lebrity personally that was because of all the
obstinate, ineradicable principles against which her arching shoulders
were stretched back to rest, as on one of those ladders on which
gymnastic instructors make us 'extend' so as to develop the expansion of
our chests.

At this moment the Princesse des Laumes, who had not been expected to
appear at Mme. de Saint-Euverte's that evening, did in fact arrive. To
shew that she did not wish any special attention, in a house to which
she had come by an act of condescension, to be paid to her superior
rank, she had entered the room with her arms pressed close to her sides,
even when there was no crowd to be squeezed through, no one attempting
to get past her; staying purposely at the back, with the air of being
in her proper place, like a king who stands in the waiting procession at
the doors of a theatre where the management have not been warned of his
coming; and strictly limiting her field of vision--so as not to seem to
be advertising her presence and claiming the consideration that was her
due--to the study of a pattern in the carpet or of her own skirt, she
stood there on the spot which had struck her as the most modest (and
from which, as she very well knew, a cry of rapture from Mme. de
Saint-Euverte would extricate her as soon as her presence there was
noticed), next to Mme. de Cambremer, whom, however, she did not know.
She observed the dumb-show by which her neighbour was expressing her
passion for music, but she refrained from copying it. This was not to
say that, for once that she had consented to spend a few minutes in Mme.
de Saint-Euverte's house, the Princesse des Laumes would not have wished
(so that the act of politeness to her hostess which she had performed by
coming might, so to speak, 'count double') to shew herself as friendly
and obliging as possible. But she had a natural horror of what she
called 'exaggerating,' and always made a point of letting people see
that she 'simply must not' indulge in any display of emotion that was
not in keeping with the tone of the circle in which she moved, although
such displays never failed to make an impression upon her, by virtue of
that spirit of imitation, akin to timidity, which is developed in the
most self-confident persons, by contact with an unfamiliar environment,
even though it be inferior to their own. She began to ask herself
whether these gesticulations might not, perhaps, be a necessary
concomitant of the