deep in talk
with Lady Charlotte as to a certain loan exhibition in the East End, to
which he and a good many of his friends were sending pictures;
apparently his time and thoughts were entirely occupied with it. Rose,
leaning back silent in her corner, was presently seized with a little
shock of surprise that there should be so many interests and relations
in his life of which she knew nothing. He was talking now as the man of
possessions and influence. She saw a glimpse of him as he was in his
public aspect, and the kindness, the disinterestedness, the quiet sense,
and the humour of his talk insensibly affected her as she sat listening.
The mental image of him which had been dominant in her mind altered a
little. Nay, she grew a little hot over it. She asked herself scornfully
whether she were not as ready as any bread-and-butter miss of her
acquaintance to imagine every man she knew in love with her.

Very likely he had meant what he said quite differently, and she--oh!
humiliation--had flown into a passion with him for no reasonable cause.
Supposing he _had_ meant, two days ago, that if they were to go on being
friends she must let him be her lover too, it would of course have been
unpardonable. How _could_ she let any one talk to her of love
yet--especially Mr. Flaxman, who guessed, as she was quite sure, what
had happened to her? He must despise her to have imagined it. His
outburst had filled her with the oddest and most petulant resentment.
Were all men self-seeking? Did all men think women shallow and fickle?
Could a man and a woman never be honestly and simply friends? If he
_had_ made love to her, he could not possibly--and there was the sting
of it--feel towards her maiden dignity that romantic respect which she
herself cherished towards it. For it was incredible that any
delicate-minded girl should go through such a crisis as she had gone
through, and then fall calmly into another lover's arms a few weeks
later as though nothing had happened.

How we all attitudinise to ourselves! The whole of life often seems one
long dramatic performance, in which one half of us is for ever posing to
the other half.

But had he really made love to her?--had he meant what she had assumed
him to mean? The girl lost herself in a torment of memory and
conjecture, and meanwhile Mr. Flaxman sat opposite, talking away, and
looking certainly as little love-sick as any man can well look. As the
lamps flashed into the carriage