"Yes, sir."
Mr. Grubb knitted his brow, and went on to his wife. It was not the fact of the assembly that vexed him: it was that she had not thought it worth her while to inform him of it. Darvy was putting the finishing touches to her hair. How well she remembered it now; every minute particular came back to her: where she sat in the room—not at the dressing-glass as usual, but before the open window, for it was intensely hot. Her robe was of costly white lace, adorned with pearls. Pearls that he had given her.
"What is this, Adela?" he had asked. "I hear you have a large assembly tonight."
"Well?" she retorted.
"Could you not have told me?"
"I did not see any especial necessity for telling you."
"I might have had an engagement. In fact, I have one. I ought to go to one of the hotels tonight to see a gentleman who has come over from India on business."
"You can go," was her scornful reply to this. "Your presence is not needed here; it is not at all necessary to the success of the evening."
"There is one, at any rate, who would not miss me," had been his reply as he left her, to go to his room to dress for dinner. Yes, it all came back vividly tonight.
She bent her face on her hand as she recalled this, hiding it in very shame that she could have been so wicked. Lady Sarah Hope had once told her the devil had got possession of her. "Not only the devil," moaned Adela now, "but all his myrmidons."