“Wonderful how attractive rudeness is,” Sylvia commented.
“Oh, do let’s go. Look, she lives in Half Moon Street,” Lily said.
“And a damned good address for the demi-monde,” Sylvia added.
However, the tea-party was definitely a success, and for the rest of the summer Sylvia and Lily spent a lot of time on the river with what Sylvia called the semicircle of intimate friends they had brought away from Half Moon Street. She grew very fond of Olive Fanshawe and warned her against her romantic adoration of Dorothy.
“But you’re just as romantic over Lily,” Olive argued.
“Not a single illusion left, my dear,” Sylvia assured her. “Besides, I should never compare Lily with Dorothy. Dorothy is more beautiful, more ambitious, more mercenary. She’ll probably marry a lord. She’s acquired the art of getting a lot for nothing to a perfection that could only be matched by a politician or a girl with the same brown eyes in the same glory of light-brown hair. And when it suits her she’ll go back on her word just as gracefully, and sell her best friend as readily as a politician will sell his country.”
“You’re very down on politicians. I think there’s something so romantic about them,” Olive declared. “Young politicians, of course.”
“My dear, you’d think a Bradshaw romantic.”
“It is sometimes,” said Olive.
“Well, I know two young politicians,” Sylvia continued. “A Liberal and a Conservative. They both spend their whole time in hoping I sha’n’t suggest walking down Bond Street with them, the Liberal because I may see a frock and the Conservative because he may meet a friend. They both make love to me as if they were addressing their future constituents, with a mixture of flattery, condescension, and best clothes; but they reserve all their affection for the constituency. As I tell them, if they’d fondle the constituency and nurse me, I should endure their company more easily. Unhappily, they both think I’m intelligent, and a man who admires a woman’s intelligence is like a woman who admires her friend’s looking-glass—each one is granting an audience to himself.”