Darrow further took note that the
girl and her suitor perceptibly avoided each other; but this
might be a natural result of the tension Miss Painter had
been summoned to relieve.
Sophy Viner would evidently permit no recognition of the
situation save that which it lay with Madame de Chantelle to
accord; but meanwhile Miss Painter had proclaimed her tacit
sense of it by summoning the girl to a seat at her side.
Darrow, as he continued to observe the newcomer, who was
perched on her arm-chair like a granite image on the edge of
a cliff, was aware that, in a more detached frame of mind,
he would have found an extreme interest in studying and
classifying Miss Painter. It was not that she said anything
remarkable, or betrayed any of those unspoken perceptions
which give significance to the most commonplace utterances.
She talked of the lateness of her train, of an impending
crisis in international politics, of the difficulty of
buying English tea in Paris and of the enormities of which
French servants were capable; and her views on these
subjects were enunciated with a uniformity of emphasis
implying complete unconsciousness of any difference in their
interest and importance. She always applied to the French
race the distant epithet of "those people", but she betrayed
an intimate acquaintance with many of its members, and an
encyclopaedic knowledge of the domestic habits, financial
difficulties and private complications of various persons of
social importance.
Pages:
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232