end
had lent her. "There was not much more that was genuine about her
character--that was her very own, I mean--than there is about my
appearance at this moment. She was always the dearest little chameleon
in the world, taking everybody's colour in the most flattering way, and
giving back, I must say, a most charming reflection--if you'll excuse
the mixed metaphor; but when one got her by herself, with no reflections
to catch, one found she hadn't any particular colour of her own. One of
the girls used to say she ought to wear a tag, because she was so easily
mislaid---- Now then, I'm ready!"

Justine advanced to the door, and Mrs. Dressel followed her downstairs,
reflecting with pardonable complacency that one of the disadvantages of
being clever was that it tempted one to say sarcastic things of other
women--than which she could imagine no more crying social error.

During the drive to the garden-party, Justine's thoughts, drawn to the
past by the mention of Bessy Langhope's name, reverted to the comic
inconsequences of her own lot--to that persistent irrelevance of
incident that had once made her compare herself to an actor always
playing his part before the wrong stage-setting. Was there not, for
instance, a mocking incongruity in the fact that a creature so leaping
with life should have, for chief outlet, the narrow mental channel of
the excellent couple between whom she was now being borne to the Gaines
garden-party? All her friendships were the result of propinquity or of
early association, and fate had held her imprisoned in a circle of
well-to-do mediocrity, peopled by just such figures as those of the
kindly and prosperous Dressels. Effie Dressel, the daughter of a cousin
of Mrs. Brent's, had obscurely but safely allied herself with the heavy
blond young man who was to succeed his father as President of the Union
Bank, and who was already regarded by the "solid business interests" of
Hanaford as possessing talents likely to carry him far in the
development of the paternal fortunes. Harry Dressel's honest countenance
gave no evidence of peculiar astuteness, and he was in fact rather the
product of special conditions than of an irresistible bent. He had the
sound Saxon love of games, and the most interesting game he had ever
been taught was "business." He was a simple domestic being, and
according to Hanaford standards the most obvious obligation of the
husband and father was to make his family richer. If Harry