Again, if love was to go, _power_, the satisfaction of ambition, remained. She threw a quick glance into the future--the future beyond these three weeks. What could she make of it? She knew well that she was not the woman to resign herself to a mere pining obscurity.
Jacob Delafield? Was it, after all, so impossible?
For a few minutes she set herself deliberately to think out what it would mean to marry him; then suddenly broke down and wept, with inarticulate cries and sobs, with occasional reminiscences of her old convent's prayers, appeals half conscious, instinctive, to a God only half believed.
Delafield was walking through the Park towards Victoria Gate. A pair of beautiful roans pulled up suddenly beside him, and a little figure with a waving hand bent to him from a carriage.
"Jacob, where are you off to? Let me give you a lift?"
The gentleman addressed took off his hat.
"Much obliged to you, but I want some exercise. I say, where did Freddie get that pair?"
"I don't know, he doesn't tell me. Jacob, you must get in. I want to speak to you."
Rather unwillingly, Delafield obeyed, and away they sped.
"J'ai un tas de choses à vous dire," she said, speaking low, and in French, so as to protect herself from the servants in front. "Jacob, I'm _very_ unhappy about Julie."
"Why? Hadn't you better leave her alone?"
"Oh, of course, I know you think me a chatterbox. I don't care. You _must_ let me tell you some fresh news about her. It _isn't_ gossip, and you and I are her best friends. Oh, Freddie's so disagreeable about her. Jacob, you've got to help and advise a little. Now, do listen. It's your duty--your downright catechism duty."
And she poured into his reluctant ear the tale which Miss Emily Lawrence nearly a fortnight before had confided to her.
"Of course," she wound up, "you'll say it's only what we knew or guessed long ago. But you see, Jacob, we didn't _know_. It might have been just gossip. And then, besides"--she frowned and dropped her voice till it was only just audible--"this horrid man hadn't made our Julie so--so conspicuous, and Lady Henry hadn't turned out such a toad--and, altogether, Jacob, I'm dreadfully worried."
"And what a creature!" cried the Duchess, unheeding. "They say that poor Moffatt child will soon have fretted herself ill, if the guardians don't give way about the two years."