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Updated: June 24, 2025
"Oh, my dear Evelyn, not going ... and now that you're dressed." Evelyn allowed herself to be persuaded. If she went to bed now she would not sleep. She went to the ball with Lady Duckle, and as she went round in the lancers, giving her hand first to one and then to the other, she heard a voice crying within her, "Why are you doing these things? They don't interest you at all."
Lady Duckle had gone to Homburg; Owen had been obliged to go to Bath on account of his gout; and Evelyn was free to abandon herself to her love of Ulick and to her love of her father, and she begged him not to spoil her happiness, but to come to Dulwich with her. His scruples were easily argued away. She urged that he had not taken her away, he had brought her back to her father.
"If so, why then " They stared blankly at each other. Everything had been said. They were engaged to be married. What was the use of further argument? She mentioned that it was getting late, and that Lady Duckle was waiting for her. "She will tell her first," he thought, "and she'll tell Lady Ascott. They'll all be talking of it at supper. 'So Owen has gone off at last, they'll say.
But I wrote to you from Paris that I was going to live with Lady Duckle, and that you were to say that I had gone abroad to study singing." "I'm astonished, Evelyn, that you can speak so lightly." "I do not think lightly of my conduct, if you knew the miserable days it has cost me.
'You mustn't disappoint me, my dear; you must come to my shootin' party on the twenty-fifth, and dear Lady Duckle, I hope she'll come too, though she is rather a bore. I shall have plenty of beaux for you, there is my neighbour Lord Westhorpe, he's young and handsome, a beautiful place, charmin', my dear.
But she awoke from her dream frightened, and feeling like one who has lost the clue which was to lead her out of the labyrinth. Instead of sending the footman to tell Lady Duckle that the carriage was waiting, Evelyn got out and went up to the drawing-room. "I'm sorry to have kept you waiting, Olive, but I can't go with you. Tell Lady Ascott I am very sorry. Good-night, I'm going to my room."
It was now nearly seven o'clock she would soon have to go home to dress for dinner. They were dining out, she and Lady Duckle, and she would meet once more Lady Ascott, Lady Summersdean, those people whose lives she had begun to feel had no further concern for her.
Lady Duckle meant Evelyn to understand that it would not be well to risk anything that might bring about a meeting between Sir Owen and Mr. Innes. But she did not dare to be more explicit. Owen had forbidden any discussion of his relations with Evelyn. "Of course it would be nice for you to see your father. But you should, I think, go to him; surely that is the proper course."
She wanted Owen, and she loved him the more for the tact he had shown in finding Lady Duckle for her. She accepted the good lady's faults with reckless enthusiasm, and when they got back to the hotel she took the first occasion to whisper that she liked Lady Duckle and was sure they'd get on very well together. "Owen, dear, I'm so happy, I don't know what to do with myself.
He wondered if she suspected him of having been Lady Duckle's lover.... Evelyn was thinking entirely of Lady Duckle herself, trying to divine the real woman that was behind all this talk of great men and social notabilities. One phrase let drop seemed to let in some light on the mystery.
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