which outlined forehead and nose and lips and chin.
It seemed to him that the eyes were closed, as in reverie;
he could not be sure.

So she would have been a Duchess if her husband had
lived! He said to himself that he had never seen before,
or imagined, a face which belonged so indubitably
beneath a tiara of strawberry leaves in diamonds.
The pride and grace and composure, yes, and melancholy,
of the great lady--they were all there in their supreme
expression. And yet--why, she was no great lady at all.
She was the daughter of his old General Kervick--the
necessitous and haughtily-humble old military gentleman,
with the grey moustache and the premature fur coat,
who did what he was told on the Board without a question,
for a pitiful three hundred a year. Yes--she was his daughter,
and she also was poor. Plowden had said so.

Why had Plowden, by the way, been so keen about relieving
her from her father's importunities? He must have had
it very much at heart, to have invented the roundabout
plan of getting the old gentleman a directorship.
But no--there was nothing in that. Why, Plowden had even
forgotten that it was he who suggested Kervick's name.
It would have been his sister, of course, who was
evidently such chums with Lady Cressage, who gave him
the hint to help the General to something if he could.
And when you came to think of it, these aristocrats and
military men and so on, had no other notion of making money
save by directorships. Clearly, that was the way of it.