angry with
society for its reluctance to receive her; but she said to herself, with
great energy, that there was no cause. She was not hopeless even of the
drawing-room, nor of getting the Duchess herself, a model of all the
virtues, to present her, if the ball went off well at Park Lane. She
said to herself that there was nothing on her mind which would make her
shrink from seeking admission to the presence of the Queen. She was not
afraid even of that royal lady's penetrating eye. Shiftiness, poverty,
debts, modes of getting money that were, perhaps, equivocal, help too
lightly accepted, all these are bad enough; but they are not in a woman
the unpardonable sin. And a caprice in English society was always
possible. The young beauty of Bice might attract the eye of some one
whose notice would throw down all obstacles; or it might touch the heart
of some woman who was so high placed as to be able to defy prejudice.
And after that, of course, they would go everywhere, and every
prognostication of success and triumph would come true.

Nevertheless, if things did not go on so well as this, the Contessa had
furnished herself with what to say. She would tell Bice that the women
were jealous, that she had been pursued by their hostility wherever she
went, that a woman who secured the homage of men was always an object of
their spite and malice, that it was a sort of persecution which the
lovely had to bear from the unlovely in all regions. Knowing that it was
fully more likely that she should fail than succeed, the Contessa had
carefully provided herself with this ancient plea and would not hesitate
to use it if necessary; but these were _grands moyens_, not to be
resorted to save in case of necessity. She would herself have been
willing enough to dispense with recognition and live as she was doing
now, among the old and new admirers who had never failed her, enjoying
everything except those dull drawing-rooms and heavy parties for which
her soul longed, yet which she despised heartily, which she would have
undergone any humiliation to get admission to, and turned to ridicule
afterwards with the best grace in the world. She despised them, but
there was nothing that could make up for absence from them; they alone
had in their power the _cachet_, the symbol of universal acceptance. All
these things depended upon the ball at Park Lane. Something had been
going on there since she separated herself from that household which the
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