"I think Rhoda has improved," Serena said to herself, as she walked across Trimmer's Green between the black iron railings. "I think she has more sense of my position than she did. I wonder whether she thinks that if Mr. Iglesias had proposed I should have accepted him. Of course she thinks I was very badly treated. I think her manner shows that. Certainly she took his part rather against that odious Miss Hart. But I don't believe she really sided with him. I think she only appeared to do so to snub Miss Hart. Of course if she had stayed, I should have had to stay, too. I should have owed it to myself to do so. But, as she went, there was no object in staying; and it was wiser to seem quite indifferent about seeing George. I hope he won't attempt to call upon me at Lady Samuelson's! I should hardly think he would presume to do that. I must tell the butler, if a gentleman calls, to say I am not at home. If it was only George it would not so much matter, but I could not run the chance of having Lady Samuelson and Rhoda meet. It would not do at all to have Rhoda climbing into society through me. I think it is too bad to have people make use of you like that. And Rhoda has no tact. I see I must be on my guard with George and Rhoda. I wonder whether I had better tell Susan Mr. Iglesias has become a Roman Catholic? Of course she would think I had had a great escape; but in any case that does not excuse him. He behaved very badly. I don't believe for an instant he ever took any notice of Mrs. Porcher. I believe that is an entire invention. I wonder if the lady who called is the same lady we saw at the theatre--" And so on, and so on, all the way home by the Uxbridge Road, and Netting Hill, and then northward to the august retirement of Lady Samuelson's large corner house in Ladbroke Square. For a deeply injured person Serena had really enjoyed herself very much. CHAPTER XXXI The burden of August, dense and heavy, lay upon London. Radiating outward in lifeless and dull-glaring sunshine, it involved the nearer suburbs; so that Dominic Iglesias, sitting on a bench beside the roadway crossing Barnes Common, notwithstanding the hour--past six o'clock--and the open space surrounding him, found the atmosphere hardly less oppressive than that of the streets. The great world, which plays, had departed. The little world, outnumbering the great by some five or six millions, which works, remained. And Dominic Iglesias, since he too worked, remained likewise, sharing with it the burden of the August heat and languor; and sharing also, to-day being Sunday, its weekly going forth over the face of the scorched and sun-seared land seeking rest, and, too often, finding none.