her mouth before she knew it; it was in her
mouth now.

To Cissy, to Mary, whichever it was, she found her curiosity going out
with a rush, a mute effusion that floated back to her, like a returning
tide, the living colour and splendour of the beautiful head, the light of
eyes that seemed to reflect such utterly other things than the mean
things actually before them; and, above all, the high curt consideration
of a manner that even at bad moments was a magnificent habit and of the
very essence of the innumerable things--her beauty, her birth, her father
and mother, her cousins and all her ancestors--that its possessor
couldn't have got rid of even had she wished. How did our obscure little
public servant know that for the lady of the telegrams this was a bad
moment? How did she guess all sorts of impossible things, such as,
almost on the very spot, the presence of drama at a critical stage and
the nature of the tie with the gentleman at the Hotel Brighton? More
than ever before it floated to her through the bars of the cage that this
at last was the high reality, the bristling truth that she had hitherto
only patched up and eked out--one of the creatures, in fine, in whom all
the conditions for happiness actually met, and who, in the air they made,
bloomed with an unwitting insolence. What came home to the girl was the
way the insolence was tempered by something that was equally a part of
the distinguished life, the custom of a flowerlike bend to the less
fortunate--a dropped fragrance, a mere quick breath, but which in fact
pervaded and lingered. The apparition was very young, but certainly
married, and our fatigued friend had a sufficient store of mythological
comparison to recognise the port of Juno. Marguerite might be "awful,"
but she knew how to dress a goddess.

Pearls and Spanish lace--she herself, with assurance, could see them, and
the "full length" too, and also red velvet bows, which, disposed on the
lace in a particular manner (she could have placed them with the turn of
a hand) were of course to adorn the front of a black brocade that would
be like a dress in a picture. However, neither Marguerite nor Lady Agnes
nor Haddon nor Fritz nor Gussy was what the wearer of this garment had
really come in for. She had come in for Everard--and that was doubtless
not his true name either. If our young lady had never taken such jumps
before it was simply that she had never before been so affected. She
went