The Duchess was in her morning-room. On the rug, in marked and, as it seemed to her plaintive eyes, brutal contrast with the endless photographs of her babies and women friends which crowded her mantel-piece, stood the Duke, much out of temper. He was a powerfully built man, some twenty years older than his wife, with a dark complexion, enlivened by ruddy cheeks and prominent, red lips. His eyes were of a cold, clear gray; his hair very black, thick, and wiry. An extremely vigorous person, more than adequately aware of his own importance, tanned and seasoned by the life of his class, by the yachting, hunting, and shooting in which his own existence was largely spent, slow in perception, and of a sulky temper--so one might have read him at first sight. But these impressions only took you a certain way in judging the character of the Duchess\'s husband.

As to the sulkiness, there could be no question on this particular morning--though, indeed, his ill-humor deserved a more positive and energetic name.

"You have got yourself and me," he was declaring, "into a most disagreeable and unnecessary scrape. This letter of Lady Henry\'s"--he held it up--"is one of the most annoying that I have received for many a day. Lady Henry seems to me perfectly justified. You have been behaving in a quite unwarrantable way. And now you tell me that this woman, who is the cause of it all, of whose conduct I thoroughly and entirely disapprove, is coming to stay here, in my house, whether I like it or not, and you expect me to be civil to her. If you persist, I shall go down to Brackmoor till she is pleased to depart. I won\'t countenance the thing at all, and, whatever you may do, I shall apologize to Lady Henry."

"There\'s nothing to apologize for," cried the drooping Duchess, plucking up a little spirit. "Nobody meant any harm. Why shouldn\'t the old friends go in to ask after her? Hutton--that old butler that has been with Aunt Flora for twenty years--asked us to come in."

"Then he did what he had no business to do, and he deserves to be dismissed at a day\'s notice. Why, Lady Henry tells me that it was a regular party--that the room was all arranged for it by that most audacious young woman--that the servants were ordered about--that it lasted till nearly midnight, and that the noise you all made positively woke Lady Henry out of her sleep. Really, Evelyn, that you should have been mixed up in such an affair is more unpalatable to me than I can find words to describe." And he paced, fuming, up and down before her.

"Anybody else than Aunt Flora would have laughed," said the Duchess, defiantly. "And I declare, Freddie, I won\'t be scolded in such a tone. Besides, if you only knew--"

She threw back her head and looked at him, her cheeks flushed, her lips quivering with a secret that, once out, would perhaps silence him at once--would, at any rate, as children do when they give a shake to their spillikins, open up a number of new chances in the game.

"If I only knew what?"

The Duchess pulled at the hair of the little spitz on her lap without replying.

"What is there to know that I don\'t know?" insisted the Duke. "Something that makes the matter still worse, I suppose?"

"Well, that depends," said the Duchess, reflectively. A gleam of mischief had slipped into her face, though for a moment the tears had not been far off.

The Duke looked at his watch.

"Don\'t keep me here guessing riddles longer than you can help," he said, impatiently. "I have an appointment in the City at twelve, and I want to discuss with you the letter that must be written to Lady Henry."

"That\'s your affair," said the Duchess. "I haven\'t made up my mind yet whether I mean to write at all. And as for the riddle, Freddie, you\'ve seen Miss Le Breton?"

"Once. I thought her a very pretentious person," said the Duke, stiffly.

"I know--you didn\'t get on. But, Freddie, didn\'t she remind you of somebody?"

The Duchess was growing excited. Suddenly she jumped up; the little spitz rolled off her lap; she ran to her husband and took him by the fronts of his coat.

"Freddie, you\'ll be very much astonished." And suddenly releasing him, she began to search among the photographs on the mantel-piece. "Freddie, you know who that is?" She held up a picture.

"Of course I know. What on earth has that got to do with the subject we have been discussing?"

"Well, it has a good deal to do with it," said the Duchess, slowly. "That\'s my uncle, George Chantrey, isn\'t it, Lord Lackington\'s second son, who married mamma\'s sister? Well--oh, you won\'t like it, Freddie, but you\'ve got to know--that\'s--Julie\'s uncle, too!"

