And it was this feeling which had predominated during the lady’s homeward drive, and the half hour’s tete-a-tete, before dinner, which she had utilized for an exchange of confidences with her son.

“I didn’t know that there had been an—­an exposure,” he said, as he stood, a stiff, uncompromising figure, before the fire in the little drawing-room.  “But I had an idea that it was inevitable from—­from certain information which I have received.  In fact, I have been rather puzzled.  You must do me the justice to remember that I never liked the man—­though he had his good points,” he added a little awkwardly, as inconvenient memories of the many kindnesses which he had received at Rainham’s hands thrust themselves upon him.  “But I’m afraid he’s hardly the sort of person one ought to be intimate with.  Especially you, and Eve.  Of course, for her it’s out of the question.”

“Oh, of course,” said Mrs. Sylvester decisively; “and they haven’t seen him since, I need hardly say.  In fact, they haven’t even heard of him.  They haven’t told a soul except me, and of course I sha’n’t tell anybody,” the lady concluded with a sigh, as she remembered how difficult she had found it to drive straight home without breaking the vow of secrecy which her daughter had exacted from her.

Whatever Mrs. Sylvester may have thought, it is certain that the interview, from which she enjoyed the impression of having emerged so triumphantly, had brought anything but consolation to her daughter, whose first impulse was to blame herself quite angrily for having admitted to her secret places, after all so natural a confidante.

Nor had Eve repented of this feeling.  As time went on she found her mother’s somewhat too obviously complacent attitude more and more exasperating, and she compared her want of reserve very unfavourably with her husband’s demeanour (it must be owned that he had his reasons for a certain reticence).  Against Colonel Lightmark, also, she cherished something of resentment, for he, too, more especially in collaboration with her mother, was wont to indulge in elderly, moral reflections, which, although for the most part no names were mentioned, were evidently not directed generally and at hazard against the society of which the Colonel and Mrs. Sylvester formed ornaments so distinguished.

Upon one afternoon, when Christmas was already a thing of the past, and the days were growing longer, it was with considerable relief that Eve heard the outer door close upon her mother, leaving her alone in the twilight of the smaller portion of the double drawing-room.  She was alone, for Mrs. Sylvester had been the last to depart of a small crowd of afternoon callers, and Dick was interviewing somebody—­a frame-maker, a model, or a dealer—­in the studio.  She sat with a book unopened in her hand, gazing intently into the fire, which cast responsive flickers over her face, giving a shadowed emphasis to the faint