And so she had smiled at him, to show him that, after all, she wasn’t very angry. Of course, she couldn’t be always having it; she didn’t even mean that she’d altogether forgiven him, but the whole situation was given an extra piquancy by the presence of Mrs. Maradick. She didn’t mean any harm to the poor little spectacle of a woman, but to carry him off from under her very nose! Well! it was only human nature to enjoy it! “You must come and see us, dear Mrs. Maradick, both of you, when you’re back in town. We shall so like to see more of you. Fred has taken enormously to your husband, and it’s so seldom that he really makes a friend of anyone.” “Thank you so much,” said Mrs. Maradick, smiling, “we’ll be sure to look you up. And you must come out to Epsom one day. People call it a suburb, but really, you know, it’s quite country. As I often say, it has all the advantages of the town and country with none of their disadvantages. A motor-van comes down from Harrods’ every day.” “That must be delightful,” said Mrs. Lester. “And Lord Roseberry living so near makes it so pleasant. He’s often to be seen driving; he takes great interest in the school, you know—Epsom College for doctors’ sons—and often watches their football!” “Oh yes,” said Mrs. Lester. Mrs. Maradick paused and looked out of the window. What was she going to do? What was she going to do? The great black elms outside the window swept the blue sky like an arch. A corner of the lawn shone in the sun a brilliant green, and directly opposite a great bed of sweet-peas fluttered like a swarm of coloured butterflies with the little breeze. What was she to do? She was feeling now, suddenly, for the first time in her selfish, self-centred life utterly at a loss. She had never been so alone before. There had always been somebody. At Epsom there had been heaps of people; and, after all, if the worst came to the worst, there had always been James. She had never, in all these years, very actively realised that he was there, because she had never happened to want him; there had always been so many other people. Now suddenly all these people had gone. Epsom was very, very far away, and, behold, James wasn’t there either! She realised, too, that if it had been some one down in the town, a common woman as she had at first imagined it, it would not have hurt so horribly. But that some one like Mrs. Lester should care for James, should really think him worth while, seemed at one blow to disturb, indeed to destroy all the theories of life in general and of James in particular that had governed her last twenty years. What could she see? What could any one of them see in him? she asked herself again and again. Meanwhile, of course, it must all be stopped somehow. They must go away at once. Or perhaps it would be better to be quiet for a day or two and see. They would all be gone in a week or so. And then Epsom again, and everything as it had been and none of this—she called it “intrigue.”