Veronica  had  somehow  triumphed  over  Adela,  and
Adela  was  sore.  He  tried  to  understand  that,  and  tried
to  remember  her  of  old,  so  as  to  find  a  key  to  her  char-
acter. He  could  only  recall  her  as  the  juvenile  minx,
dishonest  and  flirtatious,  with  a  great  deal  more  knowl-
edge of  boys,  and  perhaps  even  of  "fellows,"  than  was
good  for  her.  It  was  hard  to  reconcile  the  prim  Adela
of  to-day  with  such  early  maturity  as  she  had  shown.
Yet  it  gave  him  a  subtle  horror  of  her  to  think  of  those
old  days.  It  made  her  seem  to  him  a  prude,  hiding
base  knowledge  under  a  false  shocked  modesty.
