her plane, became merely a doubt as to the most useful employment of
energy, and that doubt nobody could entertain long, nobody of reasonable
breadth of view, who had ever seen her expressing the ideals of the
stage. Arnold did his best to ward off all consideration which he could
suspect of a personal origin, but his inveterate self-sacrifice slipped
in and counted, naturally enough, under another guise, against her
staying.

He went to his room and wrote to Hilda at once, the kindest, simplest
of letters, but conveying a definitely negative note. He would have
been perhaps more guarded, but it was so plainly his last word to her;
Llewellyn Stanhope was proclaiming the departure of his people in ten
days' time upon every blank wall. So he gave himself a little latitude,
he let in an undercurrent of gentle reminiscence, of serious assurance
as to the difference she had made. And when he had finally bade her
begone to the light and fulness of her own life, and fastened up his
letter, he deliberately lifted it to his lips and placed a trembling,
awkward kiss upon it, like the kiss of an old man, perfunctory yet
bearing a tender intention.

The Livingstones and Duff Lindsay had come back, the people from Surrey
having been sped upon their way to the Far East. Stephen remembered
with more than his usual relish an engagement to dine that evening
in Middleton Street. He involuntarily glanced at his watch. It was
half-past one. The afternoon looked arid, stretching between. Consulting
his tablets he found that he had nothing that was really of any
consequence to do. There were items, but they were unimportant,
transferable. He had dismissed Hilda Howe, but a glow from the world she
helped to illumine showed seductively at the end of his day. He made
an errand involving a long walk, and came back at an hour which left
nothing but evensong between him and eight o'clock.

He was suddenly aware as he talked to her later, of a keener edge to his
appreciation of the charm of Alicia Livingstone. Her voyage, he assured
her, had done her all the good in the world. Her delicate bloom had
certainly been enhanced by it, and the graceful spring of her neck and
her waist seemed to have its counterpart in a freshened poise of
the agreeable things she found to say. It was delightful the way she
declared herself quite a different being, and the pleasure with which
she moved, dragging fascinating skirts behind her, about the room. She
made m