ridiculous bazaar. So then my back was
put up again, and I told her a few home truths about the way in which
she had made mischief and forced Julie into a totally false position.
On which she flew into a passion, and said a lot of silly nonsense about
Julie, that showed me, among other things, that Mademoiselle Le Breton
had broken her solemn compact with me, and had told her family history
both to Evelyn and to Jacob Delafield. That alone would be sufficient to
justify me in dismissing her. _N'est-ce pas?_"

"Oh yes," murmured Sir Wilfrid, "if you want to dismiss her."

"We shall come to that presently," said Lady Henry, shortly. "Imagine,
please, the kind of difficulties in which these confidences, if they
have gone any further--and who knows?--may land me. I shall have old
Lord Lackington--who behaved like a brute to his daughter while she was
alive, and is, all the same, a _poseur_ from top to toe--walking in here
one night and demanding his granddaughter--spreading lies, perhaps, that
I have been ill-treating her. Who can say what absurdities may happen if
it once gets out that she is Lady Rose's child? I could name half a
dozen people, who come here habitually, who would consider themselves
insulted if they knew--what you and I know."

"Insulted? Because her mother--"

"Because her mother broke the seventh commandment? Oh, dear, no! That,
in my opinion, doesn't touch people much nowadays. Insulted because they
had been kept in the dark--that's all. Vanity, not morals."

"As far as I can ascertain," said Sir Wilfrid, meditatively, "only the
Duchess, Delafield, Montresor, and myself are in the secret."

"Montresor!" cried Lady Henry, beside herself. "_Montresor!_ That's new
to me. Oh, she shall go at once--at once!" She breathed hard.

"Wait a little. Have you had any talk with Jacob?"

"I should think not! Evelyn, of course, brings him in perpetually--Jacob
this and Jacob that. He seems to have been living in her pocket, and the
three have been intriguing against me, morning, noon, and night. Where
Julie has found the time I can't imagine; I thought I had kept her
pretty well occupied."

Sir Wilfrid surveyed his angry companion and held his peace.

"So you don't know what Jacob thinks?"

"Why should I want to know?" said Lady Henry, disdainfully. "A lad whom
I sent to Eton and Oxford, when his father couldn't pay his bills--what
does it matter to me what he thinks?"

"Women are strange folk," thought