NEGOTIATIONS WITH THE BUN EMPEROR.

When Mrs. Verulam was alone once more she fell into deep and earnest thought. She was a little pleased, a little vexed, a little agitated, a little excited, and a little perplexed. She found herself in a novel situation, that was also, in a degree, an awkward situation. An hour ago she had been sighing for a means of escape from society; she had even been yearning to be compromised, in order that she might be shunned, and, being shunned, might find that peace which she had so long desired. Now she was shut up with a divorced woman, whose story was told in the weekly issue of the best-known society paper of the day; and this divorced woman, innocent certainly, but guilty in the eyes of the world and of the law, was her intimate and old school friend, knew scarcely a soul in England except herself, and had arrived to make a long stay with her just as the season was beginning. Here was food for thought, indeed. That paragraph rendered it quite impossible for Mrs. Van Adam to obtain any footing whatever in society; that paragraph also rendered it quite impossible for Mrs. Verulam to introduce her to charming friends. If Mrs. Verulam stirred abroad with Chloe, the most awkward complications must ensue; if she stayed at home with her, people would call and introductions would be inevitable. As Mrs. Verulam sat there, it began to seem to her that Providence had at length heard her cry, and had made the necessary[Pg 37] arrangements for her exit from society—at any rate, for one summer. If Chloe stayed on with her in Park Lane, she would—she could have no season at all. For even these dear friends who so clung to her, who rallied round her in her supposed poverty, who assumed pelerines and elastic-sided boots in her imitation, who even followed her into the wicked Wood, and there abode like disciples in the desert, even these would not be able to visit or to receive her when she had for close companion the now infamous, although so innocent, Mrs. Van Adam. Should she keep Chloe? That was the problem which Mrs. Verulam was now debating. The sacred duties of hospitality, the yet more sacred duties of friendship, ought surely to decide that question in the affirmative. And yet Mrs. Verulam could not hide from herself the fact that she had intended her exit from society—desired, certainly—to be made more gradually than was possible under the new circumstances so suddenly arisen. She had intended, as it were, to make an effective farewell speech, to see around her not a single dry eye while she made it, to hear the murmur of uncontrollable regret, and to note personally the devastation caused by her brilliant and unalterable decision, persisted in despite so many difficulties. She 

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