Wonderful tusser silk draperies
fell about her, with ink-spots on the sleeves; her hair was magnificent.
"It's so curious to me," she was saying of the novel, "that any one
should learn all that life as you do, at a distance, in a book. It's
like looking at it through the little end of an opera-glass."
"I fancy that the most desirable way," said Alicia, glancing at the
door.
"Don't you believe it. The best way is to come out of it, to grow out of
it. Then all the rest has the charm of novelty and the value of
contrast, and the distinction of being the best. You, poor dear, were
born an artificial flower in a cardboard box. But you couldn't help it."
"Everybody doesn't grow out of it." The concentration in Alicia's eyes
returned again with vacillating wings.
"She can't be here for a quarter of an hour yet."
The slipper dropped at this point, and Hilda stooped to put it on again.
She kept her foot in her hands and regarded it pensively.
"Shoes are the one thing one shouldn't buy in the native quarter," she
said; "At all events, ready-made."
"You have an audacity----" Alicia ended abruptly in a wan smile.
"Haven't I? Are you quite sure he wants to marry her?"
"I know it.
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