"Which you share with a variety actress," he returned. "I realize more and more that I'm hopelessly behind the age. Look at those two girls," he went on, glancing at them with some animosity.
"They have spent, I should imagine, their little all on the admission fee and the catalogue; they don't care two straws for the portraits as portraits, and they have never spoken to the originals, but they are wildly interested in them because they represent to them the magic word 'society,' and they will go away and talk about them as if they knew them intimately."
Elizabeth laughed softly. "Ah," she said "let them be. They're getting their money's worth; don't grudge it to them. So far as I'm concerned, they may pull my face to pieces as much as they please. I know how it is—I've stood on the outside, too, of a thing, and tried to imagine that I was in it."
"Do you think they'd be happier," asked Gerard, "if they were?"
"Ah, that depends," she returned, oracularly, stroking down the long fur of her muff.
"Tell me how you find it yourself," said Gerard. He looked about the room. "The place is comfortably empty," he said. "Have you been around yet, or would you—a—like to sit down awhile?"
She hesitated. "I have been in several of the rooms," she said. "I came early on purpose. Eleanor is lunching somewhere, but she is to meet me here at three."
"Then suppose you—a—rest till she comes?" he suggested, as he led the way to a sofa which had been placed for the accommodation of weary sight-seers in the centre of the room. "It's a long while since I've had a talk with you. ('And whose fault is that,' thought Elizabeth.) This isn't a bad place to talk in, and if you've been around once, you've had enough of it for the time being."
"I am glad to rest for a few minutes," Elizabeth admitted.
She threw open the revers of her coat, and sank back in her seat as if physically tired. Gerard looked at her. She was exquisitely dressed. Her dark green velvet and furs set off the fairness of her skin, her large feathered hat suited her picturesque style. The subtle atmosphere of fashion, of distinction, lurked in every fold of her gown, in every movement and gesture. Three months had sufficed to endow her with it. They had also sufficed—or was this again the result of his imagination?—to take away the first freshness of her beauty. She looked brilliant, but a trifle worn; her color had faded, there were lines of weariness about the mouth, and deep black rings under the eyes.