Adela could not make any reply; she shook hands with Alice and took her leave, only breathing freely when once more in the street.  All the way back to St. John’s Wood she was afflicted by the thought that it would be impossible to advise a meeting between Stella and Mrs. Rodman.  Yet she had promised Richard to do so.  Once more she found herself sundered from him in sympathies.  Affection between Alice and her there could be none, yet Alice was the one person in the world whom Richard held greatly dear.

The enchanted life of those first weeks at Exmouth was now resumed.  The golden mornings passed with poetry and music; in the afternoon visits were paid to museums and galleries, or to the studios of artists who were Mrs. Westlake’s friends, and who, as Adela was pleased to see, always received Stella with reverential homage.  The evening, save when a concert called them forth, was generally a time of peaceful reading and talking, the presence of friends making no difference in the simple arrangements of the home.  If a man came to dine at this house, it was greatly preferred that he should not present himself in the. costume of a waiter, and only those came who were sufficiently intimate with the Westlakes to know their habits.  One evening weekly saw a purely Socialist gathering; three or four artisans were always among the guests.  On that occasion Adela was sorely tempted to plead a headache, but for several reasons she resisted.  It was a trial to her, for she was naturally expected to talk a good deal with the visitors, several of whom she herself had entertained at Wanley.  Watching Stella, she had a feeling which she could not quite explain or justify; she was pained to see her goddess in this company, and felt indignant with some of the men who seemed to make themselves too much at their ease.  There was no talk of poetry.

Among the studios to which Stella took her was that of Mr. Boscobel.  Mrs. Boscobel made much of them, and insisted on Adela’s coming to dine with her.  An evening was appointed.  Adela felt reproofs of conscience, remembering the excuse she had offered to Alice, but in this case it was impossible to decline.  Stella assured her that the party would be small, and would be sure to comprise none but really interesting people.  It was so, in fact.  Two men whom, on arriving, they found in the drawing-room Adela knew by fame, and the next to enter was a lady whose singing she had heard with rapture at a concert on the evening before.  She was talking with this lady when a new announcement fell upon her ear, a name which caused her to start and gaze towards the door.  Impossible for her to guard against this display of emotion; the name she heard so distinctly seemed an unreal utterance, a fancy of her brain, or else it belonged to another than the one she knew.  But there was no such illusion; he whom she saw enter was assuredly Hubert Eldon.

A few hot seconds only seemed to intervene before she was called upon to acknowledge him, for Mrs. Boscobel was presenting him to her.