CHAPTER V

THE CASUAL ACQUAINTANCE




At that corner of Battersea Park which is near Albert Bridge there
has lain for more than twenty years a curious collection of
architectural fragments, chiefly dismembered columns, spread in
order upon the ground, and looking like portions of a razed temple.
It is the colonnade of old Burlington House, conveyed hither from
Piccadilly who knows why, and likely to rest here, the sporting
ground for adventurous infants, until its origin is lost in the
abyss of time.

It was at this spot that Monica had agreed to meet with her casual
acquaintance, Edmund Widdowson, and there, from a distance, she saw
his lank, upright, well-dressed figure moving backwards and forwards
upon the grass. Even at the last moment Monica doubted whether to
approach. Emotional interest in him she had none, and the knowledge
of life she had gained in London assured her that in thus
encouraging a perfect stranger she was doing a very hazardous thing.
But the evening must somehow be spent, and is she went off in
another direction it would only be to wander about with an
adventurous mind; for her conversation with Miss Nunn had had
precisely the opposite effect of that which Rhoda doubtless