cisely, her sense was awakened was
that no, decidedly, he wouldn't. It was nevertheless by this time open
to her that his line would be to be clever; and indeed, evidently, no
little of the interest was going to be in the fresh reference and fresh
effect both of people's cleverness and of their simplicity. She
thrilled, she consciously flushed, and turned pale with the
certitude--it had never been so present--that she should find herself
completely involved: the very air of the place, the pitch of the
occasion, had for her so positive a taste and so deep an undertone. The
smallest things, the faces, the hands, the jewels of the women, the
sound of words, especially of names, across the table, the shape of the
forks, the arrangement of the flowers, the attitude of the servants,
the walls of the room, were all touches in a picture and denotements in
a play; and they marked for her, moreover, her alertness of vision. She
had never, she might well believe, been in such a state of vibration;
her sensibility was almost too sharp for her comfort: there were, for
example, more indications than she could reduce to order in the manner
of the friendly niece, who struck her as distinguished and interesting,
as in fact surprisingly genial. This young woman's type had, visibly,
other possibilities; yet here, of its own free movement, it had already
sketched a relation. Were they, Miss Croy and she, to take up the tale
where their two elders had left it off so many years before?--were they
to find they liked each other and to try for themselves if a scheme of
constancy on more modern lines could be worked? She had doubted, as
they came to England, of Maud Manningham, had believed her a broken
reed and a vague resource, had seen their dependence on her as a state
of mind that would have been shamefully silly--so far as it _was_
dependence--had they wished to do any thing so inane as "get into
society." To have made their pilgrimage all for the sake of such
society as Mrs. Lowder might have in reserve for them--that didn't bear
thinking of at all, and she herself had quite chosen her course for
curiosity about other matters. She would have described this curiosity
as a desire to see the places she had read about, and _that_
description of her motive she was prepared to give her neighbour--even
though, as a consequence of it, he should find how little she had read.
It was almost at present as if her poor prevision had been rebuked by
the