room”; he paid her the most handsome and gallant attentions, natural to the man of fashion par excellence, mingled with something intimate, brusque, capricious, which marked her his own, and of the family.  Seventy-five!—­with that step, that carriage of the shoulders, that vivacity!  Ridiculous!

And Julie could not but respond.

Something stole into her heart that had never yet lodged there.  She must love the old man—­she did.  When he left her for the Duchess her eyes followed him—­her dark-rimmed, wistful eyes.

“I must be off,” said Lord Lackington, presently, buttoning up his coat.  “This, ladies, has been dalliance.  I now go to my duties.  Read me in the Times to-morrow.  I shall make a rattling speech.  You see, I shall rub it in.”

“Montresor?” said the Duchess.

Lord Lackington nodded.  That afternoon he proposed to strew the floor of the House of Lords with the debris of Montresor’s farcical reforms.

Suddenly he pulled himself up.

“Duchess, look round you, at those two in the doorway.  Isn’t it—­by George, it is!—­Chudleigh and his boy!”

“Yes—­yes, it is,” said the Duchess, in some excitement.  “Don’t recognize them.  Don’t speak to him.  Jacob implored me not.”

And she hurried her companions along till they were well out of the track of the new-comers; then on the threshold of another room she paused, and, touching Julie on the arm, said, in a whisper: