ous to be flying like an emotional
coward from an infatuation his reason had conquered. He had instructed
his bankers to forward some important business letters to Nice, and at
Nice he would quietly await them. He was already annoyed with himself for
having left Monte Carlo, where he had intended to pass the week which
remained to him before sailing; but it would now be difficult to return
on his steps without an appearance of inconsistency from which his pride
recoiled. In his inmost heart he was not sorry to put himself beyond the
probability of meeting Miss Bart. Completely as he had detached himself
from her, he could not yet regard her merely as a social instance; and
viewed in a more personal ways she was not likely to be a reassuring
object of study. Chance encounters, or even the repeated mention of her
name, would send his thoughts back into grooves from which he had
resolutely detached them; whereas, if she could be entirely excluded from
his life, the pressure of new and varied impressions, with which no
thought of her was connected, would soon complete the work of separation.
Mrs. Fisher's conversation had, indeed, operated to that end; but the
treatment was too painful to be voluntarily chosen while milder remedies
were untried; and Selden thought he could trust himself to return
gradually to a reasonable view of Miss Bart, if only he did not see her.

Having reached the station early, he had arrived at this point in his
reflections before the increasing throng on the platform warned him that
he could not hope to preserve his privacy; the next moment there was a
hand on the door, and he turned to confront the very face he was fleeing.

Miss Bart, glowing with the haste of a precipitate descent upon the
train, headed a group composed of the Dorsets, young Silverton and Lord
Hubert Dacey, who had barely time to spring into the carriage, and
envelop Selden in ejaculations of surprise and welcome, before the
whistle of departure sounded. The party, it appeared, were hastening to
Nice in response to a sudden summons to dine with the Duchess of
Beltshire and to see the water-fete in the bay; a plan evidently
improvised--in spite of Lord Hubert's protesting "Oh, I say, you
know,"--for the express purpose of defeating Mrs. Bry's endeavour to
capture the Duchess.

During the laughing relation of this manoeuvre, Selden had time for a
rapid impression of Miss Bart, who had seated herself opposite to him in
the gold