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In Holland Hereward remained a year, but as, under the terms of a wager made in a boastful mood, he went through the campaign without any armour and without changing his clothes, it was a disreputable looking man with many a wound who returned to Bruges, where, at the court of Adela, a jest was played on Torfrida by the countess, not without the privity of Hereward.
Laura Piaveni travelled with Countess d'Isorella and the happy Adela Sedley, from Lago Maggiore. Laura came, as she cruelly told her friend, for the purpose of making Victoria's excuses to the duchess. "Why can she not come herself?" Amalia persisted in asking, and began to be afflicted with womanly curiosity. Laura would do nothing but shrug and smile, and repeat her message.
"She will be snapped up by some poor nobleman. If I take her down to the yacht, one of Lady Charlotte's brothers or uncles will bite; to a certainty." "It would be an excellent idea to take her!" cried Adela. "Excellent! and I'll do it, if you like." "Could you bear the reflex of the woman?" "Don't you know that I am not in the habit of sitting on the extreme edge...?"
Evidently he had been quite mistaken, and there had been nothing in that odd friendship with Adela Sellingworth. This would teach him not to let himself go to suspicion in the future. He still did not know where Lady Sellingworth was. Nothing had appeared in the Morning Post about her movements. Nobody seemed to know anything about her.
Morally there was a rift within the lute among the guests, for Molly betrayed that Adela had got on her nerves. Lady Sophia Snaggs poured easy conversation on the troubled waters, but at last the catastrophe could not be averted. At a moment when the others were silent Adela was talking. "Yes; I went to hear him preach, and it is so beautiful, you know.
Leaning from the carriage window, she said: "I suppose I shall see you at Richford? Merthyr Powys is coming this week. And that reminds me: he would be the man to appreciate your 'born artist. Bring her to me. We will have a dinner. I will despatch a formal invitation to-morrow. The season's bad out of town for getting decent people to meet you. I will do my best." She bowed to Adela and Tracy.
Letty went back to 'Pilgrim's Progress. Her sister Jessie enjoyed the sound of her own voice, and did not offer to surrender the book, so she sat by little Eva's side and resumed her Sunday face. Adela took the road for the Manor, resisting the impulse to cast glances on either side as she passed the houses at the end of the village.
She expressed no gratitude for kindnesses or wonder at the change in her fortune, save that pleasure sat like an inextinguishable light on her face. A splendid new harp arrived one day, ticketed, "For Miss Emilia Belloni." "He does not know I have a second Christian name," was her first remark, after an examination of the instrument. "'He?" quoth Adela. "May it not have been a lady's gift?"
The touch of artificiality was cold on this amazingly straightforward old man. He loved his Adela with all the wrinkles, with the sagging skin, and the lined throat, and the curiously experienced weariness about the temples. She lived for him in the brilliant eyes, and was loved by him in them. And why should she suddenly try to change her appearance?
When he reached the familiar door and was standing before it he hesitated to press the bell. He feared that he would not be perfectly natural with Adela. He feared that he would be constrained, that he would be unable not to seem cold and rigid. Almost he was tempted to turn away. He could write his news to her. Perhaps even now young Craven was in the house with her.
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