her loud hurrying voice resembled the bell of a steamboat. While she
spoke to his daughter she had the air of hiding from Colonel Chart, a
little shyly, behind the wide ostrich fan. But Colonel Chart was not
a man to be either ignored or eluded.

"Of course every one's going on to something else," he said. "I
believe there are a lot of things to-night."

"And where are YOU going?" Mrs. Churchley asked, dropping her fan and
turning her bright hard eyes on the Colonel.

"Oh I don't do that sort of thing!"--he used a tone of familiar
resentment that fell with a certain effect on his daughter's ear.
She saw in it that he thought Mrs. Churchley might have done him a
little more justice. But what made the honest soul suppose her a
person to look to for a perception of fine shades? Indeed the shade
was one it might have been a little difficult to seize--the
difference between "going on" and coming to a dinner of twenty
people. The pair were in mourning; the second year had maintained it
for Adela, but the Colonel hadn't objected to dining with Mrs.
Churchley, any more than he had objected at Easter to going down to
the Millwards', where he had met her and where the girl had her
reasons for believing him to have known he should meet her. Adela
wasn't clear about the occasion of their original meeting, to which a
certain mystery attached. In Mrs. Churchley's exclamation now there
was the fullest concurrence in Colonel Chart's idea; she didn't say
"Ah yes, dear friend, I understand!" but this was the note of
sympathy she plainly wished to sound. It immediately made Adela say
to her "Surely you must be going on somewhere yourself."