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Page 24
They were astonished. They said nothing in their astonishment,
but stood quite still, arm in arm, staring down at her.
She too had on a white frock, and her head was bare. They had
had no idea that day in London, when her hat was down to her nose and
her furs were up to her ears, that she was so pretty. They had merely
thought her different from the other women in the club, and so had
the other women themselves, and so had all the waitresses, eyeing her
sideways and eyeing her again as they passed the corner where she
sat talking; but they had had no idea she was so pretty. She was
exceedingly pretty. Everything about her was very much that which it
was. Her fair hair was very fair, her lovely grey eyes were very
lovely and grey, her dark eyelashes were very dark, her white skin was
very white, her red mouth was very red. She was extravagantly slender--
the merest thread of a girl, though not without little curves beneath
her thin frock where little curves should be. She was looking out
across the bay, and was sharply defined against the background of empty
blue. She was full in the sun. Her feet dangled among the leaves and
flowers of the lilies just as if it did not matter that they should be
bent or bruised.
"She ought to have a headache," whispered Mrs. Arbuthnot at last,
"sitting there in the sun like that."
"She ought to have a hat," whispered Mrs. Wilkins.
"She is treading on lilies."
"But they're hers as much as ours."
"Only one-fourth of them."
Lady Caroline turned her head. She looked up at them a moment,
surprised to see them so much younger than they had seemed that day at
the club, and so much less unattractive. Indeed, they were really
almost quite attractive, if any one could ever be really quite
attractive in the wrong clothes. Her eyes, swiftly glancing over them,
took in every inch of each of them in the half second before she smiled
and waved her hand and called out Good-morning. There was nothing, she
saw at once to be hoped for in the way of interest from their clothes.
She did not consciously think this, for she was having a violent
reaction against beautiful clothes and the slavery they impose on one,
her experience being that the instant one had got them they took one in
hand and gave one no peace till they had been everywhere and been seen
by everybody. You didn't take your clothes to parties; they took you.
It was quite a mistake to think that a woman, a really well-dressed
woman, wore out her clothes; it was the clothes that wore out the
woman--dragging her about at all hours of the day and night. No wonder
men stayed younger longer. Just new trousers couldn't excite them.
She couldn't suppose that even the newest trousers ever behaved like
that, taking the bit between their teeth. Her images were disorderly,
but she thought as she chose, she used what images she like. As she
got off the wall and came towards the window, it seemed a restful thing
to know she was going to spend an entire month with people in dresses
made as she dimly remembered dresses used to be made five summers ago.
"I got here yesterday morning," she said, looking up at them and
smiling. She really was bewitching. She had everything, even a
dimple.
"It's a great pity," said Mrs. Arbuthnot, smiling back, "because
we were going to choose the nicest room for you."
"Oh, but I've done that," said Lady Caroline. "At least, I think
it's the nicest. It looks two ways--I adore a room that looks two
ways, don't you? Over the sea to the west, and over this Judas tree to
the north."
"And we had meant to make it pretty for you with flowers," said
Mrs. Wilkins.
"Oh, Domenico did that. I told him to directly I got here. He's
the gardener. He's wonderful."
"It's a good thing, of course," said Mrs. Arbuthnot a little
hesitatingly, "to be independent, and to know exactly what one wants."
"Yes, it saves trouble," agreed Lady Caroline.
"But one shouldn't be so independent," said Mrs. Wilkins, "as to
leave no opportunity for other people to exercise their benevolences on
one."
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