They had left the square and were passing up Harley Street. The houses wore their accustomed air of profitable secrecy. The doors, the windows, the brass knockers, the white and chastened steps were so discreet that Sunday morning was the only time in the week when they were really comfortable and at home. In every muffled hall there was lying in wait a muffled man-servant, beyond every muffled man-servant there was a muffled waiting-room with muffled illustrated papers: only the tinkling, at long intervals, of some sharp little bell from some inner secrecy would pierce that horrible discretion. Upon both men that shining succession of little brass plates produced its solemnity. Arkwright was nevertheless interested by Brun's discoveries. He was accompanied, as they talked, by that picture of the thin, dark girl moving restlessly her long, gloved hands. He could see now that look that she had flung at the picture.... Oh! she was interesting! "But tell me, Brun," he said, "you go on so fast. As I understand you there are these two, Breton and the girl, both of them the result of tragedies.... Do they know one another, do you suppose?" "No. The girl was only a small child when Breton was in England, and you can be sure that she was carefully kept out of his way. But now that he's back ... now that he's back!" "It's the girl that interests me!" said Arkwright. "Oh! the girl!" Brun was almost contemptuous. "There you go--English sentiment--missing all the time the great thing, the splendid thing." "Explain," Arkwright said, laughing; "I know you won't be happy until you have." "Why--it's the Duchess, the Duchess, the Duchess all the time. She's the centre of the picture; she _is_ the picture. _She's_ the subject." Arkwright said nothing. Brun tossed his hands in the air. "Oh--you English! No wonder you're centuries behind everything--you miss the very things under your nose. There's the Duchess, sitting there--a great figure as she has been these sixty years, but a figure hidden, veiled. There she has been for the last thirty years, shut up in that great house, wrapped about and concealed. Nobody knows what the matter was--I don't know. I should think Christopher's the only man who can tell. At any rate, thirty years ago she retired altogether from the world, and sees only the fewest of people. But all the ceremony goes on, dressing up, receiving, and the influence she has! She was powerful enough before she disappeared, but since! Why, there's no pie she hasn't her finger in: politics, society, revolution, life, death; nothing goes on without her knowledge, her approval, her disapproval----" "Her family, poor dears!"