There had been times, at Hadlow House, when Lady Cressage
had seemed supremely indifferent to the fact of his existence,
and there had been other times when it had appeared
manifest that he pleased her--or better, perhaps, that she
was willing to take note of how much she pleased him.
It must have been apparent to her--this fact that she
produced such an impression upon him. He reasoned this
out satisfactorily to himself. These beautiful women,
trained from childhood for the conquest of a rich husband,
must have cultivated an extraordinary delicacy of consciousness,
in such matters. They must have developed for themselves
what might be called a sixth sense--a power of feeling
in the air what the men about were thinking of them.
More than once he had caught a glimmer of what he felt to be
the operation of this sense, in the company of Lady Cressage.
He could not say that it had been discernible in her glance,
or her voice, or her manner, precisely, but he was sure
that he had seen it, somehow.
But even assuming all this--admitting that in October,
on a wet Sunday, in the tedium of a small country-house party,
she had shown some momentary satisfaction in the idea that
he was profoundly impressed by her--did it at all follow
that in February, amid the distractions of a fashionable
winter-resort, and probably surrounded by hosts of friends,
she would pay any attention to him whatever? The abject
fear that she might not even remember him--might not
know him from Adam when he stood before her--skulked
about in the labyrinths of his mind, but he drove it back
whenever it showed itself.
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