“She wants to speak to you,” said Mrs. Bunting, and Melville with a certain trepidation went upstairs. He went up to the big landing with the seats, to save Adeline the trouble of coming down. She appeared dressed in a black and violet tea gown with much lace, and her dark hair was done with a simple carefulness that suited it. She was pale, and her eyes showed traces of tears, but she had a certain dignity that differed from her usual bearing in being quite unconscious.
She gave him a limp hand and spoke in an exhausted voice.
“You know—all?” she asked.
“Why has he done this to me?”
Melville looked profoundly sympathetic through a pause.
“I feel,” she said, “that it isn’t coarseness.”
“Certainly not,” said Melville.
“It is some mystery of the imagination that I cannot understand. I should have thought—his career at any rate—would have appealed.…” She shook her head and regarded a pot of ferns fixedly for a space.
“He has written to you?” asked Melville.