The Livingstones and Duff Lindsay had come back, the people from Surrey
having been sped upon their way to the Far East. Stephen remembered with
more than his usual relish an engagement to dine that evening in
Middleton street. He involuntarily glanced at his watch. It was
half-past one. The afternoon looked arid, stretching between. Consulting
his tablets, he found that he had nothing that was really of any
consequence to do. There were items, but they were unimportant,
transferable. He had dismissed Hilda Howe, but a glow from the world she
helped to illumine showed seductively at the end of his day. He made an
errand involving a long walk, and came back at an hour which left
nothing but evensong between him and eight o'clock.
He was suddenly aware, as he talked to her later, of a keener edge to
his appreciation of the charm of Alicia Livingstone. Her voyage, he
assured her, had done her all the good in the world. Her delicate bloom
had certainly been enhanced by it, and the graceful spring of her neck
and her waist seemed to have its counterpart in a freshened poise of the
agreeable things she found to say. It was delightful the way she
declared herself quite a different being and the pleasure with which she
moved, dragging fascinating skirts behind her, about the room.
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