They had responded loyally.
Still, this was the first experiment; she would go down to the hall again and make sure that the couches were in position, the cushions shaken up, the pot-plants placed around the fountain so accurately that Endymion's nice eye for small comforts could detect no excuse for saying, "I told you so." As she passed along the gallery her eyes sought the pillar beside which M.Raoul had stood during the lecture.

By the foot of it a book lay face downwards--a book cheaply bound between boards of mottled paper.
She picked it up and read the title; it was a volume of Rousseau's Confessions--a book of which she remembered to have heard.

On the flyleaf was written the owner's name in full--"Charles Marie Fabien de Raoul." Dorothea hurried downstairs with it and past the servants tidying the hall.
She looked to find M.Raoul still buttonholed and held captive by Narcissus at the eastern angle of the house.

But before she reached the front door she happened--though perhaps it was not quite accidental-- to throw a glance through the window by which he had stood and talked with her, and saw him striding away down the avenue in the dusk.
She returned to her room and summoned Polly.
"You know M.Raoul?
He has left, forgetting this book, which belongs to him.

Run down to the small gate, that's a good girl--you will overtake him easily, since he is walking round by the avenue--and return it, with my compliments." Polly picked up her skirts and ran.