"You know everybody here, I suppose?" he asked. His tone cast a doubt on the value of the knowledge.
"It's my tenth season," said Adela, with a laugh. "I stopped counting them once, but there comes a time when one has to begin again."
He looked at her—critically, she thought—as he said,
"The ravages of time no longer to be ignored?"
"Well, the exaggerations of friends to be checked. Yes, I suppose I know most of——"
She paused for a word.
"The gang," he suggested, leaning back and crossing his legs.
"Yes, we are a gang, and all on one chain. You're a recent captive, though."
"Yes," he assented, "it's pretty new to me. A year ago I hadn't a dress coat."
"The gods are giving you a second youth then."
"Well, I take it. I don't know that I have much to thank the gods for."
"They've been mostly against you, haven't they? However, what does that matter, if you beat them?"
He did not disdain her compliment, but neither did he accept it. He ignored it, and Adela, who paid very few compliments, was amused and vexed.
"Perhaps," she added, "you think your victory still incomplete?"
This gained no better attention. Mr. Ruston seemed to be following his own thoughts.
"It must be a curious thing," he remarked, "to be born to a place like Semingham's."
"And to use it—or not to use it—like Lord Semingham?"
"Yes, I was thinking of that," he admitted.
"To be eminent requires some self-deception, doesn't it? Without that, it would seem too absurd. I think Lord Semingham is overweighted with humour." She paused and then—to show that she was not in awe of him—she added—"Now, I should say, you have very little."
"Very little, indeed, I should think," he agreed composedly.
"You're the only man I ever heard admit that of himself; we all say it of one another."
"I know what I have and haven't got pretty well."
Adela was beginning to be more sure that she disliked him, but the topic had its interest for her and she went on,
"Now I like to think I've got everything."
To her annoyance, the topic seemed to lose interest for him, just in proportion as it gained interest for her. In fact, Mr. Ruston did not apparently care to talk about what she liked or didn't like.
"Who's that pretty girl over there," he asked, "talking to young Haselden?"
"Marjory Valentine," said Adela curtly.
"Oh! I think I should like to talk to her."
"Pray, don't let me prevent you," said Adela in very distant tones.
The man seemed to have no manners.
Mr. Ruston said nothing, but gave a short laugh. Adela was not accustomed to be laughed at openly. Yet she felt defenceless; this pachydermatous animal would be impervious to the pricks of her rapier.
"You're amused?" she asked sharply.
"Why were you in such a hurry to take offence? I didn't say I wanted to go and talk to her now."
"It sounded like it."
"Oh, well, I'm very sorry," he conceded, still smiling, and obviously thinking her very absurd.
She rose from her seat.
"Please do, though. She'll be going soon, and you mayn't get another chance."
"Well, I will then," he answered simply, accompanying the remark with a nod of approval for her sensible reminder. And he went at once.
She saw him touch Haselden on the shoulder, and make the young man present him to Marjory. Ruston sat down and Haselden drifted, aimless and forlorn, on a solitary passage along the length of the room.
Adela joined Lady Semingham.
"That's a dreadful man, Bessie," she said; "he's a regular Juggernaut."
She disturbed Lady Semingham in a moment of happiness; everybody had been provided with conversation, and the hostess could sit in peaceful silence, looking, and knowing that she looked, very dainty and pretty; she liked that much better than talking.
"Who's what, dear?" she murmured.
"That man—Mr. Ruston. I say he's a Juggernaut. If you're in the way, he just walks over you—and sometimes when you're not: for fun, I suppose."
"Alfred says he's very clever," observed Lady Semingham, in a tone that evaded any personal responsibility for the truth of the statement.
"Well, I dislike him very much," declared Adela.
"We won't have him again when you're coming, dear," promised her friend soothingly.
Adela looked at her, hesitated, opened her fan, shut it again, and smiled.
"Oh, I didn't mean that, Bessie," she said with half a laugh. "Do, please."
"But if you dislike him——"
"Why, my dear, doesn't one hate half the men one likes meeting—and all the women!"
Lady Semingham smiled amiably. She did not care to think out what that meant; it was Adela's way, just as it was her husband's way to laugh at many things that seemed to her to afford no opening for mirth. But Adela was not to escape. Semingham himself appeared suddenly at her elbow, and observed,
"That's either nonsense or a truism, you know."
"Neither," said Adela with spirit; but her defence was interrupted by Evan Haselden.
"I'm going," said he, and he looked out of temper. "I've got another place to go to. And anyhow——"
"Well?"
"I'd like to be somewhere where that chap Ruston isn't for a little while."
Adela glanced across. Ruston was still talking to Marjory Valentine.
"What can he find to say to her?" thought Adela.
"What the deuce she finds to talk about to that fellow, I can't think," pursued Evan, and he flung off to bid Lady Semingham good-night.
Adela caught her host's eye and laughed. Lord Semingham's eyes twinkled.
"It's a big province," he observed, "so there may be room for him—out there."
"I," said Adela, with an air of affected modesty, "have ventured, subject to your criticism, to dub him Juggernaut."
"H'm," said Semingham, "it's a little obvious, but not so bad for you."
CHAPTER III.
MRS. DENNISON'S ORDERS.
Next door to Mrs. Dennison's large house in Curzon Street there lived, in a small house, a friend of hers, a certain Mrs. Cormack. She was a Frenchwoman, who had been married