Now he was suddenly brought face to face, not with the Freda of his dreams, but with a fashionable, beautifully dressed, much-sought girl, and he felt that a gulf lay between them; it was the gulf of experience.

Freda's life in society, the whirl of gaiety, the excitement and success which she had been enjoying throughout the season, and his miserable monotony of companionship with his invalid father, of hard work and weary disappointment, had broken down the bond of union that had once existed between them.

From either side they looked at each other--Freda with a wondering perplexity, Derrick with a dull grinding pain at his heart.
Of course they spoke to each other; but I fancy the merest platitudes passed between them.

Somehow they had lost touch, and a crowded London drawing-room was hardly the place to regain it.
"So your novel is really out," I heard her say to him in that deep, clear voice of hers.

"I like the design on the cover." "Oh, have you read the book ?" said Derrick, colouring.
"Well, no," she said truthfully.