How could he be at once so able and so childish! Her woman's wit pondered it; while at the same time she remembered with emotion the joy with which he had greeted her, his eager, stammering sympathy, his rough grasp of her hand, his frowning scrutiny of her pale face.
Yes, he was a great, great friend--and, somehow, she _must_ help him! Her lips parted in a sigh of aspiration.

If only this unlucky thing had not happened!--this meeting of Arthur and of Fenwick, before the time, before she had prepared and engineered it.
And so she came to her second topic of meditation.

Gradually as her mind pursued it, her aspect seemed to lose its new and tremulous brightness; the face became once more a little grey and pinched.

They had somehow missed all the letters which should have warned them.

To find Arthur established here, with his poor invalid wife--nothing had been more unexpected, and, alack, more unwelcome, considering the relations between them and John Fenwick--Fenwick who was practically her father's guest and hers.
Did Arthur think it strange, unkind?
Wouldn't he really believe that it was pure accident! If so, it would be only because Elsie was there, influencing him against his old friends--poor, bitter, stricken Elsie.
Eugenie's lips quivered.