Nigel made the mistake of judging Mrs. Chepstow's capacity by the
measure of his own shrewdness, which in such a direction was not great.
What seemed the inevitable procedure of such a woman to Nigel's amount
of worldly cleverness, seemed the procedure to be avoided to Mrs.
Chepstow's amount of the same blessing. She seldom took the obvious
route in deception, as Isaacson had realized almost from the first
moment when he knew her. She paid people the compliment of crediting
them with astuteness, and thought it advisable to be not only more
clever than they were stupid, but more clever than they were clever.

And so Nigel's pity grew; and now, when he was "having it out" with
himself, he felt that when the season was over Mrs. Chepstow must miss
him, not because she had picked him out as a man specially attractive to
her, but simply because he had brought the human element into a very
lonely life. In their last conversation he had spoken of the end of the
season, of the exodus that would follow it.

"Oh--yes, of course," she had said, rather vaguely.

"Where are you going?"

She had sat for a moment in silence, and he had believed he followed the
movement of her thought. He had felt certain that she was considering
whether she would tell him a lie, recount some happy plan invented at
the moment to deceive him. Feeling this certainty, he had looked at her,
and his eyes had asked her to tell him the truth. And he had believed
that she yielded to them, when at length she said:

"I haven't any special plans. I dare say I shall stay on quietly here."

She had not given him an opportunity of making a rejoinder, but had at
once turned the conversation to some quite different topic. And again he
had divined pride working busily within her.

She must miss him.

She must miss any one who occasionally stepped in to break her solitude.
Sometimes he had wondered at this solitude's completeness. He wondered
again now. Everybody had their friends, their intimates, whether
delightful or preposterous. Who were hers? Of course the average woman
had "dropped" her long ago. But there are other women in London besides
the average woman. There are brilliant women of Bohemia, there are
clever women even belonging to society who "take their own way," and
know precisely whom they choose, whoever interests or attracts them.
And--there are friends, faithful through changes, misfortunes, even
disasters. Where were Mrs. Chepstow's? He di