"He has gone down to Montreux, but he should be home very soon now. We are only a few steps from our little inn. Would you not rest there? Miss Moffatt looks very tired."
There was a pause. Lady Blanche was considering her daughter. Julie saw the trembling of her wide, irregular mouth, of which the lips were slightly turned outward. Finally she drew her daughter's hand into her arm, and bent anxiously towards her, scrutinizing her face.
"Thank you. We will rest a quarter of an hour. Can we get a carriage at Charnex?"
"Yes, I think so, if you will wait a little on our balcony."
They walked on towards Charnex. Lady Blanche began to talk resolutely of the weather, which was, indeed, atrocious. She spoke as she would have done to the merest acquaintance. There was not a word of her father; not a word, either, of her brother's letter, or of Julie's relationship to herself. Julie accepted the situation with perfect composure, and the three kept up some sort of a conversation till they reached the paved street of Charnex and the old inn at its lower end.
Julie guided her companions through its dark passages, till they reached an outer terrace where there were a few scattered seats, and among them a deck-chair with cushions.
"Please," said Julie, as she kindly drew the girl towards it. Aileen smiled and yielded. Julie placed her among the cushions, then brought out a shawl, and covered her warmly from the sharp, damp air. Aileen thanked her, and lightly touched her hand. A secret sympathy seemed to have suddenly sprung up between them.
Lady Blanche sat stiffly beside her daughter, watching her face. The warm touch of friendliness in Aileen's manner towards Mrs. Delafield seemed only to increase the distance and embarrassment of her own. Julie appeared to be quite unconscious. She ordered tea, and made no further allusion of any kind to the kindred they had in common. She and Lady Blanche talked as strangers.
Julie said to herself that she understood. She remembered the evening at Crowborough House, the spinster lady who had been the Moffatts' friend, her own talk with Evelyn. In that way, or in some other, the current gossip about herself and Warkworth, gossip they had been too mad and miserable to take much account of, had reached Lady Blanche. Lady Blanche probably abhorred her; though, because of her marriage, there was to be an outer civility. Meanwhile no sign whatever of any angry or resentful knowledge betrayed itself in the girl's manner. Clearly the mother had shielded her.
Julie felt the flutter of an exquisite relief. She stole many a look at Aileen, comparing the reality with that old, ugly notion her jealousy had found so welcome--of the silly or insolent little creature, possessing all that her betters desired, by the mere brute force of money or birth. And all the time the reality was this--so soft, suppliant, ethereal! Here, indeed, was the child of Warkworth's picture--the innocent, unknowing child, whom their passion had sacrificed and betrayed. She could see the face now, as it lay piteous, in Warkworth's hand. Then she raised her eyes to the original. And as it looked at her with timidity and nascent love her own heart beat wildly, now in remorse, now in a reviving jealousy.