He helped her into the car, and they drove away from the sands and the links, from the sea and their mood by the sea.
They drove through the darkness towards London, Lady Sellingworth and Arabian.
CHAPTER IV
On the following day Miss Van Tuyn, remembering her feeling at Camber in the twilight, went to the telephone and called up Number 18A, Berkeley Square. The solemn voice of a butler—she knew at once a butler was speaking—replied inquiring her business. She gave her name and asked whether Lady Sellingworth had returned to London. The answer was that her ladyship had arrived in London from the Continent on Saturday evening.
“Please tell her ladyship that her friend, Miss Van Tuyn, will call on her this afternoon about five o’clock,” said Miss Van Tuyn.
Soon afterwards she put on her hat and fur coat and set off on her way to Chelsea.
A little before five she turned into Berkeley Square on foot, coming from Carlos Place.
She felt both curious and slightly hostile. She wondered very much why Adela had gone away so mysteriously; she wondered where Adela had been and whether she had returned changed. When Miss Van Tuyn had alluded to the sheaves the thought in her mind had been markedly feminine. It had occurred to her that Adela might have stolen away to have “things” done to her; that she might come back to London mysteriously rejuvenated. Such a thing was possible even at sixty. Miss Van Tuyn had known of waning beauties who had vanished, and who had returned to the world looking alarmingly young. Certainly she had never known of a woman as old in appearance as Adela becoming transformed. Nevertheless in modern days, when the culture of beauty counts in its service such marvellous experts, almost all things are possible. If Adela had gone quite mad about Alick Craven the golden age might be found suddenly domiciled in Number 18A. Then Adela’s intention would be plain. She would have returned from abroad armed cap-a-pie for conquest.
The knowledge that Adela was in London had revived in Miss Van Tuyn the creeping hostility which she had felt before her friend’s departure. She remembered her lonely walk to Soho, what she had seen through the lit-up window of the Bella Napoli. The sensation of ill treatment returned to her. She would have scorned to acknowledge even to herself that she was afraid of Adela, that she dreaded Adela’s influence on a man. But when she thought of Craven she was conscious of a strange fluttering of anxiety. She wanted to keep Craven as a friend. She wanted him to be her special friend. This he had been, but only since Lady Sellingworth had been out of London. Now she had come back. Over there shone the light above the door of the house in which she was at this moment. How would it be now?