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Updated: June 15, 2025
Had she not told him that she had insisted on Lady Sellingworth's being asked to the theatre to entertain Braybrooke so that Craven and she, the young ones, might have a nice little time? After that what could he do but his duty? But perhaps Lady Sellingworth had not understood. He wondered, and felt now hurt and angry, now almost contrite and inclined to be explanatory.
He dined with a friend at the club and stayed there rather late. When he was leaving about half past eleven Braybrooke dropped in after a party, and he told Braybrooke of Lady Sellingworth's departure for the Continent. The world's governess showed even more surprise than Miss Van Tuyn had shown. He had had no idea that Adela Sellingworth was going abroad.
Now he would far rather discuss Miss Van Tuyn with Lady Sellingworth than discuss Lady Sellingworth with Miss Van Tuyn. So he would not even acknowledge that he had noticed the mocking look in Lady Sellingworth's eyes. Already he had the feeling of a friend who does not care to dissect the mentality and character of his friend with another.
Craven declared that he believed almost the whole human race knew the ugly intimacies of jealousy in some form or other. "And yourself?" said Miss Van Tuyn. "I!" he said, and looking up saw Lady Sellingworth's brilliant eyes fixed on him. "Do you know them?" "I have felt jealousy certainly, but never yet as I could feel it." "What!
Anyhow, since then, whenever she and Lady Sellingworth had met, she had been extraordinarily kind, indeed, almost tender; and Lady Sellingworth knew that Caroline had taken her part against certain of the "old guard" who had shown almost acute animosity. Caroline Briggs now was perhaps Lady Sellingworth's best friend.
When he looked at her, sat with her now, if he ever gave a thought to her past it was accompanied, or immediately followed, by a mental question: "Was it she who did that?" or "Can she ever have been like that?" But now Braybrooke uneasily began to remember Lady Sellingworth's past reputation and to think of the "old guard."
Now Adela was warning her. And she remembered that other warning whispered by something within herself. She stood still looking into Lady Sellingworth's eyes. Then she looked down. She seemed to be considering something. At last she looked up again and said: "You said to me to-night that you did not know Mr. Arabian now." "I don't know him." "But have you known him? Did you know him long ago?"
Her ladyship was at home, and Miss Van Tuyn mounted the stairs full of expectation. When she came into the big drawing-room she noticed at once how dimly lit it was. Besides the firelight there was only one electric lamp turned on, and that was protected by a rather large shade, and stood on a table at some distance from Lady Sellingworth's sofa.
She had been warned. She chose to defy the warning. That was not Lady Sellingworth's fault. "I've done enough! I've done all I can do." She said this to herself as she sat and looked at the girl. "I can't do any more!" Miss Van Tuyn reached out for her coat and began very deliberately to put it on. Then she picked up the muff in which the letter lay hidden. "Well, good night, Adela!"
There, through the glass of the dividing screen, Lady Sellingworth's tall and thin figure, wrapped in a long cloak of dark fur, was visible, going with her careless, trampish walk to the ladies' cloak-room. "Ah, there is Adela Sellingworth!" said Braybrooke.
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