And so on, a few more insignificant questions and answers.
"I must go," said Delafield, coming up to them, "unless there is any more work for me to do. Good-bye, Major, I congratulate you. They have given you a fine piece of work."
Warkworth made a little bow, half ironical. Confound the fellow's grave and lordly ways! He did not want his congratulations.
He lingered a little, sorely, full of rage, yet not knowing how to go.
Lord Lackington's eyes ceased to blaze, and the kitten ventured once more to climb upon his knee. Meredith, too, found a comfortable arm-chair, and presently tried to beguile the kitten from his neighbor. Julie sat erect between them, very silent, her thin, white hands on her lap, her head drooped a little, her eyes carefully restrained from meeting Warkworth's. He meanwhile leaned against the mantel-piece, irresolute.
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.