to marry an elderly man.

And yet it seemed that no young man would ever want to marry her.

She shuddered before the mysteries of the flesh. Often she was shaken by
a storm of self-pity. Darkness yawned before her. And she still longed,
as she thought no other woman could ever have longed, for happiness,
companionship, a virile affection.

For some days she did not see the stranger again, although she was
several times in Bond Street. She began to think, to fear, he had
left London; yes--to fear! It had come to that! Realizing it, she felt
humiliation. But his eyes had seemed to tell her that she possessed for
him great attraction! She longed to see those eyes again, to decipher
their message more carefully. The exact meaning of it might have escaped
her in that brief instant of encounter. She wondered whether the young
man had known who she was, or whether he had merely been suddenly struck
by her appearance, and had thought, "I wish I knew that woman." She
wondered what exactly was his social status. No doubt if he had been
English she could have "placed" him at once, or if he had been French.
But he was neither the one nor the other. And she had had little time
to make up her mind about him, although, of course, his good looks had
leaped to the eye.

She had begun to think that Destiny had decided against another
encounter between her and this man when one day Seymour Portman asked
her to lunch with him at the Carlton. She accepted and went into the
restaurant at the appointed time. It was crowded with people, many of
whom she knew, but one table near that allotted to the general's
party had two empty chairs before it. On it was a card with the word
"Reserved." Soon after the general's guests had begun to lunch, when
Lady Sellingworth was in the full flow of conversation with her host, by
whose side she was sitting, and with a hunting peer whom she had known
all her life, and who sat on her other side, two people made their way
to the table near by and sat down in the empty chairs. One was an old
woman in a coal-black wig, with a white face and faded eyes, rather
vague and dull in appearance, but well dressed and quietly self-assured,
the other was the man Lady Sellingworth had met in Bond Street. He took
the chair which was nearly opposite to her; but whether deliberately
or by accident she had no time to notice. He did not look at her for
several minutes after sitting down. He was apparently busy ordering
lunc