g tea and coffee?"

"Oh no," said Miss Le Breton, hastily; and then, after reflection,
"Well, have it ready; but I don't suppose anybody will ask for it. Is
there a good fire in the library?"

"Oh yes, miss. I thought you would be coming down there again. Shall I
take some of these flowers down? The room looks rather bare, if
anybody's coming in."

Julie colored a little.

"Well, you might--not many. And, Hutton, you're sure we can't disturb
Lady Henry?"

Hutton's expression was not wholly confident.

"Her ladyship's very quick of hearing, miss. But I'll shut those doors
at the foot of the back stairs, and I'll ask every one to come
in quietly."

"Thank you, Hutton--thank you. That'll be very good of you. And,
Hutton--"

"Yes, miss." The man paused with a large vase of white arums in his
hand.

"You'll say a word to Dixon, won't you? If anybody comes in, there'll be
no need to trouble Lady Henry about it. I can tell her to-morrow."

"Very good, miss. Dixon will be down to her supper presently."

The butler departed. Julie was left alone in the now darkened room,
lighted only by one lamp and the bright glow of the fire. She caught her
breath--suddenly struck with the audacity of what she had been doing.
Eight or ten of these people certainly would come in--eight or ten of
Lady Henry's "intimates." If Lady Henry discovered it--after this
precarious truce between them had just been patched up!

Julie made a step towards the door as though to recall the butler, then
stopped herself. The thought that in an hour's time Harry Warkworth
might be within a few yards of her, and she not permitted to see him,
worked intolerably in heart and brain, dulling the shrewd intelligence
by which she was ordinarily governed. She was conscious, indeed, of some
profound inner change. Life had been difficult enough before the Duchess
had said those few words to her. But since!

Suppose he had deceived her at Lady Hubert's party! Through all her
mounting passion her acute sense of character did not fail her. She
secretly knew that it was quite possible he had deceived her. But the
knowledge merely added to the sense of danger which, in this case, was
one of the elements of passion itself.

"He must have money--of course he must have money," she was saying,
feverishly, to herself. "But I'll find ways. Why should he marry
yet--for years? It would be only hampering him."

Again she paused before the mirrored wall; and again ima