Lady Henry gave a little snort of disappointment.
"Well, think. You knew her mother quite well. You have known her grandfather all your life. If you're going on to the Foreign Office, as I suppose you are, you'll probably see him to-night. She is uncannily like him. As to her father, I don't know--but he was a rolling-stone of a creature; you very likely came across him."
"I knew her mother and her father?" said Sir Wilfrid, astonished and pondering.
"They had no right to be her mother and her father," said Lady Henry, with grimness.
"But at present I'm completely mystified," said Sir Wilfrid.
"Perhaps it'll come to you later. You've a good memory generally for such things. Anyway, I can't tell you anything now. But when'll you come again? To-morrow--luncheon? I really want you."
"Certainly. _That_, at least, I can still do--lunch as I please, and with whom I please. Who is this coming in? Ah, you needn't tell me."
The old lady turned herself towards the entrance, with a stiffening of the whole frame, an instinctive and passionate dignity in her whole aspect, which struck a thrill through her companion.
The little Duchess approached, amid a flutter of satin and lace, heralded by the scent of the Parma violets she wore in profusion at her breast and waist. Her eye glanced uncertainly, and she approached with daintiness, like one stepping on mined ground.
"I know no reason against your having ten, if you want them," said Lady Henry, as she held-out three fingers to the new-comer. "You promised yesterday to come and give me a full account of the Devonshire House ball. But it doesn't matter--and you have forgotten."
"No, indeed, I haven't," said the Duchess, embarrassed. "But you seemed so well employed to-night, with other people. And now--"
"Now you are going on," said Lady Henry, with a most unfriendly suavity.
"Freddie says I must," said the other, in the attitude of a protesting child.
"_Alors_!" said Lady Henry, lifting her hand. "We all know how obedient you are. Good-night!"
The Duchess flushed. She just touched her aunt's hand, and then, turning an indignant face on Sir Wilfrid, she bade him farewell with an air which seemed to him intended to avenge upon his neutral person the treatment which, from Lady Henry, even so spoiled a child of fortune as herself could not resent.