That
was the cursory verdict, the superficial thing to see and say; it will
do to go on with. From the way Lindsay looked at her as she spoke, he
might have been suspected of other discoveries, possible only to the
somewhat privileged in this blind world, where intimacy must lend a lens
to find out anything at all.
"You found that they had no selves," he said, and the manner of his
words was encouraging and provocative. His proposition was obscured to
him for the instant by his desire to obtain the very last of her
comment, and it might be seen that this was habitual with him. "But Miss
Hilda Howe has one."
"Is she a lady?" asked Mrs. Barberry.
"I don't know. She's an individual. I prefer to rest my claim for her on
that."
"Your claim to what?" trembled upon Miss Livingstone's lips, but she
closed them instead and turned her head again to listen to Mrs.
Barberry. The turns of Alicia's head had a way of punctuating the
conversations in which she was interested, imparting elegance and
relief.
"I saw her in _A Woman of Honour_, last cold weather," Mrs. Barberry
said; "I took a dinner-party of five girls and five subalterns from the
Fort, and I said, 'Never again!' Fortunately the girls were just out,
and not one of them understood, but those poor boys didn't know where to
look! And no more did I.
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