Nothing could have been more conspicuous than her appearance, more unabashed than the proclamation of her gay approach.  Mounted high, heralded by the tootling horn, her hair blown, her cheeks bright with speed, her head and throat wrapped in a rosy veil that flung two broad streamers to the wind (as it were the banners of the red dawn flying and fluttering over her), she passed, the supreme figure in the pageant of triumphal vice.

Her face was turned to Gorst’s face, his to hers.  He looked more than ever brilliant, charming and charmed, laughing aloud with his companion.  Hannay and Ransome raised their hats to Mrs. Majendie as they passed.  Gorst was too much absorbed in Lady Cayley.

Anne shivered, chilled and sick with the resurgence of her old disgust.  These were her husband’s chosen associates and comrades; they stood by one another; they were all bound up together in one degrading intimacy.  His dear friend Mr. Gorst was the dear friend of Lady Cayley.  He knew what she was, and thought nothing of it.  Mr. Ransome, her brother-in-law, knew, and thought nothing of it.  As for Mr. Hannay, Walter’s other dear friend, you only had to look at the women he was with to see how much Mr. Hannay thought.  There could have been nothing very profound in his supposed repudiation of Lady Cayley.  If it was true that he had once paid her money to go, he was doing his best to welcome her, now she had come back.  But it was Gorst, with his vivid delight in Lady Cayley, who amazed her most.  Anne had identified him with the man of whom Walter had once told her, the man who was “fond of Edith,” the man of whom Walter admitted that he was not “entirely straight.”  And this man was always calling on Edith.

She was resolved that, if she could prevent it, he should call no more.  It should not be said that she allowed her house to be open to such people.  But it required some presence of mind to state her determination.  Before she could speak with any authority she would have to find out all that could be known about Mr. Gorst.  She would ask Fanny Eliott, who had seemed to know, and to know more than she had cared to say.

Instead of going straight home, she turned aside into Thurston Square; and had the good luck to find Fanny Eliott at home.

Fanny Eliott was rejoiced to see her.  She looked at her anxiously, and observed that she was thin.  She spoke of her call as a “coming back”; the impression conveyed by Anne’s manner was so strikingly that of return after the pursuit of an illusion.

Anne smiled wearily, as if it had been a long step from Prior Street to Thurston Square.

“I thought,” said Mrs. Eliott, “I was never going to see you again.”

“You might have known,” said Anne.

“Oh yes, I might have known.  And you’re not going to run away at five o’clock?”

“No.  I can stay a little—­if you’re free.”

Mrs. Eliott interpreted the condition as a request for privacy, and rang the bell to ensure it.  She knew something was coming; and it came.