Miss Brant fidgetted, fretting at her failure to impress Azalea with a sense of her importance. Like Mr. Sullivan, her activities were conducted largely and with a certain grandeur that was pleasing even to those who recognised its intense untruth. She adorned the cheap and commonplace, and had really a shrewd eye for transforming simple articles into pieces of expensive and decorative uselessness. Furthermore, she shared with Dilling a perfect genius for discovering clever assistants—artisans—whose ideas were better than her own, and whom she never tried to lead, but was content to follow. Moreover, she learned long ago to cultivate none but the wealthiest of patrons. Her shop, her wares, even she, herself, exuded an atmosphere of opulent exclusiveness. To be a regular patron of the Ancient Chattellarium was to attain a certain social eminence, to share the air breathed by Millionaires, Knights and Ladies—by Government House. One never stepped into the shop without meeting somebody of importance.
At the moment, however, she was not entirely happy. She had a vast respect for Azalea, but didn’t like her. Azalea always made her uncomfortable. She was conscious of secret amusement, perhaps a tinge of contempt behind the enigmatic expression in her etiolated eyes. Whereas Dilling, in Azalea’s presence, felt himself the man he wished to be, Miss Brant recognised a very inferior person hiding behind the arras of her very superior manner, and she felt that Azalea saw this creature plainly, penetrating its insincerity, its petty ambitions; in short, that she perceived all the weaknesses that Miss Brant hoped none would suspect.
“There’s So-and-So,” she cried, incessantly. “In strict confidence, I will tell you that they have just given me rather a nice commission to do their—Oh, and there’s So-and-So! Where in the world, do you suppose they will seat all these people?”
Azalea smiled and shrugged. Miss Brant felt snubbed, as though her companion had said, “Why bother? It’s not your affair. You always take such delight in meddling in other people’s business.”
She took refuge in that too-little used harbour, Silence. But briefly. She left it to remark,
“Oh, there go the Prendergasts! How do you do?” she bowed, with extreme affability, catching Mrs. Prendergast’s eye. Then she flushed. Azalea was regarding her with a smile that seemed to strip every particle of cordiality from her salutation and reduce it to a medium of barter exchanged for the extremely expensive gift Mrs. Prendergast had been cajoled into buying for the bridal pair. Miss Brant felt somehow that Azalea was thinking,
“If she hadn’t made a satisfactory purchase, you wouldn’t even bother to nod your head. You never used to.”
“You may not believe it, Azalea,” she said, as though moved to self-justification, “but Mrs. Prendergast is really rather a dear. It sounds stupid, but one can’t help seeing that her intentions are good.”
“Really! Aristotle said that Nature’s intentions were always good. The trouble was that she couldn’t carry them out.”
“But they really are getting on,” protested Miss Brant, watching the ostentatious progress of her patron down the aisle. “Don’t you think they are acquiring quite an air?”