To-day there were no beguiling spring airs. The fire burned merrily in the grate; the windows were closed.
A scent of narcissus--the Duchess had filled the tables with flowers--floated in the room. Amid its old-fashioned and distinguished bareness--tempered by flowers, and a litter of foreign books--Julie seemed at last to have found her proper frame. In her severe black dress, opening on a delicate vest of white, she had a muselike grace; and the wreath made by her superb black hair round the fine intelligence of her brow had never been more striking. Her slender hands busied themselves with Cousin Mary Leicester's tea-things; and every movement had in Warkworth's eyes a charm to which he had never yet been sensible, in this manner, to this degree.
"Am I really to say no more of yesterday?" he said, looking at her nervously.
Her flush, her gesture, appealed to him.
"Do you know what I had before me--that day--when you came in?" she said, softly.
"No. I cannot guess. Ah, you said something about Lord Lackington?"
She hesitated. Then her color deepened.
"You don't know my story. You suppose, don't you, that I am a Belgian with English connections, whom Lady Henry met by chance? Isn't that how you explain me?"
Warkworth had pushed aside his cup.
"I thought--"