d her into some hazardous
experiments, resisted Jack's attempts to disguise Mr. Rosedale as a
novelty, and declared that he was the same little Jew who had been served
up and rejected at the social board a dozen times within her memory; and
while Judy Trenor was obdurate there was small chance of Mr. Rosedale's
penetrating beyond the outer limbo of the Van Osburgh crushes. Jack gave
up the contest with a laughing "You'll see," and, sticking manfully to
his guns, showed himself with Rosedale at the fashionable restaurants, in
company with the personally vivid if socially obscure ladies who are
available for such purposes. But the attempt had hitherto been vain, and
as Rosedale undoubtedly paid for the dinners, the laugh remained with his
debtor.

Mr. Rosedale, it will be seen, was thus far not a factor to be
feared--unless one put one's self in his power. And this was precisely
what Miss Bart had done. Her clumsy fib had let him see that she had
something to conceal; and she was sure he had a score to settle with her.
Something in his smile told her he had not forgotten. She turned from the
thought with a little shiver, but it hung on her all the way to the
station, and dogged her down the platform with the persistency of Mr.
Rosedale himself.

She had just time to take her seat before the train started; but having
arranged herself in her corner with the instinctive feeling for effect
which never forsook her, she glanced about in the hope of seeing some
other member of the Trenors' party. She wanted to get away from herself,
and conversation was the only means of escape that she knew.

Her search was rewarded by the discovery of a very blond young man with a
soft reddish beard, who, at the other end of the carriage, appeared to be
dissembling himself behind an unfolded newspaper. Lily's eye brightened,
and a faint smile relaxed the drawn lines of her mouth. She had known
that Mr. Percy Gryce was to be at Bellomont, but she had not counted on
the luck of having him to herself in the train; and the fact banished all
perturbing thoughts of Mr. Rosedale. Perhaps, after all, the day was to
end more favourably than it had begun.

She began to cut the pages of a novel, tranquilly studying her prey
through downcast lashes while she organized a method of attack.
Something in his attitude of conscious absorption told her that he was
aware of her presence: no one had ever been quite so engrossed in an
evening paper! She guessed