‘Is it really Mr. Moxey?’ she exclaimed.  ’Why, I had all but forgotten you, and positively it is your own fault!  It must be a year or more since you came to see me.  No?  Eight months?—­But I have been through so much trouble, you know.’  She sighed mechanically.  ’I thought of you one day at Bordighera, when we were looking at some funny little sea-creatures—­the kind of thing you used to know all about.  How is your sister?’

A chill struck upon his heart.  Assuredly he had no wish to find Constance sunk in the semblance of dolour; such hypocrisy would have pained him.  But her sprightliness was a shock.  Though months had passed since Mr. Palmer’s decease, a decent gravity would more have become her condition.  He could reply only in broken phrases, and it was a relief to him when the widow, as if tiring of his awkwardness, turned her attention elsewhere.

He was at length able to survey the company.  Two ladies in mourning he faintly recognised, the one a sister of Mr. Palmer’s, comely but of dull aspect; the other a niece, whose laugh was too frequent even had it been more musical, and who talked of athletic sports with a young man evidently better fitted to excel in that kind of thing than in any pursuit demanding intelligence.  This gentleman Christian had never met.  The two other callers, a grey-headed, military-looking person, and a lady, possibly his wife, were equally strangers to him.

The drawing-room was much changed in appearance since Christian’s last visit.  There was more display, a richer profusion of ornaments not in the best taste.  The old pictures had given place to showily-framed daubs of the most popular school.  On a little table at his elbow, he remarked the photograph of a jockey who was just then engrossing public affection.  What did all this mean?  Formerly, he had attributed every graceful feature of the room to Constance’s choice.  He had imagined that to her Mr. Palmer was indebted for guidance on points of aesthetic propriety.  Could it be that——?

He caught a glance which she cast in his direction, and instantly forgot the troublesome problem.  How dull of him to misunderstand her!  Her sportiveness had a double significance.  It was the expression of a hope which would not be subdued, and at the same time a means of disguising the tender interest with which she regarded him.  If she had been blithe before his appearance, how could she suddenly change her demeanour as soon as he entered?  It would have challenged suspicion and remark.  For the same reason she affected to have all but forgotten him.  Of course! how could he have failed to see that?  ’I thought of you one day at Bordighera’—­was not that the best possible way of making known to him that he had never been out of her mind?

Sweet, noble, long-suffering Constance!

He took a place by her sister, and began to talk of he knew not what, for all his attention was given to the sound of Constance’s voice.