‘Then I hope a very sad beautiful face will no longer haunt me.’

Thus did two ladies transact the most weighty part of their business after shaking hands for good-bye—­an analogy to the proverbial postscript, perhaps.

The same evening there was a dinner-party at the Tyrrells’.  Mr. Newthorpe had, as usual, kept to his own room.  Annabel went thither to sit with him for a while after the visitors were gone.

He had a poem that he wished to read to her; there was generally some scrap of prose or verse waiting for her when she went into the study.  To-night Annabel could not give the usual attention.  Mr. Newthorpe noticed this, and, laying the book aside, made one or two inquiries about the company of the evening.  She replied briefly, then, after hesitation, asked: 

‘Do you very much want to go to the Pilkingtons’, father?’

He regarded her with amazement.

‘I?  Since when have I had a passionate desire to camp in strangers’ houses and eat strange flesh?’

’Then you do not greatly care about it—­even for the sake of meeting Mr. Lanyard?’

’Lanyard?  Great Heavens!  The fellow has done some fine things, but spiritual converse with him is quite enough for me.’

’Then will you please to discover all at once that you are really not so well as you thought, and that, after your season’s dancing and theatre-going, you feel obliged to get hack either to Eastbourne or Ullswater as soon as possible?’

’The fact is, Bell, I haven’t felt by any means up to the mark these last few days.’

’Dear father, don’t say that!  I am wrong to speak lightly of such things.’

’I only say it because you ask me to, sweet-and-twenty.  In truth I feel very comfortable, but I shall be far more sure of remaining so at Eastbourne than at the Pilkingtons’.’

‘Eastbourne, you think?’

‘Nay, as you please, Bell.’

‘Yes, Eastbourne again.’  She came to her father and took his hands.  ’I’m tired, tired, tired of it all, dear; tired and weary unutterably!  If ever we come to London again, let us tell nobody, and take quiet rooms in some shabby quarter, and go to the National Gallery, and to the marbles at the Museum, and all places where we are sure of never meeting a soul who belongs to the fashionable world.  If we go to a concert, we’ll sit in the gallery, among people who come because they really want to hear music—­’

‘Eheu!  The stairs are portentous, Bell!’

’Never mind the stairs!  Nay then, we won’t go to public concerts at all, but I will play for you and myself, beginning when we like, and leaving off when we like, and using imagination—­thank goodness, we both have some!—­to make up for the defects.  We’ll go back to our books—­oh! you have never left them; but I, poor sinner that I am —!  Give me my Dante, and let me feel him between my hands!  Where is Virgil?