. It was as if she pushed her body forward in an impulse to rise,
her rigid arms thrust her shoulders up a little and accentuated the
swell of her bosom. It was a vivid, a staccato attitude; it expressed
a temperament, a character, fifty other things; but especially it
epitomised the restraints and the licenses of a world of drawing-rooms.
In that first brief mute instant of disclosure she was all that she
presently, by voice and movement, proclaimed herself to be--so dazzling
and complete that Stephen literally blinked at the revelation. He made
an effort, for a moment or two, to pursue and detect the woman who had
been his friend; then the purpose of his coming gradually faded from
his mind, and he stood with folded arms and absorbed eyes watching the
other, the Mrs. Halliday, on the sofa, setting about the fulfilment of a
purple destiny.

The play proceeded and Stephen did not move--did not wince. When Mrs.
Halliday, whose mate was exacting, exclaimed, "The greatest apostle of
expediency was St. Paul. He preached 'wives love your husbands,'" he
even permitted himself the ghost of a smile. At one point he wished
himself familiar with the plot; it was when Hamilton Bradley came
jauntily on as Lord Ingleton, assuring Mrs. Halliday that immorality
was really only shortsightedness. Lady Dolly in front, repeated Lord
Ingleton's phrase with ingenuous wonder. "I know it's clever," she
insisted, "but what does it mean? Now that other thing--what was
it?--'Subtract vice, and virtue is what is left'--that's an easy one.
Write it down on your cuff for me, will you, Colonel Cummins? I SHALL be
so sick if I forget it."

Stephen was perhaps the only person in the box quite oblivious of Lady
Dolly. He looked steadily over her animated shoulders at the play,
wholly involved in an effort to keep its current and direction through
the floating debris of constrained sayings with which it was encumbered;
to know in advance whither it was carrying its Mrs. Halliday, and how
far Lord Ingleton would accompany. When Lord Ingleton paused as it were
to beg four people to "have nothing to do with sentiment--it so often
leads to conviction," and the house murmured its amusement, Arnold
shifted his shoulders impatiently. "How inconsistent," Lord Ingleton
reproached Mrs. Halliday a moment later, "to wear gloves on your hands
and let your thoughts go candid." Arnold turned to Duff. "There's
no excuse for that," he said, but Lindsay was hanging upon