d, gravely, "that the success is
no longer hers."

"So she says. But will you please examine that remark? When her guests
assemble, can I go to bed and leave her to grapple with them? I have
proposed it often, but of course it is impossible. And if I am to be
there I must behave, I suppose, like a lady, not like the housemaid.
Really, Lady Henry asks too much. In my mother's little flat in Bruges,
with the two or three friends who frequented it, I was brought up in as
good society and as good talk as Lady Henry has ever known."

They were passing an electric lamp, and Sir Wilfrid, looking up, was
half thrilled, half repelled by the flashing energy of the face beside
him. Was ever such language on the lips of a paid companion before? His
sympathy for Lady Henry revived.

"Can you really give me no clew to the--to the sources of Lady Henry's
dissatisfaction?" he said, at last, rather coldly.

Mademoiselle Le Breton hesitated.

"I don't want to make myself out a saint," she said, at last, in another
voice and with a humility which was, in truth, hardly less proud than
her self-assertion. "I--I was brought up in poverty, and my mother died
when I was fifteen. I had to defend myself as the poor defend
themselves--by silence. I learned not to talk about my own affairs. I
couldn't afford to be frank, like a rich English girl. I dare say,
sometimes I have concealed things which had been better made plain. They
were never of any real importance, and if Lady Henry had shown any
consideration--"

Her voice failed her a little, evidently to her annoyance. They walked
on without speaking for a few paces. "Never of any real importance?" Sir
Wilfrid wondered.

Their minds apparently continued the conversation though their lips were
silent, for presently Julie Le Breton said, abruptly:

"Of course I am speaking of matters where Lady Henry might have some
claim to information. With regard to many of my thoughts and feelings,
Lady Henry has no right whatever to my confidence."

"She gives us fair warning," thought Sir Wilfrid.

Aloud he said:

"It is not a question of thoughts and feelings, I understand, but of
actions."

"Like the visit to the Duncombes'?" said Mademoiselle Le Breton,
impatiently. "Oh, I quite admit it--that's only one of several instances
Lady Henry might have brought forward. You see, she led me to make these
friendships; and now, because they annoy her, I am to break them. But
she forgets. Friends are