ly worse to-day. As to her state of mind--"

The circle of faces drew eagerly nearer.

"Oh, it's war," said Sir Wilfrid, nodding--"undoubtedly war--upon the
Cave--if there is a Cave."

"Well, poor things, we must have something to shelter us!" cried the
Duchess. "The Cave is being aired to-day."

The interrogating faces turned her way. The Duchess explained the
situation, and drew the house in Heribert Street--with its Cyclops-eye
of a dormer window, and its Ionian columns--on the tea-cloth with
her nail.

"Ah," said Sir Wilfrid, crossing his knees reflectively. "Ah, that makes
it serious."

"Julie must have a place to live in," said the Duchess, stiffly.

"I suppose Lady Henry would reply that there are still a few houses in
London which do not belong to her kinsman, the Duke of Crowborough."

"Not perhaps to be had for the lending, and ready to step into at a
day's notice," said Lord Lackington, with his queer smile, like the play
of sharp sunbeams through a mist. "That's the worst of our class. The
margin between us and calamity is too wide. We risk too little. Nobody
goes to the workhouse."

Sir Wilfrid looked at him curiously. "Do I catch your meaning?" he said,
dropping his voice; "is it that if there had been no Duchess, and no
Heribert Street, Miss Le Breton would have managed to put up with
Lady Henry?"

Lord Lackington smiled again. "I think it probable.... As it is,
however, we are all the gainers. We shall now see Miss Julie at her ease
and ours."

"You have been for some time acquainted with Miss Le Breton?"

"Oh, some time. I don't exactly remember. Lady Henry, of course, is an
old friend of mine, as she is of yours. Sometimes she is rude to me.
Then I stay away. But I always go back. She and I can discuss things and
people that nobody else recollects--no, as far as that's concerned,
you're not in it, Bury. Only this winter, somehow, I have often gone
round to see Lady Henry, and have found Miss Le Breton instead so
attractive--"

"Precisely," said Sir Wilfrid, laughing; "the whole case in a nutshell."

"What puzzles me," continued his companion, in a musing voice, "is how
she can be so English as she is--with her foreign bringing up. She has a
most extraordinary instinct for people--people in London--and their
relations. I have never known her make a mistake. Yet it is only five
years since she began to come to England at all; and she has lived but
three with Lady Henry. It was clear, I