“She will be as fine as the finest, be sure of that. She will expect matrimonial offers—to be a success in her first season. Why don’t you marry her to Sefton?”
“I don’t like Mr. Sefton.”
“But Sophy might like him, and he is rich and well born. If he is not a gentleman that is his own fault—not any flaw in his pedigree.”
CHAPTER XXIV.
“POOR KIND WILD EYES SO DASHED WITH LIGHT QUICK TEARS.”
Sophy arrived next day with portentous punctuality, in time for luncheon, intent on pleasure, and dressed in a style which she believed in as the very latest Parisian fashion; for this damsel credited herself with an occult power of knowing what was “in” and what was “out,” and, with no larger horizon than a country church and an occasional rustic garden-party, set up as an authority upon dress, and gave her instructions to the village dressmaker, who made up ladies’ own materials, and worked at ladies’ houses, with the air of a Kate Reilly directing an apprentice.
Eve had been very generous, and Sophy’s costume was a great advance upon those days when Lady Hartley had talked of the sisters as Colonel Marchant’s burlesque troupe. Eve had sent down a big parcel of materials from a West End draper’s, the newest and the best, and Sophy had exercised her fingers and her taste in the confection of stylish garments; yet it must be owned there was an unmistakable air of home dress-making—of fabrications suggested by answers to correspondents in a ladies’ newspaper—about those smart gowns, jackets, capes, and fichus which Sophy wore with such satisfaction. This showed itself most in an unconscious exaggeration of every fashion; just as a woman who rouges exceeds the bloom of natural carnations. Sophy’s Medici collars were higher than anybody else’s. The military collar of Sophy’s home-made tailor gown was an instrument of torture. Sophy’s waistcoats and sleeves were more mannish and sporting than anything the West End tailors had produced for Eve. In a word, there was a touch of Sophy’s personality about every garment; just as in every picture there is the individuality of the painter.
But Sophy, flushed with the delights of a London season, was quite pretty enough to be forgiven a little provincialism in her dress and manners, and she was well received by Eve’s friends.
It was good for Eve that she should be obliged to exert herself in order to amuse Sophy, and that the sweet solitude of two was no longer possible for her and Vansittart.
He said nothing further about his wife’s need of repose. He was glad to see her occupied from morning till long past midnight, showing Sophy what our ancestors used to call “the town;” but which now includes a wide range of the suburbs, and occasional garden-parties as far off as Marlow or Hatfield. He was glad of anything which could distract his wife’s thoughts from too deep a consideration of his relations with Signora Vivanti, and he encouraged Sophy in every form of dissipation, until he found, to his annoyance, that an evening had been allotted to the Apollo.