Ross.

Edith felt happy tonight; her spirits were raised by what she felt to
be an atmosphere _tiède_, as the French say; full of indulgence,
sympathetic, relaxing, in which either cleverness or stupidity could
float equally at its ease. The puerility of the silly little
arrangements to amuse removed all sense of ceremony. The note is always
struck by the hostess, and she was everything that was amiable, without
effort or affectation.

No-one was ever afraid of her.

Bruce's neighbour at dinner was the delicate, battered-looking
actress, in a Royal fringe and a tight bodice with short sleeves, who
had once been a celebrity, though no-one remembered for what. Miss Myra
Mooney, formerly a beauty, had known her days of success. She had been
the supreme performer of ladylike parts. She had been known as the very
quintessence of refinement. It was assumed when she first came out that
a duke would go to the devil for her in her youth, and that in her late
maturity she would tour the provinces with _The Three Musketeers_.
Neither of these prophecies had, however, been fulfilled. She still
occasionally took small middle-aged titled parts in repertoire
matinees. She was unable to help referring constantly to the hit she
made in _Peril_ at Manchester in 1887; nor could she ever resist
speaking of the young man who sent her red carnations every day of his
blighted existence for fifteen years; a pure romance, indeed, for, as
she owned, he never even wished to be introduced to her. She still
called him poor boy, oblivious of the fact that he was now sixty-eight,
and, according to the illustrated papers, spent his entire time in
giving away a numberless succession of daughters in brilliant marriage