ht. I shall see her on Sunday, so I can report."

"Not before Sunday?" Delafield paused. His clear blue eyes looked down,
dissatisfied, upon Sir Wilfrid.

"Impossible before. I have all sorts of official people to see to-morrow
and Saturday. And, Jacob, keep the Duchess quiet. She may have to give
up Mademoiselle Julie for her bazaar."

"I'll tell her."

"By-the-way, is that little person happy?" said Sir Wilfrid, as he
opened the door to his departing guest. "When I left England she was
only just married."

"Oh yes, she's happy enough, though Crowborough's rather an ass."

"How--particularly?"

Delafield smiled.

"Well, he's rather a sticky sort of person. He thinks there's something
particularly interesting in dukes, which makes him a bore."

"Take care, Jacob! Who knows that you won't be a duke yourself some
day?"

"What _do_ you mean?" The young man glowered almost fiercely upon his
old friend.

"I hear Chudleigh's boy is but a poor creature," said Sir Wilfrid,
gravely. "Lady Henry doesn't expect him to live."

"Why, that's the kind that always does live!" cried Delafield, with
angry emphasis. "And as for Lady Henry, her imagination is a perfect
charnel-house. She likes to think that everybody's dead or dying but
herself. The fact is that Mervyn is a good deal stronger this year than
he was last. Really, Lady Henry--" The tone lost itself in a growl
of wrath.

"Well, well," said Sir Wilfrid, smiling, "'A man beduked against his
will,' etcetera. Good-night, my dear Jacob, and good luck to your
old pauper."

But Delafield turned back a moment on the stairs.

"I say"--he hesitated--"you won't shirk talking to Lady Henry?"

"No, no. Sunday, certainly--honor bright. Oh, I think we shall
straighten it out."

Delafield ran down the stairs, and Sir Wilfrid returned to his warm room
and the dregs of his tea.

"Now--is he in love with her, and hesitating for social reasons? Or--is
he jealous of this fellow Warkworth? Or--has she snubbed him, and both
are keeping it dark? Not very likely, that, in view of his prospects.
She must want to regularize her position. Or--is he not in love with
her at all?"

On which cogitations there fell presently the strokes of many bells
tolling midnight, and left them still unresolved. Only one positive
impression remained--that Jacob Delafield had somehow grown, vaguely but
enormously, in mental and moral bulk during the years since he had left
Oxford--the years of Bu