difference--you only saw them in a rare glimpse, like the rabbit in the
conjurer's sleeve. She was extraordinarily white, and her every element
and item was pretty; her eyes, her ears, her hair, her voice, her hands,
her feet--to which her relaxed attitude in her wicker chair gave a great
publicity--and the numerous ribbons and trinkets with which she was
bedecked. She looked as if she had put on her best clothes to go to
church and then had decided they were too good for that and had stayed at
home. She told a story of some length about the shabby way Lady Jane had
treated the Duchess, as well as an anecdote in relation to a purchase she
had made in Paris--on her way back from Cannes; made for Lady Egbert, who
had never refunded the money. Paul Overt suspected her of a tendency to
figure great people as larger than life, until he noticed the manner in
which she handled Lady Egbert, which was so sharply mutinous that it
reassured him. He felt he should have understood her better if he might
have met her eye; but she scarcely so much as glanced at him. "Ah here
they come--all the good ones!" she said at last; and Paul Overt admired
at his distance the return of the church-goers--several persons, in
couples and threes, advancing in a flicker of sun and shade at the end of
a large green vista formed by the level grass and the overarching boughs.

"If you mean to imply that _we're_ bad, I protest," said one of the
gentlemen--"after making one's self agreeable all the morning!"

"Ah if they've found you agreeable--!" Mrs. St. George gaily cried. "But
if we're good the others are better."

"They must be angels then," said the amused General.

"Your husband was an angel, the way he went off at your bidding," the
gentleman who had first spoken declared to Mrs. St. George.