"What in the name of fortune do you mean?" said the Duke, staring at her.

His wife again caught him by the coat, and, so imprisoning him, she poured out her story very fast, very incoherently, and with a very evident uncertainty as to what its effect might be.

And indeed the effect was by no means easy to determine. The Duke was first incredulous, then bewildered by the very mixed facts which she poured out upon him. He tried to cross-examine her en route, but he gained little by that; she only shook him a little, insisting the more vehemently on telling the story her own way. At last their two impatiences had nearly come to a dead-lock. But the Duke managed to free himself physically, and so regained a little freedom of mind.

"Well, upon my word," he said, as he resumed his march up and down--"upon my word!" Then, as he stood still before her, "You say she is Marriott Dalrymple\'s daughter?"

"And Lord Lackington\'s granddaughter." said the Duchess, panting a little from her exertions. "And, oh, what a blind bat you were not to see it at once--from the likeness!"

"As if one had any right to infer such a thing from a likeness!" said the Duke, angrily. "Really, Evelyn, your talk is most--most unbecoming. It seems to me that Mademoiselle Le Breton has already done you harm. All that you have told me, supposing it to be true--oh, of course, I know you believe it to be true--only makes me"--he stiffened his back--"the more determined to break off the connection between her and you. A woman of such antecedents is not a fit companion for my wife, independently of the fact that she seems to be, in herself, an intriguing and dangerous character."

"How could she help her antecedents?" cried the Duchess.

"I didn\'t say she could help them. But if they are what you say, she ought--well, she ought to be all the more careful to live in a modest and retired way, instead of, as I understand, making herself the rival of Lady Henry. I never heard anything so preposterous--so--so indecent! She shows no proper sense, and, as for you, I deeply regret you should have been brought into any contact with such a disgraceful story."

"Freddie!" The Duchess went into a helpless, half-hysterical fit of laughter.

But the Duke merely expanded, as it seemed, still further--to his utmost height and bulk. "Oh, dear," thought the Duchess, in despair, "now he is going to be like his mother!" Her strictly Evangelical mother-in-law, with whom the Duke had made his bachelor home for many years, had been the scourge of her early married life; and though for Freddie\'s sake she had shed a few tears over her death, eighteen months before this date, the tears--as indeed the Duke had thought at the time--had been only too quickly dried.

There could be no question about it, the Duke was painfully like his mother as he replied:

"I fear that your education, Evelyn, has led you to take such things far more lightly than you ought. I am old-fashioned. Illegitimacy with me does carry a stigma, and the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children. At any rate, we who occupy a prominent social place have no right to do anything which may lead others to think lightly of God\'s law. I am sorry to speak plainly, Evelyn. I dare say you don\'t like these sentiments, but you know, at least, that I am quite honest in expressing them."

The Duke turned to her, not without dignity. He was and had been from his boyhood a person of irreproachable morals--earnest and religious according to his lights, a good son, husband, and father. His wife looked at him with mingled feelings.

"Well, all I know is," she said, passionately beating her little foot on the carpet before her, "that, by all accounts, the only thing to do with Colonel Delaney was to run away from him."

The Duke shrugged his shoulders.

"You don\'t expect me to be much moved by a remark of that kind? As to this lady, your story does not affect me in her favor in the smallest degree. She has had her education; Lord Lackington gives her one hundred pounds a year; if she is a self-respecting woman she will look after herself. I don\'t want to have her here, and I beg you won\'t invite her. A couple of nights, perhaps--I don\'t mind that--but not for longer."

"Oh, as to that, you may be very sure she won\'t stay here unless you\'re very particularly nice to her. There\'ll be plenty of people glad--enchanted--to have her! I don\'t care about that, but what I do want is"--the Duchess looked up with calm audacity--"that you should find her a house."

The Duke paused in his walk and surveyed his wife with amazement.

"Evelyn, are you quite mad?"

"Not in the least. You have more houses than you know what to do with, and a great deal more money than anybody in the world ought to have. If they ever do set up the guillotine at Hyde Park Corner, we shall be among the first--we ought to be!"

