the general axiom that they didn't want a strange woman thrust into
their life, but he found Mrs. Churchley "very jolly as a person to
know." He had been to see her by himself--he had been to see her
three times. He in fact gave it out that he would make the most of
her now; he should probably be so little in Seymour Street after
these days. What Adela at last determined to give him was her
assurance that the marriage would never take place. When he asked
what she meant and who was to prevent it she replied that the
interesting couple would abandon the idea of themselves, or that Mrs.
Churchley at least would after a week or two back out of it.

"That will be really horrid then," Godfrey pronounced. "The only
respectable thing, at the point they've come to, is to put it
through. Charming for poor Dad to have the air of being 'chucked'!"

This made her hesitate two days more, but she found answers more
valid than any objections. The many-voiced answer to everything--it
was like the autumn wind round the house--was the affront that fell
back on her mother. Her mother was dead but it killed her again. So
one morning at eleven o'clock, when she knew her father was writing
letters, she went out quietly and, stopping the first hansom she met,
drove to Prince's Gate. Mrs. Churchley was at home, and she was
shown into the drawing-room with the request that she would wait five
minutes. She waited without the sense of breaking down at the last,
and the impulse to run away, which were what she had expected to
have. In the cab and at the door her heart had beat terribly, but
now suddenly, with the game really to play, she found herself lucid
and calm. It was a joy to her to feel later that this was the way
Mrs. Churchley found her: not confused, not stammering nor
prevaricating, only a little amazed at her own courage, conscious of