Lady Henry gulped.
"Oh, it mayn't answer," she said, as their hands dropped. "But we may as well have one more trial. And, mademoiselle, I shall be delighted that you should assist the Duchess with her bazaar."
Julie shook her head.
"I don't think I have any heart for it," she said, sadly; and then, as Lady Henry sat silent, she approached.
"You look very tired. Shall I send your maid?"
That melancholy and beautiful voice laid a strange spell on Lady Henry. Her companion appeared to her, for a moment, in a new light--as a personage of drama or romance. But she shook off the spell.
"At once, please. Another day like this would put an end to me."
VII
Julie le Breton was sitting alone in her own small sitting-room. It was the morning of the Tuesday following her Sunday scene with Lady Henry, and she was busy with various household affairs. A small hamper of flowers, newly arrived from Lady Henry's Surrey garden, and not yet unpacked, was standing open on the table, with various empty flower-glasses beside it. Julie was, at the moment, occupied with the "Stores order" for the month, and Lady Henry's cook-housekeeper had but just left the room after delivering an urgent statement on the need for "relining" a large number of Lady Henry's copper saucepans.