"So you don't know what Jacob thinks?"
"Why should I want to know?" said Lady Henry, disdainfully. "A lad whom I sent to Eton and Oxford, when his father couldn't pay his bills--what does it matter to me what he thinks?"
"Women are strange folk," thought Sir Wilfrid. "A man wouldn't have said that."
Then, aloud:
"I thought you were afraid lest he should want to marry her?"
"Oh, let him cut his throat if he likes!" said Lady Henry, with the inconsistency of fury. "What does it matter to me?"
"By-the-way, as to that"--he spoke as though feeling his way--"have you never had suspicions in quite another direction?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well, I hear a good deal in various quarters of the trouble Mademoiselle Le Breton is taking--on behalf of that young soldier who was here just now--Harry Warkworth."
Lady Henry laughed impatiently.