I will let you know." He held out his hand to say good-bye, as the girl passed out with Jasmine's kiss on her cheek and a comforting assurance of help.
Jasmine did not press her request.

First there was the fact that Rudyard did not know, and might strongly disapprove; and secondly, somehow, she had got nearer to Stafford in the last few minutes than in all the previous hours since they had met again.

Nowhere, by all her art, had she herself touched him, or opened up in his nature one tiny stream of feeling; but this girl's story and this piteous incident had softened him, had broken down the barriers which had checked and baffled her.

There was something almost gentle in his smile as he said good-bye, and she thought she detected warmth in the clasp of his hand.
Left alone, she sat in the silence, pondering as she had not pondered in the past three years.

These few days in town, out of the season, were sandwiched between social functions from which their lives were never free.