iends--just
the ordinary, well-disposed young man, engaged in a business that every
one understood. With Lady Henry, his relations, apart from his sympathy
with Julie Le Breton, had been for some time rather difficult. She made
gratitude hard for one of the most grateful of men. When the
circumstances of the Hubert Delafields had been much straitened, after
Lord Hubert's death, Lady Henry had come to their aid, and had, in
particular, spent fifteen hundred pounds on Jacob's school and college
education. But there are those who can make a gift burn into the bones
of those who receive it. Jacob had now saved nearly the whole sum, and
was about to repay her. Meanwhile his obligation, his relationship, and
her age made it natural, or rather imperative, that he should be often
in her house; but when he was with her the touch of arrogant brutality
in her nature, especially towards servants and dependants, roused him
almost to fury. She knew it, and would often exercise her rough tongue
merely for the pleasure of tormenting him.

No sooner, therefore, had he come to know the fragile, distinguished
creature whom Lady Henry had brought back with her one autumn as her
companion than his sympathies were instantly excited, first by the mere
fact that she was Lady Henry's dependant, and then by the confidence, as
to her sad story and strange position, which she presently reposed in
him and his cousin Evelyn. On one or two occasions, very early in his
acquaintance with her, he was a witness of some small tyranny of Lady
Henry's towards her. He saw the shrinking of the proud nature, and the
pain thrilled through his own nerves as though the lash had touched
himself. Presently it became a joy to him whenever he was in town to
conspire with Evelyn Crowborough for her pleasure and relief. It was the
first time he had ever conspired, and it gave him sometimes a slight
shock to see how readily these two charming women lent themselves, on
occasion, to devices that had the aspect of intrigue, and involved a
good deal of what, in his own case, he would have roundly dubbed lying.
And, in truth, if he had known, they did not find him a convenient ally,
and he was by no means always in their confidence.

Once, about six months after Julie's arrival in Bruton Street, he met
her on a spring morning crossing Kensington Gardens with the dogs. She
looked startlingly white and ill, and when he spoke to her with eager
sympathy her mouth quivered and h