a little
friendliness without getting hot cheeks like a school-girl?"

After he was gone she sat dreaming till it grew dusk, and wondering what
would become of her when Arnold Wayne had married Mrs. Verdon.

The pigeons had gone to roost, the last blush of crimson had faded from
the sky, and the first stars were twinkling faintly in the gloaming.
Elsie thought of Meta, lifted out of all the doubts and troubles of this
poor life, and envied her perfect peace.

"Ah," she sighed, "if I could only see her home for one moment, how
bravely I could go on living here!"

CHAPTER XIII

_IN PORTMAN SQUARE_

"And quite alone I never felt,
I knew that Thou wert near,
A silence tingling in the room,
A strangely pleasant fear."
--FABER.

Arnold Wayne took his way to Portman Square, thinking about Elsie as he
went along. If those two could have looked into each other's hearts just
then, they would speedily have come to an understanding.

When he went up the steps of the great house and entered the
flower-scented hall, he was in a dreamy mood. And when he found himself
in Mrs. Verdon's artistically furnished drawing-room, he had a queer
notion that only his phantom self was here and his real self had
remained in the little room in All Saints' Street.

His hostess looked very slender and tall and fair in her mauve silk
dress. Her satiny hair, wound round her small head, conveyed the idea
that if unbound it would enshroud her, like Lady Godiva's, in a veil.
The rich glowing colours of the furniture and hangings formed themselves
into a harmonious background for the graceful figure.

Mrs. Tell was quietly observing the new-comer, and silently deciding
that the chances were in his favour. She had not the faintest doubt
about his intentions. All the men who came here proposed to her
sister-in-law, and of course he would do the same.

Everybody allowed that nothing could be more agreeable than Mrs.
Verdon's position and surroundings. The house exactly suited Mrs. Tell.
Katherine, whom she liked in her cool way, was not difficult to live
with; any change was to be dreaded. But there was always the fear that
change would come, and she had an instinctive dread of this Mr. Wayne.

"And so you have been calling on Miss Kilner?" said Mrs. Verdon, as they
sat at dinner. "She must come and see me and Jamie. Has she many
friends?"

"A great many," replied Arnold, who did not know