go; I was too ill. It was a privation to remain at
home thinking--What did you sing?"

Evelyn looked at him shrewdly, believing only a little in his
illness, and nearly convinced he had not gone to the concert because
he wished to keep his presence a secret from her... fearing she
would not come to Thornton Grange if she knew he were there.

"He missed a great deal; I told him so when I returned," said Lady
Ascott.

"But what can one do, Miss Innes, when one is ill? The best music in
the world--even your voice when one is ill--. Tell me what you
sang."

"Evelyn is going to sing at Glasgow; you will be able to go there
with her."

The servant announced another guest and Lady Ascott went forward to
meet him. Guest after guest, and all were greeted with little cries
of fictitious intimacy; and each in turn related his or her journey,
and the narratives were chequered with the names of other friends
who had been staying in the houses they had just come from. Evelyn
listened, thinking of her poor people, contrasting their
simplicities with the artificialities of the gang--that is how she
put it to herself--which ran about from one house to another,
visiting, calling itself Society, talking always, changing the
conversation rapidly, never interested in any subject sufficiently
to endure it for more than a minute and a half. The life of these
people seemed to Evelyn artificial as that of white mice, coming in
by certain doors, going out by others, climbing poles, engaged in
all kinds of little tricks; yet she was delighted to find herself
among them all again, for her life had been dull and tedious since
she left the convent; and this sudden change, taking her back to art
and to her old friends, was very welcome; and the babble of all
these people about her inveigled her out of her new self; and she
liked to hear about so many people, their adventures, their ideas,
misfortunes, precocious caprices.

The company had broken up into groups, and one little group, of which
Evelyn was

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