Meredith, it was clear, made himself quite happy and at home in the little drawing-room.  The lame child came in and took a stool beside him.  He stroked her head and talked nonsense to her in the intervals of holding forth to Julie on the changes necessary in some proofs of his which he had brought back.  Lord Lackington, now quite himself again, went back to dreams, smiling over them, and quite unaware that the kitten had been slyly ravished from him.  The little woman in black sat knitting in the background.  It was all curiously intimate and domestic, only Warkworth had no part in it.

“Good-bye, Miss Le Breton,” he said, at last, hardly knowing his own voice.  “I am dining out.”

She rose and gave him her hand.  But it dropped from his like a thing dead and cold.  He went out in a sudden suffocation of rage and pain; and as he walked in a blind haste to Cureton Street, he still saw her standing in the old-fashioned, scented room, so coldly graceful, with those proud, deep eyes.

* * * * *

When he had gone, Julie moved to the window and looked out into the gathering dusk.  It seemed to her as if those in the room must hear the beating of her miserable heart.

When she rejoined her companions, Dr. Meredith had already risen and was stuffing various letters and papers into his pockets with a view to departure.

“Going?” said Lord Lackington.  “You shall see the last of me, too, Mademoiselle Julie.”

And he stood up.  But she, flushing, looked at him with a wistful smile.

“Won’t you stay a few minutes?  You promised to advise me about Therese’s drawings.”

“By all means.”

Lord Lackington sat down again.  The lame child, it appeared, had some artistic talent, which Miss Le Breton wished to cultivate.  Meredith suddenly found his coat and hat, and, with a queer look at Julie, departed in a hurry.

“Therese, darling,” said Julie, “will you go up-stairs, please, and fetch me that book from my room that has your little drawings inside it?”

The child limped away on her errand.  In spite of her lameness she moved with wonderful lightness and swiftness, and she was back again quickly with a calf-bound book in her hand.

“Leonie!” said Julie, in a low voice, to Madame Bornier.

The little woman looked up startled, nodded, rolled up her knitting in a moment, and was gone.

“Take the book to his lordship, Therese,” she said, and then, instead of moving with the child, she again walked to the window, and, leaning her head against it, looked out.  The hand hanging against her dress trembled violently.

“What did you want me to look at, my dear?” said Lord Lackington, taking the book in his hand and putting on his glasses.

But the child was puzzled and did not know.  She gazed at him silently with her sweet, docile look.

“Run away, Therese, and find mother,” said Julie, from the window.