n which he had been nurtured, was strong enough to keep him
from actually entering the station and lurking about until she came.
With a pang of disappointment he retraced his steps from Praed Street to
the Park, and once there tried no further to waylay her. He paid a round
of calls in the afternoon, mostly on her relations; and, seeking out Aunt
Charlotte, he dolorously related his encounter in the Row. But she found
it "rather nice," and on his pressing her with his views, she murmured
that it was "quite romantic, don't you know."

"Still, it's very hard," said Shelton; and he went away disconsolate.

As he was dressing for dinner his eye fell on a card announcing the "at
home" of one of his own cousins. Her husband was a composer, and he had
a vague idea that he would find at the house of a composer some quite
unusually free kind of atmosphere. After dining at the club, therefore,
he set out for Chelsea. The party was held in a large room on the
ground-floor, which was already crowded with people when Shelton entered.
They stood or sat about in groups with smiles fixed on their lips, and
the light from balloon-like lamps fell in patches on their heads and
hands and shoulders. Someone had just finished rendering on the piano a
composition of his own. An expert could at once have picked out from
amongst the applauding company those who were musicians by profession,
for their eyes sparkled, and a certain acidity pervaded their enthusiasm.
This freemasonry of professional intolerance flew from one to the other
like a breath of unanimity, and the faint shrugging of shoulders was as
harmonious as though one of the high windows had been opened suddenly,
admitting a draught of chill May air.

Shelton made his way up to his cousin--a fragile, grey-haired woman in
black velvet and Venetian lace, whose starry eyes beamed at him, until
her duties, after the custom of these social gatherings, obliged her to
break off conversation just as it began to interest him. He was passed
on to another lady who was already talking to two gentlemen, and, their
volubility being greater than his own, he fell into the position of
observer. Instead of the profound questions he had somehow expected to
hear raised, everybody seemed gossiping, or searching the heart of such
topics as where to go this summer, or how to get new servants. Trifling
with coffee-cups, they dissected their fellow artists in the same way as
his society friends of