Sir Wilfrid. "A man wouldn't have said
that."

Then, aloud:

"I thought you were afraid lest he should want to marry her?"

"Oh, let him cut his throat if he likes!" said Lady Henry, with the
inconsistency of fury. "What does it matter to me?"

"By-the-way, as to that"--he spoke as though feeling his way--"have you
never had suspicions in quite another direction?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I hear a good deal in various quarters of the trouble
Mademoiselle Le Breton is taking--on behalf of that young soldier who
was here just now--Harry Warkworth."

Lady Henry laughed impatiently.

"I dare say. She is always wanting to patronize or influence somebody.
It's in her nature. She's a born _intrigante_. If you knew her as well
as I do, you wouldn't think much of that. Oh no--make your mind easy.
It's Jacob she wants--it's Jacob she'll get, very likely. What can an
old, blind creature like me do to stop it?"

"And as Jacob's wife--the wife perhaps of the head of the family--you
still mean to quarrel with her?"

"Yes, I _do_ mean to quarrel with her!" and Lady Henry lifted herself in
her chair, a pale and quivering image of war--"Duchess or no Duchess!
Did you see the audacious way in which she behaved this
afternoon?--_how_ she absorbs my guests?--how she allows and encourages
a man like Montresor to forget himself?--eggs him on to put slights on
me in my own drawing-room!"

"No, no! You are really unjust," said Sir Wilfrid, laying a kind hand
upon her arm. "That was not her fault."

"It _is_ her fault that she is what she is!--that her character is such
that she _forces_ comparisons between us--between _her_ and _me!_--that
she pushes herself into a prominence that is intolerable, considering
who and what she is--that she makes me appear in an odious light to my
old friends. No, no, Wilfrid, your first instinct was the true one. I
shall have to bring myself to it, whatever it costs. She must take her
departure, or I shall go to pieces, morally and physically. To be in a
temper like this, at my age, shortens one's life--you know that."

"And you can't subdue the temper?" he asked, with a queer smile.

"No, I can't! That's flat. She gets on my nerves, and I'm not
responsible. _C'est fini_."

"Well," he said, slowly, "I hope you understand what it means?"

"Oh, I know she has plenty of friends!" she said, defiantly. But her old
hands trembled on her knee.

"Unfortunately they were and are yours. At least,