envy, with whom one never had
a dull moment--this courted, distinguished Julie Le Breton--his mind
swelled with half-guilty pride at the thought that for six months he had
absorbed all her energies, that a word from him could make her smile or
sigh, that he could force her to look at him with eyes so melting and so
troubled as those with which she had given him her hands--her slim,
beautiful hands--that night in Grosvenor Square.

How freedom became her! Dependency had dropped from her, like a cast-off
cloak, and beside her fresh, melancholy charm, the airs and graces of a
child of fashion and privilege like the little Duchess appeared almost
cheap and trivial. Poor Julie! No doubt some social struggle was before
her. Lady Henry was strong, after all, in this London world, and the
solider and stupider people who get their way in the end were not, she
thought, likely to side with Lady Henry's companion in a quarrel where
the facts of the story were unquestionably, at first sight, damaging to
Miss Le Breton. Julie would have her hours of bitterness and
humiliation; and she would conquer by boldness, if she conquered at
all--by originality, by determining to live her own life. That would
preserve for her the small circle, if it lost her the large world. And
the small circle was what she lived for, what she ought, at any rate,
to live for.

It was not likely she would marry. Why should she desire it? From any
blundering tragedy a woman of so acute a brain would, of course, know
how to protect herself. But within the limits of her life, why should
she refuse herself happiness, intimacy, love?

His heart beat fast; his thoughts were in a whirl. But the train was
nearing Portsmouth, and with an effort he recalled his mind to the
meeting with his mother, which was then close upon him.

He spent nearly a week in the little cottage at Sea View, and Mrs.
Warkworth got far more pleasure than usual, poor lady, out of his visit.
She was a thin, plain woman, not devoid of either ability or character.
But life had gone hardly with her, and since her husband's death what
had been reserve had become melancholy. She had always been afraid of
her only son since they had sent him to Charterhouse, and he had become
so much "finer" than his parents. She knew that he must consider her a
very ignorant and narrow-minded person; when he was with her she was
humiliated in her own eyes, though as soon as he was gone she resumed
what was in tru