We have quarrelled," Adelaide had said when the Duchess told her
that her lover was to come. "Then you had better make it up again,"
the Duchess had answered,--and there had been an end of it. Nothing
more was done; no arrangement was made, and Adelaide was left to
meet the man as best she might. The quarrel to her had been as the
disruption of the heavens. She had declared to herself that she would
bear it; but the misfortune to be borne was a broken world falling
about her own ears. She had thought of a nunnery, of Ophelia among
the water-lilies, and of an early death-bed. Then she had pictured to
herself the somewhat ascetic and very laborious life of an old maiden
lady whose only recreation fifty years hence should consist in
looking at the portrait of him who had once been her lover. And now
she was told that he was coming to Matching as though nothing had
been the matter! She tried to think whether it was not her duty to
have her things at once packed, and ask for a carriage to take her
to the railway station. But she was in the house of her nearest
relative,--of him and also of her who were bound to see that things
were right; and then there might be a more pleasureable existence
than that which would have to depend on a photograph for its keenest
delight. But how should she meet him? In what way should she address
him? Should she ignore the quarrel, or recognize it, or take some
milder course? She was half afraid of the Duchess, and could not ask
for assistance. And the Duchess, though good-natured, seemed to her
to be rough. There was nobody at Matching to whom she could say a
word;--so she lived on, and trembled, and doubted from hour to hour
whether the world would not come to an end.

The Duchess was rough, but she was very good-natured. She had
contrived that the two lovers should be brought into the same house,
and did not doubt at all but what they would be able to adjust their
own little differences when they met. Her experiences of the world
had certainly made her more alive to the material prospects than to
the delicate aroma of a love adventure. She had been greatly knocked
about herself, and the material prospects had come uppermost. But all
that had happened to her had tended to open her hand to other people,
and had enabled her to be good-natured with delight, even when she
knew that her friends imposed upon her. She didn't care much for
Laurence Fitzgibbon; but when she was told that the lady with