“Is Lady Henry aware of this—­this division of labor?” said Sir Wilfrid, smiling.

“Of course not,” said the Duchess, flushing.  “She makes Julie’s life such a burden to her that something has to be done.  Now what has Aunt Flora been telling you?  We were certain she would take you into council—­she has dropped various hints of it.  I suppose she has been telling you that Julie has been intriguing against her—­taking liberties, separating her from her friends, and so on?”

Sir Wilfrid smilingly presented his cup for some more tea.

“I beg to point out,” he said, “that I have only been allowed two questions so far.  But if things are to be at all fair and equal, I am owed at least six.”

The Duchess drew back, checked, and rather annoyed.  Jacob Delafield, on the other hand, bent forward.

“We are anxious, Sir Wilfrid, to tell you all we know,” he replied, with quiet emphasis.

Sir Wilfrid looked at him.  The flame in the young man’s eyes burned clear and steady—­but flame it was.  Sir Wilfrid remembered him as a lazy, rather somnolent youth; the man’s advance in expression, in significant power, of itself, told much.

“In the first place, can you give me the history of this lady’s antecedents?”

He glanced from one to the other.

The Duchess and Jacob Delafield exchanged glances.  Then the Duchess spoke—­uncertainly.

“Yes, we know.  She has confided in us.  There is nothing whatever to her discredit.”

Sir Wilfrid’s expression changed.

“Ah!” cried the Duchess, bending forward.  “You know, too?”

“I knew her father and mother,” said Sir Wilfrid, simply.

The Duchess gave a little cry of relief.  Jacob Delafield rose, took a turn across the room, and came back to Sir Wilfrid.

“Now we can really speak frankly,” he said.  “The situation has grown very difficult, and we did not know—­Evelyn and I—­whether we had a right to explain it.  But now that Lady Henry—­”

“Oh yes,” said Sir Wilfrid, “that’s all right.  The fact of Mademoiselle Le Breton’s parentage—­”

“Is really what makes Lady Henry so jealous!” cried the Duchess, indignantly.  “Oh, she’s a tyrant, is Aunt Flora!  It is because Julie is of her own world—­of our world, by blood, whatever the law may say—­that she can’t help making a rival out of her, and tormenting her morning, noon, and night.  I tell you, Sir Wilfrid, what that poor girl has gone through no one can imagine but we who have watched it.  Lady Henry owes her everything this last three years.  Where would she have been without Julie?  She talks of Julie’s separating her from her friends, cutting her out, imposing upon her, and nonsense of that kind!  How would she have kept up that salon alone, I should like to know—­a blind old woman who can’t write a note for herself or recognize a face?  First of all she throws everything upon