“Perhaps nobody does. Still, she knows a tremendous number of people.”
“I am sure she likes you,” said Miss Van Tuyn. “Do go and see her sometimes. I think—I think she would appreciate it.”
“No doubt I shall see her again. Why not?”
“Don’t you like her anymore?”
“Of course I do.”
Suddenly she leaned forward, almost impulsively, and said:
“You remember I had a sort of cult for Adela?”
“Did you?”
“But you know I had! Well, I only want to tell you that it isn’t a cult now. I have got to know Adela better, to know her really. I used to admire her as a great lady. Now I love her as a splendid woman. She’s rare. That is the word for her. Once—not long ago—I was talking to a man who knows what people are. And he summed Adela up in a phrase. He said she was a thoroughbred. We young ones—modern, I suppose we are—we can learn something from her. I have learnt something. Isn’t that an admission? For the young generation to acknowledge that it has something to learn from—from what are sometimes called the ‘has beens’!”
Craven looked at her and noticed with surprise that her violet eyes were clouded for a moment, as if some moisture had found its way into them. Perhaps she saw that look of his. For she laughed, changed the conversation, and from that moment talked in her usual lively way about less intimate topics. But when Craven presently got up to go she returned for a moment to her former more serious mood. As he took her hand to say good-bye she said: