"Yes, I understand. Julie!" The Duchess rose impulsively, and threw herself into a chair beside the table where she could watch the face and movements of Mademoiselle Le Breton. "Julie, I want so much to talk to you--about _business_. You're not to be offended. Julie, _if_ you leave Lady Henry, how will you manage?"
"How shall I live, you mean?" said Julie, smiling at the euphemism in which this little person, for whom existence had rained gold and flowers since her cradle, had enwrapped the hard facts of bread-and-butter--facts with which she was so little acquainted that she approached them with a certain delicate mystery.
"You must have some money, you know, Julie," said the Duchess, timidly, her upraised face and Paris hat well matched by the gay poinsettias, the delicate eucharis and arums with which the table was now covered.
"I shall earn some," said Julie, quietly.
"Oh, but, Julie, you can't be bothered with any other tiresome old lady!"
"No. I should keep my freedom. But Dr. Meredith has offered me work, and got me a promise of more."
"Writing! Well, of course, we all know you can do anything you want to do. And you won't let anybody help you at all?"
"I won't let anybody give me money, if that's what you mean," said Julie, smiling. But it was a smile without accent, without gayety.
The Duchess, watching her, said to herself, "Since I came in she is changed--quite changed."
"How much 'power' should I have left, do you think--how much self-respect--if I took money from my friends?"
"Well, not money, perhaps. But, Julie, you know all about Freddie's London property. It's abominable how much he has. There are always a few houses he keeps in his own hands. If Lady Henry _does_ quarrel with you, and we could lend you a little house--for a time--_wouldn't_ you take it, Julie?"
Her voice had the coaxing inflections of a child. Julie hesitated.
"Only if the Duke himself offered it," she said, finally, with a brusque stiffening of her whole attitude.
"Oh, well, that's all right," she said, but no longer in the same voice. "Remember, I have your promise. Good-bye, Julie, you darling!... Oh, by-the-way, what an idiot I am! Here am I forgetting the chief thing I came about. Will you come with me to Lady Hubert to-night? Do! Freddie's away, and I hate going by myself."