“Oh, it’s you! How nice!”
She gave him her hand. He just touched it coldly. What a boy he still was in his polite hostility! She thought of Camber Sands and the darkness falling over the waste, and, in spite of her self-control and her pity for him, there was an unconquerable feeling of injury in her heart. What reason, what right, had he to greet her so frigidly? How had she injured him?
A roar of conversation had begun in the room. Everyone seemed in high spirits. Mrs. Ackroyde, who was at the same table as Lady Sellingworth, with Lord Alfred Craydon on her right and Sir Robert Syng on her left, looked steadily round over the multitude of her guests with a comprehensive glance, the analyzing and summing-up glance of one to whom everything social was as an open book containing no secrets which her eyes did not read. Those eyes travelled calmly, and presently came to Craven and Adela Sellingworth. She smiled faintly and spoke to Robert Syng.
“This is her second debut,” she said. “I’m bringing her out again. They are all amazed.”
“What about?” said Sir Robert, in his grim and very masculine voice.
“Bobbie, you know as well as I do. I had a bet with Anne that she would accept. I’m five pounds to the good. Adela is a creature of impulses, and that sort of creature does young things to the day of its death.”
“Is it doing a young thing to accept a luncheon invitation from you?”
“Yes—for her reason.”
“Well, that’s beyond me.”
“How indifferent you are!”