How could it be the same, he asked himself, when the mere sparkle of an emerald ring in a jeweller's shop-window aroused in him a feeling of distaste?
Towards the end of this week Clarice called upon Mrs.Willoughby, and seemed for the moment put out on finding that Mallinson and Fielding were present.

Mrs.Willoughby welcomed her all the more warmly because she was finding it difficult to keep the peace between her two visitors.

She understood Clarice's embarrassment when Percy Conway arrived close upon her heels.

Clarice, however, quietly handed him over to Mrs.Willoughby, and seated herself beside Mallinson in one of the windows.

'I see nothing of you now,' she said, and she looked the reproach of the hardly-used.