f recognition, though she must have seen that I stared and stared as
though I had beheld a ghost; but leaning back in the luxurious cushions
of the carriage, drew down her veil and arranged a fur rug about her
knees. I stood stock-still, and was rather roughly hustled before I
so much as remembered where I was. When I looked round Brunow had
disappeared. He had probably seen me, and having found time to cool, had
wisely decided against a renewal in the public street of our quarrel of
that afternoon. I walked on like a man in a dream, for Constance Pleyel
was the last woman in the world I had thought to see, and the very last
woman to be found in the society of Brunow and the Baroness Bonnar. So
far as I knew, Brunow had certainly little enough to do with her, and
their meeting might have been one of the purest chance; but that she
was associated in some way with the baroness was evident enough from
her presence in that lady's carriage. It is a bitter thing to have to go
back on the past in this way, but I cannot tell my story without it.
If there are worthless women in the world, there are some who are very
nearly angels, and I feel as if I were almost dishonoring the sex in
telling the truth about poor Constance, for I had been very honestly in
love with her when I was a lad, and it seems even now, after the lapse
of all these years, as if I were defiling the place which had once been
a sanctuary. But when I had recovered from the shock of my surprise
and began to understand what I had seen, it crossed me in a very vivid
fashion that the mistrusting dislike with which I had always regarded
the baroness had received strong confirmation in an unexpected way; for
Constance Pleyel was not and had not been for years one with whom any
self-respecting woman would wish to be intimate. The thought of the
Baroness Bonnar, fresh from contact with her, coming into Violet's
presence was anything but agreeable. I am not much of a prude, and was
never disposed to hound a woman down for an error in love; but the plain
English of the matter was that no woman who would care to know Constance
Pleyel had a right to exchange a word with Violet. My mind was a good
deal exercised about this matter as I walked swiftly homeward. I thought
about it while I was dressing, and as I drove back to Lady Rollinson's
that strange _rencontre_ filled my thoughts to the exclusion of
everything else. You may judge of my surprise when the baroness appeared
as