 to. Boscobel's
portrait of her - I saw it in the studio just before it went away - was a
wonderful thing.«
    This was necessarily said in a low tone; it seemed to establish confidence
between them.
    Adela experienced a sudden and strange calm; in a world so entirely new to
her, was it not to be expected that things would happen of which she had never
dreamt? The tremor with which she had faced this her first evening in general
society had allayed itself almost as soon as she entered the room, giving place
to a kind of pleasure for which she was not at all prepared, a pleasure
inconsistent with the mood which governed her life. Perhaps, had she been
brought into this world in those sunny days before her marriage, just such
pleasure as this, only in a more pronounced degree, would have awoke in her and
have been fearlessly indulged. The first shock of the meeting with Hubert having
passed, she was surprised at her self-control, at the ease with which she found
she could converse. Hubert took her down to dinner; on the stairs he twice
turned to look at her face, yet she felt sure that her hand had betrayed no
agitation as it lay on his arm. At table he talked freely; did he know - she
asked herself - that this would relieve her? And his conversation was altogether
unlike what it had been two years and a half ago - so long it was since she had
talked with him under ordinary conditions. There was still animation, and the
note of intellectual impatience was touched occasionally, but the world had
ripened him, his judgments were based on sounder knowledge, he was more
polished, more considerate - gentler, Adela afterwards said to herself. And
decidedly he had gained in personal appearance; a good deal of the bright, eager
boy had remained with him in his days of storm and stress, but now his features
had the repose of maturity and their refinement had fixed itself in lines of
strength.
    He talked solely of the present, discussed with her the season's pictures,
the books, the idle business of the town. At length she found herself able to
meet his glance without fear, even to try and read its character. She thought of
the day when her mother told her of his wickedness. Since then she had made
acquaintance with wickedness in various forms, and now she marvelled at the way
in which she had regarded him. »I was a child, a child,« she repeated to
herself. Thinking thus, she lost none of his words. He
