ants, almost more concerned for each other's vibrations
than for anything else, were apt rather more to exchange sharp and
silent searchings than to fix their eyes on the object itself. In the
case of Lady Fanny, however, the object itself--and quite by the same
law that had worked, though less profoundly, on the entrance of little
Aggie--superseded the usual rapt communion very much in the manner of
some beautiful tame tigress who might really coerce attention. There
was in Mrs. Brookenham's way of looking up at her a dim despairing
abandonment of the idea of any common personal ground. Lady Fanny,
magnificent, simple, stupid, had almost the stature of her brother,
a forehead unsurpassably low and an air of sombre concentration just
sufficiently corrected by something in her movements that failed to give
it a point. Her blue eyes were heavy in spite of being perhaps a couple
of shades too clear, and the wealth of her black hair, the disposition
of the massive coils of which was all her own, had possibly a satin
sheen depreciated by the current fashion. But the great thing in her
was that she was, with unconscious heroism, thoroughly herself; and
what were Mrs. Brook and Mrs. Brook's intimates after all, in their free
surrender to the play of perception, but a happy association for keeping
her so? The Duchess was moved to the liveliest admiration by the grand
simple sweetness of her encounter with Mrs. Donner, a combination indeed
in which it was a question if she or Mrs. Brook appeared to the higher
advantage. It was poor Mrs. Donner--not, like Mrs. Brook, subtle in
sufficiency, nor, like Lady Fanny, almost too simple--who made the
poorest show. The Duchess immediately marked it to Mitchy as infinitely
characteristic that their hostess, instead of letting one of her
visitors go, kept them together by some sweet ingenuity and while Lord
Petherton, dropping his sister, joined Edward and Aggie in the other
angle, sat there between them as if, in pursuance of some awfully clever
line of her own, she were holding a hand of each. Mr. Mitchett of course
did justice all round, or at least, as would have seemed from an enquiry
he presently made, wished not to fail of it. "Is it your real impression
then that Lady Fanny has serious grounds--"

"For jealousy of that preposterous little person? My dear Mitchett," the
Duchess resumed after a moment's reflexion, "if you're so rash as to
ask me in any of these connexions for my 'real'