some random
impressions about Hedda Gabler which she extracted from me five years
ago; giving them with an impassioned conviction of which I was never
guilty. But I have known other people who could appropriate your stories
and opinions; Flavia is infinitely more subtle than that; she can
soak up the very thrash and drift of your daydreams, and take the very
thrills off your back, as it were."

After some days of unsuccessful effort, Flavia withdrew herself, and
Imogen found Hamilton ready to catch her when she was tossed afield.
He seemed only to have been awaiting this crisis, and at once their
old intimacy reestablished itself as a thing inevitable and beautifully
prepared for. She convinced herself that she had not been mistaken in
him, despite all the doubts that had come up in later years, and this
renewal of faith set more than one question thumping in her brain. "How
did he, how can he?" she kept repeating with a tinge of her childish
resentment, "what right had he to waste anything so fine?"

When Imogen and Arthur were returning from a walk before luncheon one
morning about a week after M. Roux's departure, they noticed an absorbed
group before one of the hall windows. Herr Schotte and Restzhoff sat
on the window seat with a newspaper between them, while Wellington,
Schemetzkin, and Will Maidenwood looked over their shoulders. They
seemed intensely interested, Herr Schotte occasionally pounding his
knees with his fists in ebullitions of barbaric glee. When imogen
entered the hall, however, the men were all sauntering toward the
breakfast room and the paper was lying innocently on the divan. During
luncheon the personnel of that window group were unwontedly animated and
agreeable all save Schemetzkin, whose stare was blanker than ever, as
though Roux's mantle of insulting indifference had fallen upon him, in
addition to his own oblivious self-absorption. Will Maidenwood seemed
embarrassed and annoyed; the chemist employed himself with making polite
speeches to Hamilton. Flavia did not come down to lunch--and there was
a malicious gleam under Herr Schotte's eyebrows. Frank Wellington
announced nervously that an imperative letter from his protecting
syndicate summoned him to the city.

After luncheon the men went to the golf links, and Imogen, at the first
opportunity, possessed herself of the newspaper which had been left on
the divan. One of the first things that caught her eye was an article
headed "Roux on