Julie pressed her hands to her breast with one of those dramatic movements that were natural to her.
"Oh, I must see Jacob!" she said, under her breath--"I must see Jacob!"
And she turned away, looking vaguely round her. Meredith approached.
"Comfort yourself," he said, very gently, pressing her hand in both of his. "It has been a great shock, but when you get there he'll be all right."
"Jacob?"
Her expression, the piteous note in her voice, awoke in him an answering sense of pain. He wondered how it might be between the husband and wife. Yet it was borne in upon him, as upon Lady Henry, that her marriage, however interpreted, had brought with it profound and intimate transformation. A different woman stood before him. And when, after a few more words, the Duchess swept down upon them, insisting that Julie must rest awhile, Meredith stood looking after the retreating figures, filled with the old, bitter sense of human separateness, and the fragmentariness of all human affections. Then he made his farewells to the Duke and Lady Henry, and slipped away. He had turned a page in the book of life; and as he walked through Grosvenor Square he applied his mind resolutely to one of the political "causes" with which, as a powerful and fighting journalist, he was at that moment occupied.
Lady Henry, too, watched Julie's exit from the room.
"So now she supposes herself in love with Jacob?" she thought, with amusement, as she resumed her seat.
"What if Delafield refuses to be made a duke?" said Sir Wilfrid, in her ear.
"It would be a situation new to the Constitution," said Lady Henry, composedly. "I advise you, however, to wait till it occurs."