* * * * *

Meanwhile in the Duchess's drawing--room a little knot of people was
gathered--Lady Henry, Sir Wilfrid Bury, and Dr. Meredith. Their demeanor
illustrated both the subduing and the exciting influence of great
events. Lady Henry was more talkative than usual. Sir Wilfrid
more silent.

Lady Henry seemed to have profited by her stay at Torquay. As she sat
upright in a stiff chair, her hands resting on her stick, she presented
her characteristic aspect of English solidity, crossed by a certain free
and foreign animation. She had been already wrangling with Sir Wilfrid,
and giving her opinion freely on the "socialistic" views on rank and
property attributed to Jacob Delafield. "If _he_ can't digest the cake,
that doesn't mean it isn't good," had been her last impatient remark,
when Sir Wilfrid interrupted her.

"Only a few minutes more," he said, looking at his watch. "Now, then,
what line do we take? How much is our friend likely to know?"

"Unless she has lost her eyesight--which Evelyn has not reported--she
will know most of what matters before she has gone a hundred yards from
the station," said Lady Henry, dryly.

"Oh, the streets! Yes; but persons are often curiously dazed by such a
gallop of events."

"Not Julie Le Breton!"

"I should like to be informed as to the part you are about to play,"
said Sir Wilfrid, in a lower voice, "that I may play up to it. Where
are you?"

Both looked at Meredith, who had walked to a distant window and was
standing there looking out upon the square. Lady Henry was well aware
that _he_ had not forgiven her, and, to tell the truth, was rather
anxious that he should. So she, too, dropped her voice.

"I bow to the institutions of my country," she said, a little sparkle in
the strong, gray eye.

"In other words, you forgive a duchess?"

"I acknowledge the head of the family, and the greater carries the
less."

"Suppose Jacob should be unforgiving?"

"He hasn't the spirit."

"And she?"

"Her conscience will be on my side."

"I thought it was your theory that she had none?"

"Jacob, let us hope, will have developed some. He has a good deal to
spare."

Sir Wilfrid laughed. "So it is you who will do the pardoning?"

"I shall offer an armed and honorable peace. The Duchess of Chudleigh
may intrigue and tell lies, if she pleases. I am not giving her a
hundred a year."

There was a pause.

"Why, if I may ask," said Sir Wilfrid, at