What was his object? He wished to have done with her, to utterly abolish all relations between them. It might well be that he was about to marry, and someone abroad, someone who would not care to live in an English country house. Why otherwise should he have let the Manor for so long a period? She felt as she had done long ago, when she heard of that other foreign woman. Cold as ice; not a spark of love in all her being.
She replied:
‘Thank you. If you are willing to make that change, perhaps it will be best.’
Hubert, his eyes still on her, imagined he saw pleasure in her face. She might have a project for the use of the money, some Socialist scheme, something perhaps to preserve the memory of her husband. He rose.
‘In that case I will have a deed prepared at once, and you shall be informed when it is ready for signature.’
He said to himself that she could not forgive his refusal of her request that day in the wood.
They shook hands, Adela saying:
‘You are still busy with art?’
‘In my dilettante way,’ he replied smiling.
Adela returned to her room, and there remained till the hour of dinner. At the meal she was her ordinary self. Afterwards Mr. Westlake asked her to read in proof an article about to appear in the ‘Beacon’; she did so, and commented upon it with a clear mind. In the course of the evening she told her friends of the arrangement between Mr. Eldon and herself.