bt when she wondered if he was not really distinguished and
aristocratic-looking. He was really neither, but was well-built and
well-dressed, and had good grayish-brown eyes, about the colour of his
grayish-brown hair. Among these amiably worldly people, who were not in
the least moved by an altruistic prompting, Emily's greatest capital
consisted in the fact that she did not expect to be taken the least
notice of. She was not aware that it was her capital, because the fact
was so wholly a part of the simple contentedness of her nature that she
had not thought about it at all. The truth was that she found all her
entertainment and occupation in being an audience or a spectator. It did
not occur to her to notice that, when the guests were presented to him,
Lord Walderhurst barely glanced at her surface as he bowed, and could
scarcely be said to forget her existence the next second, because he had
hardly gone to the length of recognising it. As she enjoyed her
extremely nice cup of tea and little buttered scone, she also enjoyed
looking at his Lordship discreetly, and trying to make an innocent
summing up of his mental attitudes.

Lady Maria seemed to like him and to be pleased to see him. He himself
seemed, in an undemonstrative way, to like Lady Maria. He also was
evidently glad to get his tea, and enjoyed it as he sat at his cousin's
side. He did not pay very much attention to any one else. Emily was
slightly disappointed to see that he did not glance at the beauty and
the Borzoi more than twice, and then that his examination seemed as much
for the Borzoi as for the beauty. She could not help also observing that
since he had joined the circle it had become more animated, so far at
least as the female members were concerned. She could not help
remembering Lady Maria's remark about the effect he produced on women
when he entered a room. Several interesting or sparkling speeches had
already been made. There was a little more laughter and chattiness,
which somehow it seemed to be quite open to Lord Walderhurst to enjoy,
though it was not exactly addressed to him. Miss Cora Brooke, however,
devoted herself to a young man in white flannels with an air of tennis
about him. She sat a little apart and talked to him in a voice soft
enough to even exclude Lord Walderhurst. Presently she and her companion
got up and sauntered away. They went down the broad flight of ancient
stone steps which led to the tennis-court, lying in full v