"Darrell is painting her portrait."
"No, not her portrait; but a study of 'Cressida.'"
"Cressida!
"'There's language in her eye, her cheek, her lip;
Nay, her foot speaks——'"
"Hush, hush!"
Such floating spars of talk had drifted past Gertrude's corner, and had been caught, not by her, but by her companion.
Lord Watergate frowned, as he mentally finished the quotation, which struck him as being in shocking taste. He had adopted, unconsciously, a protective attitude towards the Lorimers; their courage, their fearlessness, their immense ignorance, appealed to his generous and chivalrous nature. He made up his mind to speak to Darrell about that baseless rumour of the Cressida.
Gertrude, on her part, was not too absorbed in conversation to notice what her sister was doing. She saw at once that, in spite of some thrills of satisfied vanity, Phyllis was not enjoying herself. There was a restless, discontented light in her eyes, a half-weary recklessness in her pose, as she leant against the edge of a tall screen, which filled Gertrude with wonder and anxiety. She felt, as she had felt so often lately, that Phyllis, her little Phyllis, whom she had scolded and petted and yearned over for eighteen years, was passing beyond her ken, into regions where she could never follow.
The evening wore itself away as such evenings do, in aimless drifting to and fro, half-hearted attempts at conversation, much mutual staring, and a determined raid on the refreshment buffet, on the part of people who have dined sumptuously an hour ago.