ministered alike to Miss Ethel's convenience, and I wondered how she
extracted so many favours without the expenditure of a smile. Her
smile was the dimmest thing in the world, diluted lemonade, without
sugar, and she had arrived precociously at social wisdom, recognising
that if she was neither pretty enough nor rich enough nor clever
enough, she could at least in her muscular youth be rude enough.
Therefore if she was able to tell her mother what really took place
in the mansions of the great, give her notes to work from, the quill
could be driven at home to better purpose and precisely at a moment
when it would have to be more active than ever. But if she did tell,
it would appear that poor Mrs. Stormer didn't believe. As regards
many points this was not a wonder; at any rate I heard nothing of
Greville Fane's having developed a new manner. She had only one
manner from start to finish, as Leolin would have said.

She was tired at last, but she mentioned to me that she couldn't
afford to pause. She continued to speak of Leolin's work as the
great hope of their future (she had saved no money) though the young
man wore to my sense an aspect more and more professional if you
like, but less and less literary. At the end of a couple of years
there was something monstrous in the impudence with which he played
his part in the comedy. When I wondered how she could play HER part
I had to perceive that her good faith was complete and that what kept
it so was simply her extravagant fondness. She loved the young
impostor with a simple, blind, benighted love, and of all the heroes
of romance who had passed before her eyes he was by far the most
brilliant.

He was at any rate the most real--she could touch him, pay for him,
suffer for him, worship him. He made her think of her princes and