Meanwhile in the Duchess's drawing--room a little knot of people was gathered--Lady Henry, Sir Wilfrid Bury, and Dr. Meredith. Their demeanor illustrated both the subduing and the exciting influence of great events. Lady Henry was more talkative than usual. Sir Wilfrid more silent.
Lady Henry seemed to have profited by her stay at Torquay. As she sat upright in a stiff chair, her hands resting on her stick, she presented her characteristic aspect of English solidity, crossed by a certain free and foreign animation. She had been already wrangling with Sir Wilfrid, and giving her opinion freely on the "socialistic" views on rank and property attributed to Jacob Delafield. "If he can't digest the cake, that doesn't mean it isn't good," had been her last impatient remark, when Sir Wilfrid interrupted her.
"Only a few minutes more," he said, looking at his watch. "Now, then, what line do we take? How much is our friend likely to know?"
"Unless she has lost her eyesight--which Evelyn has not reported--she will know most of what matters before she has gone a hundred yards from the station," said Lady Henry, dryly.
"Oh, the streets! Yes; but persons are often curiously dazed by such a gallop of events."
"Not Julie Le Breton!"
"I should like to be informed as to the part you are about to play," said Sir Wilfrid, in a lower voice, "that I may play up to it. Where are you?"
Both looked at Meredith, who had walked to a distant window and was standing there looking out upon the square. Lady Henry was well aware that he had not forgiven her, and, to tell the truth, was rather anxious that he should. So she, too, dropped her voice.
"I bow to the institutions of my country," she said, a little sparkle in the strong, gray eye.
"In other words, you forgive a duchess?"