"Mr. Raeburn! will _you_ tell me who people are? Mr. Leven's no more use
than my fan. Just imagine--I asked him who that lady in the tiara
is--and he vows he doesn't know! Why, it just seems that when you go to
Oxford, you leave the wits you had before, behind! And then--of
course"--Betty affected a delicate hesitation--"there's the difficulty
of being quite sure that you'll ever get any new ones!--But
there--look!--I'm in despair!--she's vanished--and I shall _never_
know!"

"One moment!" said Raeburn, smiling, "and I will take you in pursuit.
She has only gone into the tea-room."

His hand touched Marcella's.

"Just a _little_ better," he said, with a sudden change of look, in
answer to Lady Winterbourne's question. "The account to-night is
certainly brighter. They begged me not to come, or I should have been
off some days ago. And next week, I am thankful to say, they will be
home."

Why should she be standing there, so inhumanly still and
silent?--Marcella asked herself. Why not take courage again--join
in--talk--show sympathy? But the words died on her lips. After
to-night--thank heaven!--she need hardly see him again.

He asked after herself as usual. Then, just as he was turning away with
Betty, he came back to her, unexpectedly.

"I should like to tell you about Hallin," he said gently. "His sister
writes to me that she is happier about him, and that she hopes to be
able to keep him away another fortnight. They are at Keswick."

For an instant there was pleasure in the implication of common ground, a
common interest--here if no-where else. Then the pleasure was lost in
the smart of her own strange lack of self-government as she made a
rather stupid and awkward reply.

Raeburn's eyes rested on her for a moment. There was in them a flash of
involuntary expression, which she did not notice--for she had turned
away--which no one saw--except Betty. Then the child followed him to the
tea-room, a little pale and pensive.

Marcella looked after them.

In the midst of the uproar about her, the babel of talk fighting against
the Hungarian band, which was playing its wildest and loudest in the
tea-room, she was overcome by a sudden rush of memory. Her eyes were
tracing the passage of those two figures through the crowd; the man in
his black court suit, stooping his refined and grizzled head to the girl
beside him, or turning every now and then to greet an acquaintance, with
the manner--cordial and pleasant, ye