"Maggie, I haven't had a talk with you for ever so long. How do you do, Mr. Ruston?"
Ruston shook hands but did not move. He stood silently through two or three moments of Adela's forced chatter. Mrs. Dennison was sitting on a small couch, which would just hold two people; but she sat in the middle of it, and did not offer to make room for Adela. When Adela paused for want of anything to say, there was silence. She looked from the one to the other. Ruston smiled the smile that always exasperated her on his face—the smile of possession she called it in an attempt at definition.
"Look at Marjory!" said Mrs. Dennison. "How solitary she looks! Poor girl! Do go and talk to her, Adela."
"I came to talk to you," said Adela, in fiery temper.
"Well, I'll come and talk to you both directly," said Maggie.
"We're talking business," added Willie Ruston, still smiling.
"Oh, if you don't want me!" cried Adela, and she turned away, declaring in her heart that she had made the last effort of friendship.
With her going went Ruston's smile. He bent his head, and said in a low voice,
"You are the only woman whom I could have left like that, and the only one whom I could have found it hard to leave. Was it very hard for you?"
"It was just the truth for me," she answered.