and the final obliteration of Miss Deane from her memory. But she could
not live a double life. Day by day, as her intimacy with her aunt
increased, Rachel found it more difficult to forget her when she was
away from Tavistock Square. In the deepest and most beautiful moments
of her intercourse with Adrian, she was aware now of practising upon
him a subtle deception, of pretending that she was other than she was
in reality--an awareness that was constantly pricked and stimulated by
the continually growing consciousness of her likeness to Miss Deane.

Miss Deane on her part evidently took a great pleasure in her niece's
society. The fortnight of her original invitation had already been
exceeded, but she would not hear of Rachel's return to Devonshire.

"Why should you go back?" she demanded scornfully. "Your father doesn't
want you--Richard is one of those slip-shod people who prefer to live
alone. I used to try to stir him up, and he ran away from me. He'll run
away from you, my dear, in a few years' time. He hasn't the courage to
stand up to women like us."

Miss Deane unquestionably wanted her niece to stay with her. She was
even beginning to hint at the desirability of making the present
arrangement a permanent one.

Rachel, however, was not flattered by this display of pleasure in her
society. She knew that it was due to no individual charm of her own,
but to the fact that she had become her aunt's mirror. For Miss Deane
no longer, in Rachel's presence at least, gazed at herself in the
looking-glass; she gazed at her niece instead. And as Rachel endured
the posings and simperings, the alternate adoration and fond contempt
with which her aunt regarded her, she was unable to resist the impulse