Scarcely a word was exchanged between Marcella and her mother on the drive home.

Yet under ordinary circumstances Marcella's imagination would have found some painful exercise in the effort to find out in what spirit her mother had taken the evening--the first social festivity in which Richard Boyce's wife had taken part for sixteen years.

In fact, Mrs.Boyce had gone through it very quietly.

After her first public entry on Lord Maxwell's arm she had sat in her corner, taking keen note of everything, enjoying probably the humours of her kind.

Several old acquaintances who had seen her at Mellor as a young wife in her first married years had come up with some trepidation to speak to her.