Her lodging was in a long, monotonous terrace which ran at right angles to the seashore, turning its back upon the river. Noon was at hand, and the fierce rays of the unclouded sun were untempered by any breeze. The street lay hushed, for everyone was either at church or on the sands. In response to his inquiry, the landlady said that Miss Aked was out, and had left a message that if a gentleman called, he was to follow her to the jetty. Obeying the directions given to him, Richard soon found himself by the banks of the swift Arun, with the jetty some distance in front, and beyond that the sea, which shimmered blindly in the heat. Throngs of respectably dressed people wandered up and down, and a low, languid murmur of conversation floated out as it were from the cavities of a thousand parasols. Perspiring children whose hands were chafed by gloves full of creases ran to and fro among the groups, shouting noisily, and heedless of the frequent injunction to remember what day it was. Here and there nurses pushing perambulators made cool spots of whiteness in the confusion of colour. On the river boats and small yachts were continually sweeping towards the sea on the ebbing tide; now and then a crew of boys would attempt to pull a skiff against the rapid current, persevere for a few strokes, and then, amid scoffs from the bank, ignominiously allow themselves to be whirled past the jetty with the other craft. Richard had never seen a southern watering-place before, and he had fondly expected something different from Llandudno, Rhyl, or Blackpool, something less stolid and more continental. Littlehampton fell short of his anticipations. It was unpicturesque as a manufacturing town, and its summer visitors were an infestive, lower-middle class folk, garishly clothed, and unlearned in the fine art of enjoyment. The pure accent of London sounded on every side from the lips of clerks and shop-girls and their kin. Richard forgot that he was himself a clerk, looking not out of place in that scene. Presently he espied a woman who seemed to belong to another sphere. She was leaning over the parapet of the jetty, and though a black and white sunshade entirely hid her head and shoulders, the simple, perfectly hung black skirt, the neatly shod foot, the small, smoothly gloved hand with thin gold circlet at wrist, sufficed to convince him that here, by some strange chance, was one of those exquisite creatures who on Saturday afternoons drove past the end of Raphael Street on their way to Hurlingham or Barnes. He wondered what she did there, and tried to determine the subtleties of demeanour and costume which constituted the plain difference between herself and the other girls on the jetty. At that moment she stood erect, and turned round. Why, she was quite young.... He approached her.... It was Adeline. Astonishment was so clearly written on his face that she laughed as they exchanged greetings.