While she had been living with Lady Henry, these two, the mother and child, had been also in London; the mother, now a widow, earning her bread as an inferior kind of French governess, the child boarded out with various persons, and generally for long periods of the year in hospital or convalescent home. To visit her in her white hospital bed--to bring her toys and flowers, or merely kisses and chat--had been, during these years, the only work of charity on Julie's part which had been wholly secret, disinterested, and constant.
XII
It was a somewhat depressed company that found its straggling way into the Duchess's drawing-room that evening between tea and dinner.
Miss Le Breton did not appear at tea. The Duchess believed that, after her inspection of the house in Heribert Street, Julie had gone on to Bloomsbury to find Madame Bornier. Jacob Delafield was there, not much inclined to talk, even as Julie's champion. And, one by one, Lady Henry's oldest habitués, the "criminals" of the night before, dropped in.
Dr. Meredith arrived with a portfolio containing what seemed to be proof-sheets.
"Miss Le Breton not here?" he said, as he looked round him.
The Duchess explained that she might be in presently. The great man sat down, his portfolio carefully placed beside him, and drank his tea under what seemed a cloud of preoccupation.
Then appeared Lord Lackington and Sir Wilfrid Bury. Montresor had sent a note from the House to say that if the debate would let him he would dash up to Grosvenor Square for some dinner, but could only stay an hour.
"Well, here we are again--the worst of us!" said the Duchess, presently, with a sigh of bravado, as she handed Lord Lackington his cup of tea and sank back in her chair to enjoy her own.