And Rhoda stood with erect head, smiling her smile of liberty.  Monica did not dare to ask any question.  She moved up to her friend, holding out both hands timidly.

‘Good-bye!’

‘Till next summer.’

They embraced, and kissed each other, Monica, when she had withdrawn her hot lips, again murmuring words of gratitude.  Then in silence they went together to the house-door, and in silence parted.

CHAPTER XXX

RETREAT WITH HONOUR

Alighting, on his return to London, at the Savoy Hotel, Barfoot insensibly prolonged his stay there.  For the present he had no need of a more private dwelling; he could not see more than a few days ahead; his next decisive step was as uncertain as it had been during the first few months after his coming back from the East.

Meantime, he led a sufficiently agreeable life.  The Brissendens were not in town, but his growing intimacy with that family had extended his social outlook, and in a direction correspondent with the change in his own circumstances.  He was making friends in the world with which he had a natural affinity; that of wealthy and cultured people who seek no prominence, who shrink from contact with the circles known as ‘smart,’ who possess their souls in quiet freedom.  It is a small class, especially distinguished by the charm of its women.  Everard had not adapted himself without difficulty to this new atmosphere; from the first he recognized its soothing and bracing quality, but his experiences had accustomed him to an air more rudely vigorous; it was only after those weeks spent abroad in frequent intercourse with the Brissendens that he came to understand the full extent of his sympathy with the social principles these men and women represented.

In the houses where his welcome was now assured he met some three of four women among whom it would have been difficult to assign the precedence for grace of manner and of mind.  These persons were not in declared revolt against the order of things, religious, ethical, or social; that is to say, they did not think it worthwhile to identify themselves with any ‘movement’; they were content with the unopposed right of liberal criticism.  They lived placidly; refraining from much that the larger world enjoined, but never aggressive.  Everard admired them with increasing fervour.  With one exception they were married, and suitably married; that member of the charming group who kept her maiden freedom was Agnes Brissenden, and it seemed to Barfoot that, if preference were at all justified, Agnes should receive the palm.  His view of her had greatly changed since the early days of their acquaintance; in fact, he perceived that till of late he had not known her at all.  His quick assumption that Agnes was at his disposal if he chose to woo her had been mere fatuity; he misread her perfect simplicity of demeanour, the unconstraint of her intellectual