"Do not swear, madam," said he, and shut the door in her face.
Ten minutes later he sallied forth again. She heard his steps ring out: they sounded very desperate. She sat on the pink-striped settee in a misery too deep this time for tears. How puerile, how far away, seemed the morning's storm. She sat with her hands locked and her eyes starting, revolving terrible possibilities, and fruitless plans for preventing them. Dinner was served in vain. Her ladyship's woman brought her a dish of tea. This poor Julia drank, for she felt faint and weary. Then a sudden thought struck her.
"'Tis Mistress Bellairs who made the mischief," she thought, "now she must mend it." She dashed off a despairing note to the lady and dispatched her black page with all possible celerity.
"I have followed your advice, to my undoing. You told me to make Sir Jasper jealous; I tried to make him jealous, and succeeded far too well. He fancies there is something between me and Lord Verney. Poor young man, I have spoken to him but three times in my life! There will be a duel and they will both be killed. Come to me, dear Mistress Bellairs, and see what is to be done, for I am half dead with fear and anguish."
The dusk was falling when, with incredible celerity, the sedan-chair of Mistress Bellairs rounded the corner at a swinging pace; her bell-like voice might be heard from within rating the chairmen with no gentle tone for their sluggishness.
"'Tis snails ye are—snails, not men. La! is there one of you that is not a great-grandfather? It is not, I would have you know, a coffin that you are carrying, but a chair. Oh, Gad, deliver me from such lazy scoundrels!"
In a storm she burst open the door; in a whirlwind tore through the passage. Lady Standish's obsequious footmen she flounced upon one side. Into that afflicted lady's presence she burst with undiminished vigour.
"So," said she, "these are fine goings on! And why Lord Verney, may I inquire?"
"Oh, Mistress Bellairs," ejaculated her friend, with a wail, "'tis indeed terrible. Think of Sir Jasper's danger, and all because of my folly in listening to your pernicious advice."
"My advice!" cried Mistress Kitty. "My advice—this is pretty hearing! Here, where is that woman of yours, and where are those stuffed owls you keep in the hall. What is the use of them if they do not do their business? Light up, light up—who can speak in the dark?" She ran from one door to another calling.