evening," said Mademoiselle Julie, smiling. Then she
addressed the butler: "Tell Lady Henry, please, that I shall be at home
in half an hour."

As they turned westward, the winter streets were gay with lights and
full of people. Sir Wilfrid was presently conscious that among all the
handsome and well-dressed women who brushed past them, Mademoiselle Le
Breton more than held her own. She reminded him now not so much of her
mother as of Marriott Dalrymple. Sir Wilfrid had first seen this woman's
father at Damascus, when Dalrymple, at twenty-six, was beginning the
series of Eastern journeys which had made him famous. He remembered the
brillance of the youth; the power, physical and mental, which radiated
from him, making all things easy; the scorn of mediocrity, the
incapacity for subordination.

"I should like you to understand," said the lady beside him, "that I
came to Lady Henry prepared to do my very best."

"I am sure of that," said Sir Wilfrid, hastily recalling his thoughts
from Damascus. "And you must have had a very difficult task."

Mademoiselle Le Breton shrugged her shoulders.

"I knew, of course, it must be difficult. And as to the drudgery of
it--the dogs, and that kind of thing--nothing of that sort matters to me
in the least. But I cannot be humiliated before those who have become my
friends, entirely because Lady Henry wished it to be so."

"Lady Henry at first showed you every confidence?"

"After the first month or two she put everything into my hands--her
household, her receptions, her letters, you may almost say her whole
social existence. She trusted me with all her secrets." ("No, no, my
dear lady," thought Sir Wilfrid.) "She let me help her with all her
affairs. And, honestly, I did all I could to make her life easy."

"That I understand from herself."

"Then why," cried Mademoiselle Le Breton, turning round to him with
sudden passion--"why couldn't Lady Henry leave things alone? Are
devotion, and--and the kind of qualities she wanted, so common? I said
to myself that, blind and helpless as she was, she should lose nothing.
Not only should her household be well kept, her affairs well managed,
but her salon should be as attractive, her Wednesday evenings as
brilliant, as ever. The world was deserting her; I helped her to bring
it back. She cannot live without social success; yet now she hates me
for what I have done. Is it sane--is it reasonable?"

"She feels, I suppose," said Sir Wilfri