There came a time, however, in the middle of June, when all the entertainments were at their height, and Madeline, with a distracted mind, going “everywhere,” so far as her circle extended, doing all her father’s society duties and her own, keeping “in the swim,” as he insisted she should do, was more occupied than ever--when Gervase at last got his business completed. She heard that he had come several times when she could not see him, retreating from the door when she had visitors, or turned away when she was out. To her horror and dismay, several days elapsed thus without a meeting. She felt that at any moment she might receive a letter saying that Gervase had gone away, that he had left England, that she should see him no more. She went and came to her parties, to her engagements, at the highest tension, terrified to see upon the hall-table every time she came in the note which would pronounce this doom. Her little notes to him remained unanswered. She was told by the servants that he had called, but had not remained or left any message. Madeline’s anxiety and trouble had risen to fever-heat. He came on Sunday afternoon at last, but he was scarcely seated when some wretched partner of the night before drifted in to talk about Lady C.’s ball and the great garden-party at Valley House, and the Lord Mayor’s _fête_ at the Mansion House, while Gervase sat silent, taking no share in the vain, exceptionally vain, talk. He departed, with a hasty touch of her hand, and a murmur of “I’ll come again,” when another and another stranger arrived to discourse on the same enthralling subjects. “To-night,” she whispered desperately, not able to contain herself; “to-night--I shall be alone to-night.” What did it matter who heard her? He nodded, she thought, though he did not look at her, and went away, leaving her to the exhilarating task of that talk about society, which is much the same whether your horizon is bounded by the Foreign Office or by the Mansion House. The interval was terrible to her till all those Sunday triflers had departed. She told her father at dinner, fearing lest he might think it his duty to give her his company on the Sunday evening, as he often did, that she expected Gervase. “Oh,” said Mr Thursley, elevating his eyebrows. “I have scarcely seen him,” Madeline said, unable to contain the turmoil of her feelings, “for a week.”