sort; breathing now a studious dignity, the effect of the broad
sweep of brow under the high-peaked lines of grizzled hair, and now
broken, tempestuous, scornful, changing with the pliancy of an actor.
The head was sunk a little in the shoulders, as though dragged back by
its own weight. The form which it commanded had the movements of a man
no less accustomed to rule in his own sphere than Montresor himself.

To Sir Wilfrid the famous editor was still personally mysterious, after
many years of intermittent acquaintance. He was apparently unmarried; or
was there perhaps a wife, picked up in a previous state of existence,
and hidden away with her offspring at Clapham or Hornsey or Peckham?
Bury could remember, years before, a dowdy old sister, to whom Lady
Henry had been on occasion formally polite. Otherwise, nothing. What
were the great man's origins and antecedents--his family, school,
university? Sir Wilfrid did not know; he did not believe that any one
knew. An amazing mastery of the German, and, it was said, the Russian
tongues, suggested a foreign education; but neither on this ground nor
any other connected with his personal history did Meredith encourage the
inquirer. It was often reported that he was of Jewish descent, and there
were certain traits, both of feature and character, that lent support to
the notion. If so, the strain was that of Heine or Disraeli, not the
strain of Commerce.

At any rate, he was one of the most powerful men of his day--the owner,
through _The New Rambler_, of an influence which now for some fifteen
years had ranked among the forces to be reckoned with. A man in whom
politics assumed a tinge of sombre poetry; a man of hatreds, ideals,
indignations, yet of habitually sober speech. As to passions, Sir
Wilfrid could have sworn that, wife or no wife, the man who could show
that significance of mouth and eye had not gone through life without
knowing the stress and shock of them.

Was he, too, beguiled by this woman?--_he, too?_ For a little behind
him, beside the Duchess, sat Jacob Delafield; and, during his painful
interview that day with Lady Henry, Sir Wilfrid had been informed of
several things with regard to Jacob Delafield he had not known before.
So she had refused him--this lady who was now the heart of this
whirlwind? Permanently? Lady Henry had poured scorn on the notion. She
was merely sure of him; could keep him in a string to play with as she
chose. Meanwhile the handsome