As she sat down on the cane chair which Arthur had found, Leonora’s characteristic ease of manner deserted her.  She felt conspicuous and embarrassed, and she could neither maintain her usual cold nonchalant glance in examining the room, nor look at Arthur in a natural way.  She had the illusion that every one must be staring at her with amazed curiosity.  Yet her furtive searching eye could not discover a single person except Arthur who seemed to notice her existence.  All were preoccupied that night with immediate neighbours.

‘Will you come down into the refreshment-room?’ Arthur asked.  She observed with annoyance that he too was confused, nervous, and still very pale.

She shook her head, without meeting his gaze.  She wished above all things to behave simply and sincerely, to speak in her ordinary voice, and to use familiar phrases.  But she could not.  On the contrary she was seized with a strong impulse to say to him entreatingly:  ‘Leave me,’ as though she were a person on the stage.  She thought of other phrases, such as ‘Please go away,’ and ‘Do you mind leaving me for a while?’ but her tongue, somehow insisting on the melodramatic, would not utter these.

‘Leave me!’ She was frightened by her own words, and added hastily, with the most seductive smile that her lips had ever-framed:  ‘Do you mind?’

‘I shall call to-morrow,’ he said anxiously, almost gruffly.  ’Shall you be in?’

She nodded, and he left her; she did not watch him depart.

‘May I have the honour, gracious lady?’

It was the conductor of the opera who addressed her in his even, apparently sarcastic tones.

‘I’m afraid I must rest a bit,’ she said, smiling quite naturally.  ’I’ve hurt my foot a little—­Oh, it’s nothing, it’s nothing.  But I must sit still for a bit.’

She could not comprehend why, unintentionally and without design, she should have told this stupid lie, and told it so persuasively.  She foresaw how the tedious consequences of the fiction might continue throughout the evening.  For a moment she had the idea of announcing a sprained ankle and of returning home at once.  But the thought of old Dr. Hawley’s presence in the building deterred her.  She perceived that her foot must get gradually better, and that she must be resigned.

‘Oh, mamma!’ cried Rose, coming up to her.  ’Just fancy Mr. Twemlow being back again!  But why did you let him leave?’

‘Has he gone?’

’Yes.  He just saw me on the stairs, and told me he must catch the last car to Knype.’

‘Our dance, I think, Miss Rose,’ said a young man with a gardenia, and Rose, flushed and sparkling, was carried off.  The ball proceeded.

* * * * *