"Why should she want her kindnesses talked of?" said the young man, impetuously. "She was perfectly right, I think, to fence with your questions, Sir Wilfrid. It's one of the secrets of her influence that she can render a service--and keep it dark." Sir Wilfrid shook his head. "She overdid it," he repeated. "However, what do you think of the man yourself, Jacob?" "Well, I don't take to him," said the other, unwillingly. "He isn't my sort of man." "And Mademoiselle Julie--you think nothing but well of her? I don't like discussing a lady; but, you see, with Lady Henry to manage, one must feel the ground as one can." Sir Wilfrid looked at his companion, and then stretched his legs a little farther towards the fire. The lamp-light shone full on his silky eyelashes and beard, on his neatly parted hair, and the diamond on his fine left hand. The young man beside him could not emulate his easy composure. He fidgeted nervously as he replied, with warmth: "I think she has had an uncommonly hard time, that she wants nothing but what is reasonable, and that if she threw you off the scent, Sir Wilfrid, with regard to Warkworth, she was quite within her rights. You probably deserved it." He threw up his head with a quick gesture of challenge. Sir Wilfrid shrugged his shoulders. "I vow I didn't," he murmured. "However, that's all right. What do you do with yourself down in Essex, Jacob?" The lines of the young man's attitude showed a sudden unconscious relief from tension. He threw himself back in his chair. "Well, it's a big estate. There's plenty to do." "You live by yourself?" "Yes. There's an agent's house--a small one--in one of the villages." "How do you amuse yourself? Plenty of shooting, I suppose?" "Too much. I can't do with more than a certain amount." "Golfing?" "Oh yes," said the young man, indifferently. "There's a fair links." "Do you do any philanthropy, Jacob?" "I like 'bossing' the village," said Delafield, with a laugh. "It pleases one's vanity. That's about all there is to it." "What, clubs and temperance, that kind of thing? Can you take any real interest in the people?" Delafield hesitated. "Well, yes," he said, at last, as though he grudged the admission. "There's nothing else to take an interest in, is there? By-the-way"--he jumped up--"I think I'll bid you good-night, for I've got to go down to-morrow in a hurry. I must be off by the first train in the morning." "What's the matter?" "Oh, it's only a wretched old man--that two beasts of women have put into the workhouse infirmary against his will. I only heard it to-night. I must go and get him out." He looked round for his gloves and stick. "Why shouldn't he be there?"