rough the crisis of leaving Lady Henry she would relinquish
her designs on Delafield."

"Did I?" said the Duchess. And putting her hands over her face she
laughed rather hysterically. "But that wasn't why you lent her the
house, Freddie."

"You coaxed me into it, of course," said the Duke.

"No, it was Julie herself got the better of you," said Evelyn,
triumphantly. "You felt her spell, just as we all do, and wanted to do
something for her."

"Nothing of the sort," said the Duke, determined to admit no
recollection to his disadvantage. "It was your doing entirely."

The Duchess thought it discreet to let him at least have the triumph of
her silence, smiling, and a little sarcastic though it were.

"And of all the undeserved good fortune!" he resumed, feeling in his
irritable disapproval that the moral order of the universe had been
somehow trifled with. "In the first place, she is the daughter of people
who flagrantly misconducted themselves--_that_ apparently does her no
harm. Then she enters the service of Lady Henry in a confidential
position, and uses it to work havoc in Lady Henry's social relations.
That, I am glad to say, _has_ done her a little harm, although not
nearly as much as she deserves. And finally she has a most discreditable
flirtation with a man already engaged--to her own cousin, please
observe!--and pulls wires for him all over the place in the most
objectionable and unwomanly manner."

"As if everybody didn't do that!" cried the Duchess. "You know, Freddie,
that your own mother always used to boast that she had made six bishops
and saved the Establishment."

The Duke took no notice.

"And yet there she is! Lord Lackington has left her a fortune--a
competence, anyway. She marries Jacob Delafield--rather a fool, I
consider, but all the same one of the best fellows in the world. And at
any time, to judge from what one hears of the health both of Chudleigh
and his boy, she may find herself Duchess of Chudleigh."

The Duke threw himself back in the carriage with the air of one who
waits for Providence to reply.

"Oh, well, you see, you can't make the world into a moral tale to please
you," said the Duchess, absently.

Then, after a pause, she asked, "Are you still going to let them have
the house, Freddie?"

"I imagine that if Jacob Delafield applies to me to let it to _him_,
that I shall not refuse him," said the Duke, stiffly.

The Duchess smiled behind her fan. Yet her tender heart