Delafield looked up.
"That is Mademoiselle Le Breton," he said, quietly.
"She receives?"
"She distributes the guests. Lady Henry generally establishes herself in the back drawing-room. It doesn't do for her to see too many people at once. Mademoiselle arranges it."
"Lady Henry must indeed be a good deal more helpless that I remember her," murmured Sir Wilfrid, in some astonishment.
"She is, physically. Oh, no doubt of it! Otherwise you won't find much change. Shall I introduce you?"
They were approaching a woman whose tall slenderness, combined with a remarkable physiognomy, arrested the old man's attention. She was not handsome--that, surely, was his first impression? The cheek-bones were too evident, the chin and mouth too strong. And yet the fine pallor of the skin, the subtle black-and-white, in which, so to speak, the head and face were drawn, the life, the animation of the whole--were these not beauty, or more than beauty? As for the eyes, the carriage of the head, the rich magnificence of hair, arranged with an artful eighteenth-century freedom, as Madame Vigée Le Brun might have worn it--with the second glance the effect of them was such that Sir Wilfrid could not cease from looking at the lady they adorned. It was an effect as of something over-living, over-brilliant--an animation, an intensity, so strong that, at first beholding, a by-stander could scarcely tell whether it pleased him or no.
"Mademoiselle Le Breton--Sir Wilfrid Bury," said Jacob Delafield, introducing them.
"Is she French?" thought the old diplomat, puzzled. "And--have I ever seen her before?"
"Lady Henry will be so glad!" said a low, agreeable voice. "You are one of the old friends, aren't you? I have often heard her talk of you."
"You are very good. Certainly, I am an old friend--a connection also." There was the slightest touch of stiffness in Sir Wilfrid's tone, of which the next moment he was ashamed. "I am very sorry to hear that Lady Henry has grown so much more helpless since I left England."
"She has to be careful of fatigue. Two or three people go in to see her at a time. She enjoys them more so."
"In my opinion," said Delafield, "one more device of milady's for getting precisely what she wants."
The young man's gay undertone, together with the look which passed between him and Mademoiselle Le Breton, added to Sir Wilfrid's stifled feeling of surprise.
"You'll tell her, Jacob, that I'm here?" He turned abruptly to the young man.
"Certainly--when mademoiselle allows me. Ah, here comes the Duchess!" said Delafield, in another voice.
Mademoiselle Le Breton, who had moved a few steps away from the stair-head with Sir Wilfrid Bury, turned hastily. A slight, small woman, delicately fair and sparkling with diamonds, was coming up the stairs alone.
"My dear," said the new-comer, holding out her hands eagerly to Mademoiselle Le Breton, "I felt I must just run in and have a look at you. But Freddie says that I've got to meet him at that tiresome Foreign Office! So I can only stay ten minutes. How are you?"--then, in a lower voice, almost a whisper, which, however, reached Sir Wilfrid Bury's ears--"worried to death?"
Mademoiselle Le Breton raised eyes and shoulders for a moment, then, smiling, put her finger to her lip.
"You're coming to me to-morrow afternoon?" said the Duchess, in the same half-whisper.
"I don't think I can get away."
"Nonsense! My dear, you must have some air and exercise! Jacob, will you see she comes?"
"Oh, I'm no good," said that young man, turning away. "Duchess, you remember Sir Wilfrid Bury?"
"She would be an unnatural goddaughter if she didn't," said that gentleman, smiling. "She may be your cousin, but I knew her before you did."
The young Duchess turned with a start.
"Sir Wilfrid! A sight for sair een. When did you get back?"
She put her slim hands into both of his, and showered upon him all proper surprise and the greetings due to her father's oldest friend. Voice, gesture, words--all were equally amiable, well trained, and perfunctory--Sir Wilfrid was well aware of it. He was possessed of a fine, straw-colored mustache, and long eyelashes of the same color. Both eyelashes and mustache made a screen behind which, as was well known, their owner observed the world to remarkably good purpose. He perceived the difference at once when the Duchess, having done her social and family duty, left him to return to Mademoiselle Le Breton.
"It was such a bore you couldn't come this afternoon! I wanted you to see the babe dance--she's too great a duck! And that Canadian girl came to sing. The voice is magnificent--but she has some tiresome tricks!--and I didn't know what to say to her. As to the other music on the 16th--I say, can't we find a corner somewhere?" And the Duchess looked round the beautiful drawing-room, which she and her companions had just entered, with a dissatisfied air.
"Lady Henry, you'll remember, doesn't like corners," said Mademoiselle Le Breton, smiling. Her tone, delicately free and allusive, once more drew Sir Wilfrid's curious eyes to her, and he caught also the impatient gesture with which the Duchess received the remark.
"Ah, that's all right!" said Mademoiselle Le Breton, suddenly, turning round to himself. "Here is Mr. Montresor--going on, too, I suppose, to the Foreign Office. Now there'll be some chance of getting at Lady Henry."
Sir Wilfrid looked down the drawing-room, to see the famous War Minister coming slowly through the well-filled but not crowded room, stopping now and then to exchange a greeting or a farewell, and much hampered, as it seemed, in so doing, by a pronounced and disfiguring short-sight. He was a strongly built man of more than middle height. His iron-gray hair, deeply carved features, and cavernous black eyes gave him the air of power that his reputation demanded. On the other hand, his difficulty of eyesight, combined with the marked stoop of overwork, produced a qualifying impression--as of power teased and fettered, a Samson among the Philistines.
"My dear lady, good-night. I must go and fight with wild beasts in Whitehall--worse luck! Ah, Duchess! All very well--but you can't shirk either!"
So saying, Mr. Montresor shook hands with Mademoiselle Le Breton and smiled upon the Duchess--both actions betraying precisely the same degree of playful intimacy.
"How did you find Lady Henry?" said Mademoiselle Le Breton, in a lowered voice.
"Very well, but very cross. She scolds me perpetually--I haven't got a skin left. Ah, Sir Wilfrid!--very glad to see you! When did you arrive? I thought I might perhaps find you at the Foreign Office."
"I'm going on there presently," said Sir Wilfrid.
"Ah, but that's no good. Dine with me to-morrow night?--if you are free? Excellent!--that's arranged. Meanwhile--send him in, mademoiselle--send him in! He's fresh--let him take his turn." And the Minister, grinning, pointed backward over his shoulder towards an inner drawing-room, where the form of an old lady, seated in a wheeled invalid-chair between two other persons, could be just dimly seen.
"When the Bishop goes," said Mademoiselle Le Breton, with a laughing shake of the head. "But I told him not to stay long."
"He won't want to. Lady Henry pays no more attention to his cloth than to my gray hairs. The rating she has just given me for my speech of last night! Well, good-night, dear lady--good-night. You are better, I think?"
Mr. Montresor threw a look of scrutiny no less friendly than earnest at the lady to whom he was speaking; and immediately afterwards Sir Wilfrid, who was wedged in by an entering group of people, caught the murmured words:
"Consult me when you want me--at any time."
Mademoiselle Le Breton raised her beautiful eyes to the speaker in a mute gratitude.
"And five minutes ago I thought her plain!"