Before long she declared that it was time to go home.

“What’s the hurry?” said her friend.  “It’s nothing like ten o’clock yet—­is it, Mr. Hilliard?”

“I don’t wish to stay any longer.  Of course you needn’t go unless you like, Patty.”

Hilliard had counted on travelling back with her; to his great disappointment, Eve answered his request to be allowed to do so with a coldly civil refusal which there was no misunderstanding.

“But I hope you will let me see you again?”

“As you live so near me,” she answered, “we are pretty sure to meet.  Are you coming or not, Patty?”

“Oh, of course I shall go if you do.”

The young man shook hands with them; rather formally with Eve, with Patty Ringrose as cordially as if they were old friends.  And then he lost sight of them amid the throng.

CHAPTER VII

How did Eve Madeley contrive to lead this life of leisure and amusement?  The question occupied Hilliard well on into the small hours; he could hit upon no explanation which had the least plausibility.

Was she engaged to be married to the man who met her at the Exhibition?  Her behaviour in his company by no means supported such a surmise; yet there must be something more than ordinary acquaintance between the two.

Might not Patty Ringrose be able and willing to solve for him the riddle of Eve’s existence?  But he had no idea where Patty lived.  He recalled her words in Gower Street:  “You are going it, Eve!” and they stirred miserable doubts; yet something more than mere hope inclined him to believe that the girl’s life was innocent.  Her look, her talk reassured him; so did her friendship with such a person as the ingenuous Patty.  On learning that he dwelt close by her she gave no sign of an uneasy conscience.

In any case, the contrast between her actual life and that suggested by Mrs. Brewer’s talk about her was singular enough.  It supplied him with a problem of which the interest would not easily be exhausted.  But he must pursue the study with due regard to honour and delicacy; he would act the spy no more.  As Eve had said, they were pretty sure to meet before long; if his patience failed it was always possible for him to write a letter.

Four days went by and he saw nothing of her.  On the fifth, as he was walking homeward in the afternoon, he came face to face with Miss Madeley in Gower Street.  She stopped at once, and offered a friendly hand.

“Will you let me walk a little way with you?” he asked.

“Certainly.  I’m just going to change a book at Mudie’s.”  She carried a little handbag.  “I suppose you have been going about London a great deal?  Don’t the streets look beautiful at this time of the year?”

“Beautiful?  I’m not sure that I see much beauty.”

“Oh, don’t you?  I delight in London.  I had dreamt of it all my life before I came here.  I always said to myself I should some day live in London.”