Julie Le Breton rose at once.  She went towards a table at the farther end of the large room, and Captain Warkworth followed her.  Montresor, perhaps repenting himself a little, returned to Lady Henry; and though she received him with great coolness, the circle round her, now augmented by Dr. Meredith, and another politician or two, was reconstituted; and presently, with a conscious effort, visible at least to Bury, she exerted herself to hold it, and succeeded.

Suddenly—­just as Bury had finished a very neat analysis of the Shah’s public and private character, and while the applauding laughter of the group of intimates amid which he sat told him that his epigrams had been good—­he happened to raise his eyes towards the distant settee where Julie Le Breton was sitting.

His smile stiffened on his lips.  Like an icy wave, a swift and tragic impression swept through him.  He turned away, ashamed of having seen, and hid himself, as it were, with relief, in the clamor of amusement awakened by his own remarks.

What had he seen?  Merely, or mainly, a woman’s face.  Young Warkworth stood beside the sofa, on which sat Lady Henry’s companion, his hands in his pockets, his handsome head bent towards her.  They had been talking earnestly, wholly forgetting and apparently forgotten by the rest of the room.  On his side there was an air of embarrassment.  He seemed to be choosing his words with difficulty, his eyes on the floor.  Julie Le Breton, on the contrary, was looking at him—­looking with all her soul, her ardent, unhappy soul—­unconscious of aught else in the wide world.

“Good God! she is in love with him!” was the thought that rushed through Sir Wilfrid’s mind.  “Poor thing!  Poor thing!”

* * * * *

Sir Wilfrid outstayed his fellow-guests.  By seven o’clock all were gone.  Mademoiselle Le Breton had retired.  He and Lady Henry were left alone.

“Shut the doors!” she said, peremptorily, looking round her as the last guest disappeared.  “I must have some private talk with you.  Well, I understand you walked home from the Crowboroughs’ the other night with—­that woman.”

She turned sharply upon him.  The accent was indescribable.  And with a fierce hand she arranged the folds of her own thick silk dress, as though, for some relief to the stormy feeling within, she would rather have torn than smoothed it.

Sir Wilfrid seated himself beside her, knees crossed, finger-tips lightly touching, the fair eyelashes somewhat lowered—­Calm beside Tempest.

“I am sorry to hear you speak so,” he said, gravely, after a pause.  “Yes, I talked with her.  She met me very fairly, on the whole.  It seemed to me she was quite conscious that her behavior had not been always what it should be, and that she was sincerely anxious to change it.  I did my best as a peacemaker.  Has she made no signs since—­no advances?”

Lady Henry threw out her hand in disdain.