What people saw was a big, clumsy house expensively overdecorated in the
appalling taste of forty years ago, now screened by forests of palms and
vast banks of flowers; and they saw a number of people popularly
identified with the sort of society which newspapers delight to revere;
and a few people of real distinction; and a young girl, noticeably pale,
standing beside Kathleen Severn and receiving the patronage of dowagers
and beaux, and the impulsive clasp of fellowship from fresh-faced young
girls and nice-looking, well-mannered young fellows.

The general opinion seemed to be that Geraldine Seagrave possessed all
the beauty which rumour had attributed to her as her right by
inheritance, but the animation of her clever mother was lacking. Also,
some said that her manners still smacked of the nursery; and that,
unless it had been temporarily frightened out of her, she had little
personality and less charm.

Nothing, as a matter of fact, had been frightened out of her; for weeks
she had lived in imagination so vividly through that day that when the
day really arrived it found her physically and mentally unresponsive;
the endless reiteration of names sounded meaninglessly in her ears, the
crowding faces blurred. She was passively satisfied to be there, and
content with the touch of hands and the pleasant-voiced formalities of
people pressing toward her from every side.

* * * * *

Afterward few impressions remained; she remembered the roses' perfume,
and a very fat woman with a confusing similarity of contour fore and aft
who blocked the lines and rattled on like a machine-gun saying
dreadfully frank things about herself, her family, and everybody she