She was very angry, and yet impotent to give
expression to her anger, or know with whom she was angry. How they
talked and moralized and made up stories to suit their own version of
the becoming, and secretly praised their own devotion and tact! No;
they had their dwelling in a mist, she decided; hundreds of miles away
--away from what? "Perhaps it would be better if I married William,"
she thought suddenly, and the thought appeared to loom through the
mist like solid ground. She stood there, thinking of her own destiny,
and the elder ladies talked on, until they had talked themselves into
a decision to ask the young woman to luncheon, and tell her, very
friendlily, how such behavior appeared to women like themselves, who
knew the world. And then Mrs. Hilbery was struck by a better idea.
CHAPTER X
Messrs. Grateley and Hooper, the solicitors in whose firm Ralph Denham
was clerk, had their office in Lincoln's Inn Fields, and there Ralph
Denham appeared every morning very punctually at ten o'clock. His
punctuality, together with other qualities, marked him out among the
clerks for success, and indeed it would have been safe to wager that
in ten years' time or so one would find him at the head of his
profession, had it not been for a peculiarity which sometimes seemed
to make everything about him uncertain and perilous.
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