feel hurt; by a mystery of the mind intervening time was cancelled, and it seemed unnatural, hard to bear, that Hubert should by preference address another than herself.  An impulse similar to that which had forced her to speak his name in conversation with Stella now constrained her to break silence, to say something which would require a reply.  Her feeling became a sort of self-pity; he regarded her as beneath his notice, he wished her to see that his indifference was absolute; why should he treat her so cruelly?

She added a few words to a remark Mrs. Westlake made, and, the moment she had spoken, was sensible that her tone had been strangely impulsive.  Stella glanced at her.  Hubert, too, turned his eyes, smiled, and made some reply; she had no understanding of what he said.  Had not force failed her she would have risen and left the room.  Her heart sank in yet crueller humiliation; she believed there were tears in her eyes, yet had no power to check them.  He was still addressing Mrs. Westlake; herself he deemed incapable of appreciating what he said.  Perhaps he even—­the thought made clanging in her ears, like a rude bell—­perhaps he even regarded her as a social inferior since her marriage.  It was almost hysteria, to such a pitch of unreason was she wrought.  Her second self looked on, anguished, helpless.  The voices in the room grew distant and confused.

Then the door was opened and the servant announced—­

‘Mr. Mutimer.’

It saved her.  She saw her husband enter, and an ice-cold breath made frigid her throbbing veins.  She fixed her eyes upon him, and could not remove them; they followed him from the door to where Stella stood to receive him.  She saw that he almost paused on recognising Eldon, that his brows contracted, that involuntarily he looked at her.

‘You know Mr. Eldon,’ Stella said, perhaps in not quite her ordinary voice, for the meeting could in no case be a very happy one.

‘Oh yes,’ replied Mutimer, scarcely looking at Hubert, and making an idle effort at a bow.

Hubert did not reseat himself.  He took leave of Stella cordially; to Adela he inclined himself at respectful distance.

Mrs. Westlake supplied conversation.  Adela, leaving her former chair, took a seat by her friend’s side, but could not as yet trust her voice.  Presently her husband addressed her; it was for the first time; he had not even given his hand.

’Alice is very anxious that you should dine with her before you go home.  Do you think Mrs. Westlake could spare you this evening?’

And, on Stella’s looking an inquiry, he added: 

‘My sister, Mrs. Rodman.  I don’t think you know her?’

Adela had no choice but to procure her hostess’s assent to this arrangement.

‘I’ll call for you at seven o’clock,’ Mutimer said.

Adela knew that he was commanding himself; his tone was not quite discourteous, but he had none of the genial satisfaction which he ordinarily showed in the company of refined people.  She attributed his displeasure to her neglect of Alice.  But it did not affect her as it had been wont to; she was disposed to resent it.