he had no tremendously old man friend, having always preferred those
who were still in possession of all their faculties.

No young man could be impartial, least of all Alick Craven, and yet she
wished intensely that she had not lost her head that day in Glebe Place,
that she had carried out her original intention and had introduced
Craven to Arabian.

She knew what people were saying of her in London. Although she was in
deep mourning and could not go about, several women had been to see her.
They had come to condole with her, and had managed to let her understand
what people were murmuring. Lady Archie had been with her. Mrs.
Birchington had looked in. And two days after Lady Sellingworth's visit
to Coombe Dindie Ackroyde had called. From her Miss Van Tuyn had
heard of Craven's walk in the garden with Adela Sellingworth and early
departure to London in Adela's motor. In addition to this piece of
casually imparted news, Mrs. Ackroyde had frankly told Miss Van Tuyn
that she was being gossiped about in a disagreeable way and that, in
spite of her established reputation for unconventionality, she ought to
be more careful. And Miss Van Tuyn--astonishingly--had not resented
this plain speaking. Mrs. Ackroyde, of course, had tried to find out
something about Nicolas Arabian, but Miss Van Tuyn had evaded the not
really asked questions, and had treated the whole matter with an almost
airy casualness which had belied all that was in her mind.

But these visits, and especially Dindie Ackroyde's, had deepened the
nervous pre-occupation which was beginning seriously to alarm old Fanny.

If she took old Fanny's advice and left London? If she returned to
Paris? She believed, indeed she felt certain, that to do that would not
be to separate from Arabian. He would follow her there. If she took the
wings of the morning and flew to the uttermost parts of the earth there
surely she would find him. She began to think of him as a hound on
the trail of her. And yet she did not want him to lose the trail. She
combined fear with desire in a way that was inexplicable to herself,
that sometimes seemed to her like a sort of complex madness. But her
reason for remaining in London was not to be found in Arabian's presence
there. And she knew that. If she went to Paris she would be separated
from Alick Craven. She did not want to be separated from him. And
now Dindie Ackroyde's news intensified her reluctance to yield to old
Fanny's persuasions