"Believe it or not as you like, but I like you
better every time I see you in that necklace." Lady Dolly clasped her
hands, with her fan in them, in the abandonment of her affection, and
"love you better" floated back and dispersed itself among the men.
Alicia smiled the necessary acknowledgment. All the women she knew made
compliments to her; it was a kind of cult among them. The men had
sometimes an air of envying their freedom of tongue. "Don't say that,"
she returned lightly, "or Herbert will never give me any diamonds." She,
too, looked her approval of Lady Dolly's bodice but said nothing. It was
doubtless precisely because she distained certain forms of feminine
barter that she got so much for nothing.
"And where," demanded Lady Dolly, in an electric whisper, "did you find
that dear, sweet little priest? Do introduce him to me--at least, bye
and bye, when I've thought of something to say. Let me see, wasn't it
Good Friday last week? I'll ask him if he had hot-cross buns--or do
people eat those on Boxing Day? Pancakes come in somewhere, if one could
only be sure!"
Stephen clung persistently to the back of the box. His senses were
filled for the moment by its other occupants, the men in the fresh
correctness of their evening dress, whose least gesture seemed to spring
from an indefinite fulness of life, the two women in front, a kind of
lustrous tableau of what it was possible to choose and to enjoy.
Pages:
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313