“Adela Sellingworth won’t go.”

“Why not?”

“She seems to hate Paris now. It is years since she had stayed there.”

After a pause Craven said:

“Lady Sellingworth is something of a mystery, I think. I wonder—I wonder if she feels lonely in that big house of hers.”

“Far more people feel lonely than seem lonely,” said Braybrooke.

“I expect they do. But I think that somehow Lady Sellingworth seems lonely. And yet she is full of mockery.”

“Mockery?”

“Yes. I feel it.”

“But didn’t you find her very kind?”