She, too, was in white. As she turned to speak to the youth at her
side. Elsmere caught the fine outline of the head, the unusually
clear and perfect moulding of the brow, nose, and upper lip. The
hollows in the cheeks struck him, and the way in which the breadth
of the forehead somewhat overbalanced the delicacy of the mouth and
chin. The face, though still quite young and expressing a perfect
physical health, had the look of having been polished and refined
away to its foundations. There was not an ounce of superfluous
flesh on it, and not a vestige of Rose's peach-like bloom. Her
profile, as he saw it now, had the firmness, the clear whiteness
of a profile on a Greek gem.

She was actually making that silent, awkward lad talk! Robert who,
out of his four years' experience as an Oxford tutor, had an abundant
compassion for and understanding of such beings as young Mayhew,
watched her with a pleased amusement, wondering how she did it.
What? Had she got him on carpentering, engineering--discovered his
weak point? Water-wheels, investors, steam-engines--and the lumpish
lad all in a glow, talking away nineteen to the dozen. What tact,
what kindness in her gray-blue eyes!

But he was interrupted by Mrs. Seaton, who was perfectly well aware
that she had beside her a stranger of some prestige, an Oxford man,
and a member, besides, of a well-known Sussex county family. She
was a large and commanding person, clad in black _moire_ silk.
She wore a velvet diadem, Honiton lace lappets, and a variety of
chains, beads, and bangles bestrewn about her that made a tinkling
as she moved. Fixing her neighbor with a bland majesty of eye, she
inquired of him if he were 'any relation of Sir Mowbray Elsmere?'