eat relief had freed himself from this most
undesirable attachment, who for three years had presented every
appearance of judicious apathy, Horace, perceiving that men's eyes
(and women's too) loved to follow and to rest upon his cousin,
discovering all over again on his own account the mysterious genius of
her fascination, had ended by bowing down and worshipping too. His
adoration was the more profound (and in Edith's shrewd opinion more
dangerous), because he kept it to himself; because it pledged him to
nothing in the eyes of Lucia and the world.

But the eyes of the world, especially of the journalistic world, are
exceedingly sharp; and if Lucia had not been charming in herself those
literary ladies and gentlemen would have found her so, as the lady
whom Horace Jewdwine was presumably about to marry. It was Hanson,
Hanson of the _Courier_, who sent the rumour round, "_La reine est
morte, vive la reine_." The superb despotic Edith saw herself not only
deserted, but deposed; left with neither court nor kingdom; declining
from the palace of royalty to the cottage of the private gentlewoman,
and maintaining her imperious refinement on a revenue absurdly
disproportioned to that end. Not that as yet there had been any
suggestion of Edith's abdication. As yet Lucia had only spent her
winter holidays at Hampstead. But when, at the end of the present
summer, Lucia suddenly and unexpectedly broke down and her salary
ceased with her strength, it became a question of providing her with a
home for three months at the very least. Even then, the revolution was
delayed; for Horace had gone abroad in the autumn. But with every
month that Edith remained in power she loved power more; and in her
heart she had been considering how, without scandal to the world, or
annoyance to Horace, or offence to Lucia, she could put her rival
delicately aside. She had long been on the look-out for easy posts for
Lucia, for posts in rich and aristocratic families in the provinces,
or better still for ladies in want of charming travelling companions.

But now, better, a thousand times better, that Edith should have been
forced to abdicate than that Lucia should have taken herself out of
the way in this fashion; a fashion so hideously suggestive of social
suicide; that she should be living within four miles of her fastidious
and refined relations in a fifth-rate boarding-house inhabitated by
goodness knows whom. If only that had been all! Of course i