Lady Blanche sat stiffly beside her daughter, watching her face.  The warm touch of friendliness in Aileen’s manner towards Mrs. Delafield seemed only to increase the distance and embarrassment of her own.  Julie appeared to be quite unconscious.  She ordered tea, and made no further allusion of any kind to the kindred they had in common.  She and Lady Blanche talked as strangers.

Julie said to herself that she understood.  She remembered the evening at Crowborough House, the spinster lady who had been the Moffatts’ friend, her own talk with Evelyn.  In that way, or in some other, the current gossip about herself and Warkworth, gossip they had been too mad and miserable to take much account of, had reached Lady Blanche.  Lady Blanche probably abhorred her; though, because of her marriage, there was to be an outer civility.  Meanwhile no sign whatever of any angry or resentful knowledge betrayed itself in the girl’s manner.  Clearly the mother had shielded her.

Julie felt the flutter of an exquisite relief.  She stole many a look at Aileen, comparing the reality with that old, ugly notion her jealousy had found so welcome—­of the silly or insolent little creature, possessing all that her betters desired, by the mere brute force of money or birth.  And all the time the reality was this—­so soft, suppliant, ethereal!  Here, indeed, was the child of Warkworth’s picture—­the innocent, unknowing child, whom their passion had sacrificed and betrayed.  She could see the face now, as it lay piteous, in Warkworth’s hand.  Then she raised her eyes to the original.  And as it looked at her with timidity and nascent love her own heart beat wildly, now in remorse, now in a reviving jealousy.

Secretly, behind this mask of convention, were they both thinking of him?  A girl’s thoughts are never far from her lover; and Julie was conscious, this afternoon, of a strange and mysterious preoccupation, whereof Warkworth was the centre.

* * * * *

Gradually the great mountains at the head of the lake freed themselves from the last wandering cloud-wreaths.  On the rock faces of the Rochers de Naye the hanging pine-woods, brushed with snow, came into sight.  The white walls of Glion shone faintly out, and a pearly gold, which was but a pallid reflection of the Italian glory, diffused itself over mountain and lake.  The sun was grudging; there was no caress in the air.  Aileen shivered a little in her shawls, and when Julie spoke of Italy the girl’s enthusiasm and longing sprang, as it were, to meet her, and both were conscious of another slight link between them.

Suddenly a sound of steps came to them from below.

“My husband,” said Julie, rising, and, going to the balustrade, she waved to Delafield, who had come up from Montreux by one of the steep vineyard paths.  “I will tell him you are here,” she added, with what might have been taken for the shyness of the young wife.