He was to marry Angela Vivian; that was a very simple fact--it needed no explanation.

Was it so wonderful, so inconceivable, an incident so unlikely to happen?
He went, as he always did on Sunday, to dine with Mrs.Vivian, and it seemed to him that he perceived in the two ladies some symptoms of a discomposure which had the same origin as his own.

Bernard, on this occasion, at dinner, failed to make himself particularly agreeable; he ate fast--as if he had no idea what he was eating, and talked little; every now and then his eyes rested for some time upon Angela, with a strange, eagerly excited expression, as if he were looking her over and trying to make up his mind about her afresh.

This young lady bore his inscrutable scrutiny with a deal of superficial composure; but she was also silent, and she returned his gaze, from time to time, with an air of unusual anxiety.
She was thinking, of course, of Gordon, Bernard said to himself; and a woman's first meeting, in after years, with an ex-lover must always make a certain impression upon her.

Gordon, however, had never been a lover, and if Bernard noted Angela's gravity it was not because he felt jealous.