They shook hands, and Mallory followed the waiting Brandon. Then they were left alone. Adrienne’s face had changed; the excitement had gone from it; it was pale; the glow had faded; her voice sounded tired when she spoke. ‘When Mr. Mallory came,’ she said, forcing a smile, ‘I was just going to explain to you that I knew him--or rather, had known him a few years ago. It was curious that he should call at that very moment.’ ‘Yes,’ said Myles, in a voice colourless as her own. ‘Once he was very kind,’ she pursued, ‘when my father was in trouble. He saved me a great deal of anxiety and distress.’ ‘Yes,’ again assented Myles. ‘I am sure he is very considerate, and means to do right.’ ‘You think so! Then your opinion has changed?’ ‘Yes, very much. He is not at all the kind of man I supposed him to be.’ ‘I am glad you have discovered that. I am sure you and he will get on, now that the misunderstanding is cleared up.’ Myles rose, smiling rather a faint, miserable smile. He felt it impossible not to give one little thrust in the midst of the agony he was himself enduring. ‘You know I am hot-tempered, and, I am afraid, prejudiced,’ said he quietly; ‘but if you had mentioned to me that you knew Mr. Mallory, and that he was not the kind of man I supposed, I should--perhaps I might have behaved more rationally.’ Adrienne stood speechless. She made neither apology nor excuse. When he said good night, she put out her hand silently, and did not meet his eyes. His own manner was quite to coldness. Thus they parted. Myles, as he walked home, could not forget the verse from ‘Iphigenia,’ which he had laboriously translated: ‘Und künft’ge Thaten drangen wie die Sterne, Rings um uns her, unzahlbar aus der Nacht.’ In that moment he doubted bitterly whether any deeds, whether anything but woes, lay for him in the future. Meanwhile Adrienne was left alone to reflect upon the situation, to think of Sebastian’s smile, and of Myles Heywood’s pale face and glowing eyes; and, after due reflection, either to congratulate or commiserate herself, as she thought most appropriate. CHAPTER XVIII. ‘MAY MY MOTHER CALL UPON YOU?’ Mr. Mallory contrived to make his visit so delightful to Mr. Blisset that that gentleman pressed him, with an eagerness unwonted to him, to remain a little longer; and Sebastian, hoping each moment to see Adrienne appear, continued in his place. At last she came into the room; but she had brought her work with her, and after a few sentences of courtesy, amiable but meaningless, she took a chair a little apart, and sat in almost entire silence, while the two men discussed, first politics, and then, when each had taken the length of the other’s foot on that topic, science and philosophy.