f enthusiasm. Now the
boy's heartless self-possession amazed and overpowered her. Audrey was
incapable of imagining what she had not seen, and she had never got to
the bottom of the Haviland character; never divined its gravity under
the mask of frivolity; never proved its will, nor reckoned with its
pride. Three days ago she would have laughed at the idea of referring
any moral question to Ted's judgment, for she had taken no pains to hide
her faults from him; she had been selfish, reckless, vain, capricious,
by turns and altogether, and it had made no difference then. Now she
felt that he had condemned her. To be sure, she had told him a lie; but
what was that in the catalogue of her offences?

It was everything. He could have forgiven anything but that.

CHAPTER XVII

But Ted's notion of morality was a question Audrey had no time to go
into. A violent ring at the front-door bell recalled her to herself, and
made her glance at the clock. It was a quarter-past three. She had
wasted half an hour in fruitless discussion with Ted, and it left her
ill-prepared for the stormy interview to follow. Her nerve gave way
before the prospect of that hour with Hardy. She might have escaped it
if it had not been for Ted, for she had meant to call early on her uncle
and aunt, and bring them back with her to Chelsea, so that it would be
impossible for Vincent to see her alone. Ted's coming had made that
scheme useless. She listened. Yes, it was Vincent; she had heard his
voice in the hall.

"I told him between three and four. Anybody else would have known that
meant half-past four."

She spent ten minutes after Hardy was announced gathering herself
together to meet him. She would have thought of sending for Miss Craven,
an old device of hers when she wanted to avoid explanations; but Miss
Craven was away. Her only hope was in some casual caller.

Meanwhile Hardy was striding up and down the drawing-room, waiting
impatiently for Audrey. He was a little hurt at being shown into an
empty room; he had expected to find the small thing sitting there to
welcome him. That ten minutes was the longest he had ever spent,--it was
the meeting-point in time for two eternities. As his thought leaped
forward to the future it was thrown back upon the past. Then, as he
gazed about him half mechanically, he was aware that his eyes were
looking for the things they had been used to, and could not find them.
Everything was changed in that ro