intances as recent; and on her return
from this somewhat depressing excursion she was immediately conscious
that Mrs. Dorset's influence was still in the air. There had been another
exchange of visits, a tea at a country-club, an encounter at a hunt ball;
there was even a rumour of an approaching dinner, which Mattie Gormer,
with an unnatural effort at discretion, tried to smuggle out of the
conversation whenever Miss Bart took part in it.

The latter had already planned to return to town after a farewell Sunday
with her friends; and, with Gerty Farish's aid, had discovered a small
private hotel where she might establish herself for the winter. The
hotel being on the edge of a fashionable neighbourhood, the price of the
few square feet she was to occupy was considerably in excess of her
means; but she found a justification for her dislike of poorer quarters
in the argument that, at this particular juncture, it was of the utmost
importance to keep up a show of prosperity. In reality, it was impossible
for her, while she had the means to pay her way for a week ahead, to
lapse into a form of existence like Gerty Farish's. She had never been so
near the brink of insolvency; but she could at least manage to meet her
weekly hotel bill, and having settled the heaviest of her previous debts
out of the money she had received from Trenor, she had a still fair
margin of credit to go upon. The situation, however, was not agreeable
enough to lull her to complete unconsciousness of its insecurity. Her
rooms, with their cramped outlook down a sallow vista of brick walls and
fire-escapes, her lonely meals in the dark restaurant with its surcharged
ceiling and haunting smell of coffee--all these material discomforts,
which were yet to be accounted as so many privileges soon to be
withdrawn, kept constantly before her the disadvantages of her state; and
her mind reverted the more insistently to Mrs. Fisher's counsels. Beat
about the question as she would, she knew the outcome of it was that she
must try to marry Rosedale; and in this conviction she was fortified by
an unexpected visit from George Dorset.

She found him, on the first Sunday after her return to town, pacing her
narrow sitting-room to the imminent peril of the few knick-knacks with
which she had tried to disguise its plush exuberances; but the sight of
her seemed to quiet him, and he said meekly that he hadn't come to bother
her--that he asked only to be allowed to sit f