She had taken her full share in the county war work; while he was absorbed body and soul by the Admiralty.
And now that they were meeting again as of old, she was very conscious, in some undefined way, that she had lost ground with him.

Uneasily she felt that her talk sometimes bored him; yet she could not help talking.
In the pre-war days, when they met in a drawing-room full of people, he had generally ended his evening beside her.

Now his manner, for all its courtesy, seemed to tell her that those times were done; that she was four years older; that she had lost the first brilliance of her looks; and that he himself had grown out of her ken.

Helena's young unfriendly eyes had read her rightly.

She did wish fervently to recapture Philip Buntingford; and saw no means of doing so.