tried to question her about this man. I had seen them
together in the Park, talking as intimates. So, when our conversation
had reached a friendly stage, I threw out a feeler or two, just to
satisfy myself about her. But--"

He pulled his fair mustaches and smiled.

"Well?" said the young man, with a kind of reluctant interrogation.

"She played with me, Jacob. But really she overdid it. For such a clever
woman, I assure you, she overdid it!"

"I don't see why she shouldn't keep her friendships to herself," said
Delafield, with sudden heat.

"Oh, so you admit it is a friendship?"

Delafield did not reply. He had laid down his cigar, and with his hands
on his knees was looking steadily into the fire. His attitude, however,
was not one of reverie, but rather of a strained listening.

"What is the meaning, Jacob, of a young woman taking so keen an interest
in the fortunes of a dashing soldier--for, between you and me, I hear
she is moving heaven and earth to get him this post--and then
concealing it?"

"Why should she want her kindnesses talked of?" said the young man,
impetuously. "She was perfectly right, I think, to fence with your
questions, Sir Wilfrid. It's one of the secrets of her influence that
she can render a service--and keep it dark."

Sir Wilfrid shook his head.

"She overdid it," he repeated. "However, what do you think of the man
yourself, Jacob?"

"Well, I don't take to him," said the other, unwillingly. "He isn't my
sort of man."

"And Mademoiselle Julie--you think nothing but well of her? I don't like
discussing a lady; but, you see, with Lady Henry to manage, one must
feel the ground as one can."

Sir Wilfrid looked at his companion, and then stretched his legs a
little farther towards the fire. The lamp-light shone full on his silky
eyelashes and beard, on his neatly parted hair, and the diamond on his
fine left hand. The young man beside him could not emulate his easy
composure. He fidgeted nervously as he replied, with warmth:

"I think she has had an uncommonly hard time, that she wants nothing but
what is reasonable, and that if she threw you off the scent, Sir
Wilfrid, with regard to Warkworth, she was quite within her rights. You
probably deserved it."

He threw up his head with a quick gesture of challenge. Sir Wilfrid
shrugged his shoulders.

"I vow I didn't," he murmured. "However, that's all right. What do you
do with yourself down in Essex, Jacob?"

The lines of the y