"Mrs. Ralph is the kind of woman who means business. She'll corner
Walderhurst and talk literature and roll her eyes at him until he hates
her. These writing women, who are intensely pleased with themselves, if
they have some good looks into the bargain, believe themselves capable
of marrying any one. Mrs. Ralph has fine eyes and rolls them.
Walderhurst won't be ogled. The Brooke girl is sharper than Ralph. She
was very sharp this afternoon. She began at once."

"I--I didn't see her"--wondering.

"Yes, you did; but you didn't understand. The tennis, and the laughing
with young Heriot on the terrace! She is going to be the piquant young
woman who aggravates by indifference, and disdains rank and splendour;
the kind of girl who has her innings in novelettes--but not out of them.
The successful women are those who know how to toady in the right way
and not obviously. Walderhurst has far too good an opinion of himself to
be attracted by a girl who is making up to another man: he's not
five-and-twenty."

Emily Fox-Seton was reminded, in spite of herself, of Mrs. Brooke's
plaint: "Don't be too indifferent, Cora." She did not want to recall it
exactly, because she thought the Brookes agreeable and would have
preferred to think them disinterested. But, after all, she reflected,
how natural that a girl who was so pretty should feel that the Marquis
of Walderhurst represented prospects. Chiefly, however, she was filled
with admiration at Lady Maria's cleverness.

"How wonderfully you observe everything, Lady Maria!" she exclaimed.
"How wonderfully!"