The immense room looked like the banqueting hall of kings, but, so far as Lee could judge—and she had one half of the guests within her visual range—the young woman with the dreadful name looked more the traditionally cold haughty aristocrat, for whom such rooms were built, than any one present. The others appeared to have nothing of the massive repose of their caste; they seemed, in fact, to vie with each other in animation, and they certainly talked very loud and very fast. But Miss Pix had that air of arrested development peculiar to the best statuary. Her skin was as white as the tablecloth, her profile was mathematically straight, suggesting an antique marble or a sheep. Her small flaxen head was held very high, and her eyelids had the most aristocratic droop that Lee had ever conceived of.
“Who is she?” the bride asked her companion, who appeared to be an easy and untraditional person. “And why is she so different from the rest—with that name? She looks like one of Ouida’s heroines—the quite impossible ones.”
Captain Monmouth laughed. “Her father was a brewer, disgustingly rich. Her parents are dead. She and her brother—dreadful bounder—have been trying to get into Society for years—only been really successful the last three. Lady Barnstaple took ’em up, for some reason or other. She’s usually rather nasty to new people. Only girl, and has three millions, but doesn’t marry and isn’t popular—scarcely opens her mouth, and has never been known to unbend. Fancy it’s rather on her mind that she wasn’t born into the right set. So she fakes it for all it’s worth, as you Americans would say. I do like American slang. Can you teach me some?”
“I know more than I’ve ever dared to use, and you shall have it all, as my husband disapproves of it. I think Miss Pix has done rather well. She is what we would call a good ‘bluffer.’”
“Quite so—quite so. The women say all sorts of nasty things about her—that all that white is put on with a brush or a sponge or something, as well as that haughty nostril; and that she has had the muscles cut in her eyelids—ghastly thought, ain’t it? Nature gave her that profile, of course; can’t have the bridge of your nose raised—can you?—even with three millions. It’s the profile that made all the trouble, I fancy. She’s livin’ up to it. Must be deuced aggravatin’ to be born with a cameo profile and a Lancashire accent. No wonder she’s frozen.”
“Has she got rid of the accent?”
“Oh, rather! She was educated in Paris with a lot of swagger French girls. She’s quite correct—in a prehistoric way—only she overdoes it.”
His attention was claimed by the woman on his other side, and Lee asked Lord Barnstaple:
“What did Lady Barnstaple mean? Did she want Cecil to marry that Miss Pix?”
“Didn’t she! She never worked so hard for anything in her life. She was ill for two weeks after Cecil went off. It wouldn’t have been a bad thing. I’d have wanted it myself if she hadn’t. I like you—always did—but I wish to gad you had more money! Don’t you think you’ll discover a gold mine on that ranch of yours some day?”