"What is the good of talking nonsense like this, Evelyn?" said the Duke, once more consulting his watch. "Let\'s go back to the subject of my letter to Lady Henry."

"It\'s most excellent sense!" cried the Duchess, springing up. "You have more houses than you know what to do with; and you have one house in particular--that little place at the back of Cureton Street where Cousin Mary Leicester lived so long--which is in your hands still, I know, for you told me so last week--which is vacant and furnished--Cousin Mary left you the furniture, as if we hadn\'t got enough!--and it would be the very thing for Julie, if only you\'d lend it to her till she can turn round."

The Duchess was now standing up, confronting her lord, her hands grasping the chair behind her, her small form alive with eagerness and the feminine determination to get her own way, by fair means or foul.

"Cureton Street!" said the Duke, almost at the end of his tether. "And how do you propose that this young woman is to live--in Cureton Street, or anywhere else?"

"She means to write," said the Duchess, shortly. "Dr. Meredith has promised her work."

"Sheer lunacy! In six months time you\'d have to step in and pay all her bills."

"I should like to see anybody dare to propose to Julie to pay her bills!" cried the Duchess, with scorn. "You see, the great pity is, Freddie, that you don\'t know anything at all about her. But that house--wasn\'t it made out of a stable? It has got six rooms, I know--three bedrooms up-stairs, and two sitting-rooms and a kitchen below. With one good maid and a boy Julie could be perfectly comfortable. She would earn four hundred pounds--Dr. Meredith has promised her--she has one hundred pounds a year of her own. She would pay no rent, of course. She would have just enough to live on, poor, dear thing! And she would be able to gather her old friends round her when she wanted them. A cup of tea and her delightful conversation--that\'s all they\'d ever want."

"Oh, go on--go on!" said the Duke, throwing himself exasperated into an arm-chair; "the ease with which you dispose of my property on behalf of a young woman who has caused me most acute annoyance, who has embroiled us with a near relation for whom I have a very particular respect! Her friends, indeed! Lady Henry\'s friends, you mean. Poor Lady Henry tells me in this letter that her circle will be completely scattered. This mischievous woman in three years has destroyed what it has taken Lady Henry nearly thirty to build up. Now look here, Evelyn"--the Duke sat up and slapped his knee--"as to this Cureton Street plan, I will do nothing of the kind. You may have Miss Le Breton here for two or three nights if you like--I shall probably go down to the country--and, of course, I have no objection to make if you wish to help her find another situation--"

"Another situation!" cried the Duchess, beside herself. "Freddie, you really are impossible! Do you understand that I regard Julie Le Breton as my relation, whatever you may say--that I love her dearly--that there are fifty people with money and influence ready to help her if you won\'t, because she is one of the most charming and distinguished women in London--that you ought to be proud to do her a service--that I want you to have the honor of it--there! And if you won\'t do this little favor for me--when I ask and beg it of you--I\'ll make you remember it for a very long time to come--you may be sure of that!"

And his wife turned upon him as an image of war, her fair hair ruffling about her ears, her cheeks and eyes brilliant with anger--and something more.

The Duke rose in silent ferocity and sought for some letters which he had left on the mantel-piece.

"I had better leave you to come to your senses by yourself, and as quickly as possible," he said, as he put them into his pockets. "No good can come of any more discussion of this sort."

The Duchess said nothing. She looked out of the window busily, and bit her lip. Her silence served her better than her speech, for suddenly the Duke looked round, hesitated, threw down a book he carried, walked up to her, and took her in his arms.

"You are a very foolish child," he declared, as he held her by main force and kissed away her tears. "You make me lose my temper--and waste my time--for nothing."

"Not at all," said the sobbing Duchess, trying to push herself away, and denying him, as best she could, her soft, flushed face. "You don\'t, or you won\'t, understand! I was--I was very fond of Uncle George Chantrey. He would have helped Julie if he were alive. And as for you, you\'re Lord Lackington\'s godson, and you\'re always pr............