Some held her presumptuous, conceited, spoilt by adulation; some accused her of bad taste and blue-stockingism; some declared that she had no object but to win men’s admiration and outshine women.  Without a thought of such comments, she behaved as was natural to her.  Where she felt her superiority, she made no pretence of appearing femininely humble.  Yet persons like Mrs. Delph, who kept themselves in shadow and spoke only with simple kindness, knew well how unassuming Cecily was, and with what deference she spoke when good feeling dictated it.  Or again, there was her manner with the people who, by the very respect with which they inspired her, gave her encouragement to speak without false restraint; such as Mr. Bird, the art critic, a grizzle-headed man with whom she sat for a quarter of an hour this evening, looking her very brightest and talking in her happiest vein, yet showing all the time her gratitude for what she learnt from his conversation.

It was nearly twelve o’clock when Mrs. Travis, who had made one or two careless efforts to draw near to Cecily, succeeded in speaking a word aside with her.

“I hope you didn’t go to see me yesterday?  I left home in the morning, and am staying with friends at Hampstead, not far from you.”

“For long?”

“I don’t know.  I should like to talk to you, if I could.  Shall you be driving back alone?”

“Yes.  Will you come with me?”

“Thank you.  Please let me know when you are going.”

And Mrs. Travis turned away.  In a few minutes Cecily went to take leave of her aunt.

“How is Clarence?” asked Mrs. Lessingham.

“Still better, I believe.  I left him to-night without uneasiness.”

“Oh, I had a letter this morning from Mrs. Spence.  No talk of England yet.  In the autumn they are going to Greece, then for the winter to Sicily.”

“Miriam with them?”

“As though it were a matter of course.”

They both smiled.  Then Cecily took leave of two or three other people, and quitted the room.  Mrs. Travis followed her, and in a few minutes they were seated in the brougham.

Mrs. Travis had a face one could not regard without curiosity.  It was not beautiful in any ordinary sense, but strange and striking and rich in suggestiveness.  In the chance, flickering light that entered the carriage, she looked haggard, and at all times her thinness and pallor give her the appearance of suffering both in body and mind.  Her complexion was dark, her hair of a rich brown; she had very large eyes, which generally wandered in an absent, restless, discontented way.  If she smiled, it was with a touch of bitterness, and her talk was wont to be caustic.  Cecily had only known her for a few weeks, and did not feel much drawn to her, but she compassionated her for sorrows known and suspected.  Though only six and twenty, Mrs. Travis had been married seven years, and had had two children; the first died at birth, the second was carried off by diphtheria.  Her husband Cecily had never seen, but she heard disagreeable things of him, and Mrs. Travis herself had dropped hints which signified domestic unhappiness.