Despite this congenial occupation, Roger and his betrothed this evening had several differences of opinion. Ada was excited about her visit to Balder Hall, related every incident that had occurred, and every word that had been spoken there after her own arrival upon the scene; dwelling upon them with persistency—describing minutely Miss Askam’s appearance, voice, and gestures, and especially her graciousness in coming and standing by her, Ada Dixon, while she sang. Also Magdalen’s dress, and Otho’s long conversation with her, and the new-fashioned table-covers which Miss Wynter had on her small tea-table. All this was inexpressibly galling to Roger, who hated what he called ‘that lot,’ with an uncompromising scorn. He would have had Ada stand as coolly aloof from them as he did himself, but she would not. Balder Hall and its inmates and visitors were to him the abode of a false woman, unworthy of consideration, and the rendezvous of her intimates. To Ada, on the contrary, Balder Hall was the fairy palace where, to speak metaphorically, the roofs were of gold and the windows of diamonds; the woman in it was her ideal of beauty, elegance, fashion, and superiority in general, and the woman’s friends and acquaintances were other bright apparitions belonging to the same enchanted sphere. She was very eloquent to-night, partly because she wished to provoke Roger, partly because her mind was quite filled with the afternoon’s entertainment. He could, as he said, get neither rhyme nor reason from her, and when he returned to the Red Gables, earlier than usual, there was a cloud on his brow. CHAPTER XVIII A WILD-GOOSE CHASE It was nearly a fortnight later, and the dusk of evening crept over everything. From the window of her sitting-room, facing south, with a little inclination to west, Eleanor could catch a glimpse of the evening sky, but not of the setting sun itself, which came but little north of west at this time of the year. She could see the terraces, spreading downwards to the river-side, and she had a partial view of the stream itself, leaden in hue, but swift in the race. The tall, heavy trees stood motionless: one realised all the stateliness, and with it all the melancholy, of the place. For Thorsgarth had always been a melancholy house.