A long silence followed. They passed out of Russell into Woburn
Square. Night was now darkening the latest tints of the sky, and the
lamps shone golden against dusty green. At one of the houses in the
narrow square festivities were toward; carriages drew up before the
entrance, from which a red carpet was laid down across the pavement;
within sounded music.

"Does this kind of thing excite any ambition in you?" Hilliard
asked, coming to a pause a few yards away from the carriage which
was discharging its occupants.

"Yes, I suppose it does. At all events, it makes me feel
discontented."

"I have settled all that with myself. I am content to look on as if
it were a play. Those people have an idea of life quite different
from mine. I shouldn't enjoy myself among them. You, perhaps,
would."

"I might," Eve replied absently. And she turned away to the other
side of the square.

"By-the-bye, you _have_ a friend in Paris. Do you ever hear from
her?"

"She wrote once or twice after she went back; but it has come to an
end."

"Still, you might find her again, if you were there."