The only thing she was bent upon
making imperceptible was her sense of the comedy of Miss Livingstone's
effort to receive her as if she had been anybody else. Alicia was hardly
aware of what she wanted to conceal, unless it was her impression that
Miss Howe's dress was cut a trifle too low in the neck, that she was
almost too effective in that cream and yellow to be quite right. Alicia
remembered afterwards, to smile at it, that her first ten minutes of
intercourse with Hilda Howe were dominated by a lively desire to set
Celine at her--with such a foundation to work upon, what could Celine
not have done? She remembered her surprise, too, at the ordinary things
Hilda said in that rich voice, even in the tempered drawing-room tones
of which resided a hint of the seats nearest the exit under the gallery,
and her wonder at the luxury of gesture that went with them, movements
which seemed to imply blank verse and to be thrown away upon two women
and a little furniture. A consciousness stood in the room between them,
and their commonplaces about the picturesqueness of the bazaar rode on
long absorbed regards, one reading, the other anxious to read; yet the
encounter was so conventionally creditable to them both that they might
have smiled past each other under any circumstances next day and
acknowledged no demand for more than the smile.
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