“Jacob!” said the Duke.  “What’s he got to do with it?”

The Duchess suddenly saw her opportunity, and rushed upon it.

“Only that he’s madly in love with her, that’s all.  And, to my knowledge, she has refused him both last year and this.  Of course, naturally, if you won’t do anything to help her, she’ll probably marry him—­simply as a way out.”

“Well, of all the extraordinary affairs!”

The Duke released her, and stood bewildered.  The Duchess watched him in some excitement.  He was about to speak, when there was a sound in the anteroom.  They moved hastily apart.  The door was thrown open, and the footman announced, “Miss Le Breton.”

* * * * *

Julie Le Breton entered, and stood a moment on the threshold, looking, not in embarrassment, but with a certain hesitation, at the two persons whose conversation she had disturbed.  She was pale with sleeplessness; her look was sad and weary.  But never had she been more composed, more elegant.  Her closely fitting black cloth dress; her strangely expressive face, framed by a large hat, very simple, but worn as only the woman of fashion knows how; her miraculous yet most graceful slenderness; the delicacy of her hands; the natural dignity of her movements—­these things produced an immediate, though, no doubt, conflicting impression upon the gentleman who had just been denouncing her.  He bowed, with an involuntary deference which he had not at all meant to show to Lady Henry’s insubordinate companion, and then stood frowning.

But the Duchess ran forward, and, quite heedless of her husband, threw herself into her friend’s arms.

“Oh, Julie, is there anything left of you?  I hardly slept a wink for thinking of you.  What did that old—­oh, I forgot—­do you know my husband?  Freddie, this is my great friend, Miss Le Breton.”

The Duke bowed again, silently.  Julie looked at him, and then, still holding the Duchess by the hand, she approached him, a pair of very fine and pleading eyes fixed upon his face.

“You have probably heard from Lady Henry, have you not?” she said, addressing him.  “In a note I had from her this morning she told me she had written to you.  I could not help coming to-day, because Evelyn has been so kind.  But—­is it your wish that I should come here?”

The Christian name slipped out unawares, and the Duke winced at it.  The likeness to Lord Lackington—­it was certainly astonishing.  There ran through his mind the memory of a visit paid long ago to his early home by Lord Lackington and two daughters, Rose and Blanche.  He, the Duke, had then been a boy home from school.  The two girls, one five or six years older than the other, had been the life and charm of the party.  He remembered hunting with Lady Rose.

But the confusion in his mind had somehow to be mastered, and he made an effort.

“I shall be glad if my wife is able to be of any assistance to you, Miss Le Breton,” he said, coldly; “but it would not be honest if I were to conceal my opinion—­so far as I have been able to form it—­that Lady Henry has great and just cause of complaint.”